In Where Do You Find Your News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya highlights the importance of making sure your news comes from a trustworthy source. Some things to think about include noting whether or not the topic is the source’s area of expertise, whether they’ve shown a commitment to accuracy over a period of time, and whether or not they’ve been willing to admit when they’ve made a mistake. The news should be watched with a critical eye, letting facts shape our views instead of our views shaping the facts. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
You don’t often hear good news about the environment, but here is some. Three very different wildlife projects around the world show that there’s more than one way to protect nature, and that the effort is paying off.
In the UK, a cat named Frank is moving to a new home. He’s the only Asian golden cat in the country, a medium-sized wild cat from the forests of Southeast Asia. Frank is leaving the sanctuary where he’s lived and moving to a habitat built for his species. The difference matters. A sanctuary’s main job is caring for the animals it already has. A purpose-built habitat does that too, but it also works to help the species survive in the future, through research and breeding. At his new home, Frank will join a breeding program. That’s important, because Asian golden cats are listed as Near Threatened, which means they could become endangered soon. In the wild, they’re losing their forest homes and are hunted illegally.
Next stop is Brazil, where about 35,000 humpback whales now swim in the South Atlantic Ocean. That number would have seemed impossible not long ago. Hunting pushed humpbacks close to extinction, and in the 1980s, countries around the world agreed to stop commercial whaling. Four decades later, the whales have made a remarkable comeback. Every year they return to the warm waters off Brazil’s coast to breed and raise their calves, and scientists come back each year to study them.
Finally, in Tasmania, an island state off the south coast of Australia, volunteers are restoring wetlands. They’re pulling out willow trees, which settlers brought from Europe long ago. The willows spread quickly and crowd out local plants, which is what makes them an invasive species. In their place, volunteers are planting native species. Over time, these plants should keep the water cleaner, hold riverbanks in place, and shade the water.
Look at the sea off the coast of East Greenland today, and you’ll notice two big changes: less ice and more whales.
Greenland is a huge Arctic island between North America and Europe. For a long time, thick sea-ice along its eastern coast kept large whales away, even in summer. But as the ocean has warmed and the ice has shrunk, some of the world’s biggest whales have moved in.
Scientists combined airplane surveys, satellite tags on whales and observations from local Inuit hunters. They found that fin whales, humpbacks, and minke whales now arrive by the thousands each summer. The whales are following capelin, a small fish that has moved into the warmer water. Humpbacks weren’t spotted in the area at all until 2006.
A sea full of whales might sound like great news, but it isn’t good news for every species. Many whales can travel between feeding areas, so they can follow the food. But some Arctic animals depend on sea-ice and have fewer places to go.
Polar bears have already been struggling as their icy habitat disappears. Now researchers say narwhals, which are specially adapted to icy Arctic waters, are having to share their home with the new arrivals, and in some places they’re being pushed out.
So the same change that’s creating a feast for some whales is shrinking the world for animals that need the ice.
All news isn’t created equal. Introduce your students to the different ways people get news. In this lesson, they’ll learn to distinguish more impartial news from news that lacks independence or accountability and to build their own “news neighborhoods.”
To help your students dive deeper into news content, we created this bundle of news story response worksheets. We designed these worksheets to be used with any of our news videos and to keep students focused as they watch and enhance comprehension and retention. (Please note that some worksheet types are better fits for certain content and grade levels). Assign students the same one, mix them up, or let them choose!
On August 26, a massive avalanche of ice and rock broke loose high in the Himalayas, the world's tallest mountain range, which stretches across several countries in Asia. It happened near the border between Nepal and Tibet. Part of a glacier, a huge mass of ice that builds up over hundreds or thousands of years, collapsed.
The avalanche set off a flash flood. That's a flood that starts within hours of its cause, like heavy rain or, in this case, a glacier collapse. Because the water arrives so quickly and with so much force, people have little or no time to prepare or get to safety.
The water surged down the Trishuli River, which flows out of the mountains and into Nepal. It tore through towns, swept away cars and buses, knocked down bridges, and destroyed a dam that was still being built. Many people were killed, and many more are still missing.
Journalists at BBC Verify, a BBC team that investigates news events using videos, photos, and data, rebuilt the flood's path. They used videos filmed on the ground and satellite images, which are pictures of Earth taken from space. The footage shows how fast the water moved. In some places, people had only moments to escape.
In Where Do You Find Your News?, host Radzi Chinyanganya highlights the importance of making sure your news comes from a trustworthy source. Some things to think about include noting whether or not the topic is the source’s area of expertise, whether they’ve shown a commitment to accuracy over a period of time, and whether or not they’ve been willing to admit when they’ve made a mistake. The news should be watched with a critical eye, letting facts shape our views instead of our views shaping the facts. This video is excerpted from BBC’s My World, a program created for teenagers eager to learn more about the important stories shaping our world.
You don’t often hear good news about the environment, but here is some. Three very different wildlife projects around the world show that there’s more than one way to protect nature, and that the effort is paying off.
In the UK, a cat named Frank is moving to a new home. He’s the only Asian golden cat in the country, a medium-sized wild cat from the forests of Southeast Asia. Frank is leaving the sanctuary where he’s lived and moving to a habitat built for his species. The difference matters. A sanctuary’s main job is caring for the animals it already has. A purpose-built habitat does that too, but it also works to help the species survive in the future, through research and breeding. At his new home, Frank will join a breeding program. That’s important, because Asian golden cats are listed as Near Threatened, which means they could become endangered soon. In the wild, they’re losing their forest homes and are hunted illegally.
Next stop is Brazil, where about 35,000 humpback whales now swim in the South Atlantic Ocean. That number would have seemed impossible not long ago. Hunting pushed humpbacks close to extinction, and in the 1980s, countries around the world agreed to stop commercial whaling. Four decades later, the whales have made a remarkable comeback. Every year they return to the warm waters off Brazil’s coast to breed and raise their calves, and scientists come back each year to study them.
Finally, in Tasmania, an island state off the south coast of Australia, volunteers are restoring wetlands. They’re pulling out willow trees, which settlers brought from Europe long ago. The willows spread quickly and crowd out local plants, which is what makes them an invasive species. In their place, volunteers are planting native species. Over time, these plants should keep the water cleaner, hold riverbanks in place, and shade the water.
Look at the sea off the coast of East Greenland today, and you’ll notice two big changes: less ice and more whales.
Greenland is a huge Arctic island between North America and Europe. For a long time, thick sea-ice along its eastern coast kept large whales away, even in summer. But as the ocean has warmed and the ice has shrunk, some of the world’s biggest whales have moved in.
Scientists combined airplane surveys, satellite tags on whales and observations from local Inuit hunters. They found that fin whales, humpbacks, and minke whales now arrive by the thousands each summer. The whales are following capelin, a small fish that has moved into the warmer water. Humpbacks weren’t spotted in the area at all until 2006.
A sea full of whales might sound like great news, but it isn’t good news for every species. Many whales can travel between feeding areas, so they can follow the food. But some Arctic animals depend on sea-ice and have fewer places to go.
Polar bears have already been struggling as their icy habitat disappears. Now researchers say narwhals, which are specially adapted to icy Arctic waters, are having to share their home with the new arrivals, and in some places they’re being pushed out.
So the same change that’s creating a feast for some whales is shrinking the world for animals that need the ice.
All news isn’t created equal. Introduce your students to the different ways people get news. In this lesson, they’ll learn to distinguish more impartial news from news that lacks independence or accountability and to build their own “news neighborhoods.”
To help your students dive deeper into news content, we created this bundle of news story response worksheets. We designed these worksheets to be used with any of our news videos and to keep students focused as they watch and enhance comprehension and retention. (Please note that some worksheet types are better fits for certain content and grade levels). Assign students the same one, mix them up, or let them choose!
On August 26, a massive avalanche of ice and rock broke loose high in the Himalayas, the world's tallest mountain range, which stretches across several countries in Asia. It happened near the border between Nepal and Tibet. Part of a glacier, a huge mass of ice that builds up over hundreds or thousands of years, collapsed.
The avalanche set off a flash flood. That's a flood that starts within hours of its cause, like heavy rain or, in this case, a glacier collapse. Because the water arrives so quickly and with so much force, people have little or no time to prepare or get to safety.
The water surged down the Trishuli River, which flows out of the mountains and into Nepal. It tore through towns, swept away cars and buses, knocked down bridges, and destroyed a dam that was still being built. Many people were killed, and many more are still missing.
Journalists at BBC Verify, a BBC team that investigates news events using videos, photos, and data, rebuilt the flood's path. They used videos filmed on the ground and satellite images, which are pictures of Earth taken from space. The footage shows how fast the water moved. In some places, people had only moments to escape.