Intro
1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.
2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.
Outer space has long been a scary place for humans because, well, we can’t breathe anywhere but here on Earth. And if you think water is hard to find down here, try finding some on Mars! It’s very difficult to find the right conditions for life to exist, and so far, scientists don’t know of anywhere other than Earth that could sustain us.
But what’s that off in the distance? A couple of months ago, a far-off planet was discovered that has the right temperature for there to be liquid water. It will be a while before humans are able to get there or even to see the planet clearly, but there’s a chance that life could already be there or that you could move there!
Dialog
1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.
2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.
Jason: So did you hear about this? Scientists found another planet that has similar qualities to Earth and they think it might be able to support life, human life.
Marni: I did hear about that, and it’s very fascinating, but, you know, it’s also so odd to think…I feel like we’re at this point where we’re destroying this planet, and oh, okay, now we’re going to have another, so it’s just sort of this excuse to, like, “Oh, let’s just not even worry about it, we’re just going to go destroy new Earth.”
Jason: Yeah, it’ll probably create this illusion and people will be like, “Who cares! Twenty years from now we’ll probably be able to get there.” Even though they say it’s 20 light years away.
Marni: That sounds far.
Jason: It would be incredibly impossible to get there right now. We would have to build something else that would be able to take us there.
Marni: It is a really interesting phenomenon, and I was listening to a little bit about it and they were kind of making jokes about it…
Jason: What kind of jokes were they making?
Marni: Well, they were calling it planet Danny DeVito because you had to be short.
Jason: You have to be short? Too much gravity?
Marni: Too much gravity, that’s exactly what it was.
Jason: Weird. Too many things we don’t know.
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Discussion
Jason asks Marni if she’s heard about the new Earth-like planet. She says she has, and while it’s an exciting discovery, she fears that people will use the fact that there might be another planet we could live on as an excuse to continue destroying this one.
Jason agrees that people might think all of our problems here could be solved by this new planet. He points out that it’s too far away for us to get to with the technologies we have now. Marni says that she heard on the radio that you would have to be really short to live on the Earth-like planet because the gravity is a lot stronger. The people on the radio joked that the planet should be named after Danny DeVito, a very short actor.
If you could travel to a new Earth, would you want to go?
Comments
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