Extension Activities Units 1 & 2

Sue Robbins

Extension Activities Units 1 & 2

Units 1 & 2 – Circular Economy

SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production
SDG 7 – Affordable and Clean Energy

After every two Units you are offered a choice of extension tasks. Depending on what area you most want to develop, choose and complete a relevant task. You are welcome to complete as many as you like.

These are not tests, and no marks are awarded. They are opportunities to develop your language further, based on a self-assessment of your needs.

NOTE: It may be that in your local context you are not able to access the videos on YouTube. They’re included here alongside other free-to-access resources, so hopefully you will still have plenty of choice.

Develop your knowledge of the SDGs

1. Test your knowledge of SDG12 & SDG7 with Go Goals digital board game

Go Goals is a ready-to-use board game developed by the United Nations that helps you understand the Sustainable Development Goals, and how each of us can contribute to realising the goals. Access this link to the game and click on the white circle next to goal 12 and goal 7 and answer the set of quiz questions that appear. Check your answers when you are done (Game created by Božica Borbaš).

2. Input any text into the OSDG Wheel and you will be able to see any key SDGs in the text along with their estimated relevance scores (%), followed by any additional SDGs found in the text. Try inputting one of the texts you’ve been reading in these two Units.

Develop your vocabulary

Add the new vocabulary you learn to your vocabulary note-book.

Collocations

In Unit 1 you looked at common collocations with the word ‘plastic’. To develop your knowledge of collocations (words that often occur together) you can use a tool called ColloCaid. When you have registered (free), you can paste some text into the text box, click the ColloCaid button in the menu bar at the top, then choose ‘suggest collocations’ and the app will underline some of the words in your text. Click the words and you’ll see lots of suggestions about other frequently co-occurring words. You can paste in some text from the reading in this unit (or elsewhere) or paste in something that you have written yourself.
Play this collocations game.

Listening and vocabulary development

‘Declaration to combat pollution‘ – On 20 September 2018 an international delegation met to avert an environmental catastrophe. Access the link to a BBC Learning English resource about how to use language from a news story in your everyday English. Watch the video and complete the listening & vocabulary tasks.
This video (1 min) contains vocabulary you learned in Units 1 and 2, giving you an opportunity to see it in context. Watch the video and answer the questions that appear on the screen.

3. Resources from BBC Learning English (to see the transcript, when you are in YouTube click the 3 dots in the bottom right under the video and select ‘show transcript’).

6-minute English – Coffee cups.
Fix old phones to help the planet.

Develop your listening

Access one (or more) of the links and listen to the text. Listen once for general idea and then listen again for detail, focussing on the parts that interest you.

Podcast from the Pulitzer Center – Trash Sorters in Ghana Face Health and Safety Risks.
Lots of people talk about decarbonising transport sectors. However there’s one that’ll be the most difficult to decarbonise: aviation. Find out more in this podcast from The Conversation

Develop your speaking/fluency

Record a short presentation (3 – 5 mins) about SDG 12 or 7. Spend some time planning where you are going to talk about and what you would like to say. Make some notes on the content and any new vocabulary you’d like to include. Record your presentation here:

Develop your reading – Read for interest

Access the link and read one (or more) of the following texts. Practice your skim reading first to get a general idea of what the text is about, and then read in more detail, focusing on the parts that interest you.

Articles from The Conversation

Explainer: what is the circular economy?
We could power households from the scraps in our food waste bins. Here’s what is stopping us
Global population hits 8 billion, but per-capita consumption is still the main problem
October 1st is International Coffee Day. Read this text published on 1.10.2021 about the rise in the price of Brazilian coffee beans due to the effects of climate change. Coffee bean prices have doubled in the past year and may double again: what’s going on?
The global community is finally acting on climate change, but we need to switch to renewable energy faster
Climate explained: why we need to focus on increased consumption as much as population growth.

Other resources

Access the link to BioBean’s webpage about recycling coffee grounds and look through it. Make notes of any statistics mentioned and/or any solutions offered. Feel free to explore/read as much of the site as you’d like.
British Council Learn English lesson – The Buy Nothing Movement.
British Council Learn English lesson – Sustainable supermarkets.
Case study: Energy efficiency in Peru.

Develop your writing

Write an advice column

In Unit 1 you learned about the problem of plastic waste. Read this infographic about 50 ways to use less plastic. Choose four or five of the suggestions and write a short advice column for readers of a magazine about consumer behaviour (click on the ‘Read more…’ arrow to see the infographic full screen).

Write about your local context

Watch the World’s Largest Lesson video. In this video, actress Emma Watson says that we have to use our creative superpowers to achieve the SDGs. Although the earth is just a tiny speck in space it seems enormous to us when we’re on it. The global goals can seem huge too. If you focus on fixing the things where you live, you can make a big difference. There are three ways you can help: you can invent, innovate and campaign. Write approximately 500 words about how you can invent, innovate or campaign to change things in your local context. To access the transcript click ‘watch on YouTube’. Click the 3 dots in the bottom right under the video and select ‘show transcript’.

To see the transcript click ‘watch on YouTube’. When you are in YouTube, click the 3 dots in the bottom right under the video and select ‘show transcript’.

Pronunciation – Word stress in four-syllable words

In Unit 1 you practised hearing the main stress in words with four syllables. Access this link to Cambridge English Learning for some more practice.

Play a computer game about SDG 7 Clean Energy

Growing appetites, limited resources

Listen to four short videos (2 minutes each) and answer the comprehension questions. Then use your knowledge to play a game to design renewable energy for an American city.

WindFall

This is a strategy game produced by Persuasive Games. Its aim is to build wind farms to create clean energy. Players have to consider profits, energy production, location and social impact of building energy turbines.

The game has different difficulty levels which offer the player different regions and different energy goals.

Take action

Access the link to the ‘Take Action Today’ site for Goal 12 and/or to Goal 7 and select an action you can take in your everyday life to help meet the aims of these two SDGs.
Or choose an action from The Good Life Goals.
Or choose an action from 170 Actions.

Sing

Choose one (or more) of the songs to listen to. When you have listened record your response to the song. This could be:

- a short, written response
- a drawing
- an infographic
- a video of yourself talking about it (made on your phone)
- any other mode that allows you to respond to the song

1. ’70 Miles’, by Pete Seeger (1966)

Seeger is a Folk singer who sings about the beauty of nature and the need to protect it, while also criticising modern life. In this song he talks about the pollution of San Francisco Bay in the USA (‘it’s a garbage dump’).

Find the song here on YouTube.

2. Here Comes the Sun, by The Beatles (1969)

This song was written by George Harrison, a member of the English rock band the Beatles, and is one of his best-known compositions. The lyrics reflect his relief at the arrival of spring and the temporary respite he was experiencing from the band’s business affairs.

Go to the lyricstraining website to listen to the song and practice your listening skills by filling in some of the words as you listen. You may need to click the ‘go to lyricstraining’ button at the top of the screen to get started. You don’t need to create an account – just click ‘maybe later’ when you see the prompt on the screen. Try the ‘intermediate’ level (where you have to fill in 25% of the words as you listen) and if you can do that quite easily switch to the ‘advanced’ level (50%). Use the arrow keys below the video to listen again or to skip and have the word revealed if you can’t catch it.

3. ‘The 3 R’s’, by Jack Johnson, 2010

Listen to Hawaiian singer Jack Johnson on the topic of waste reduction (1 min) and identify two plastic consumer waste products that he says we should replace with reusable ones.