Writing
7
Write four things you remember
from the text.
Think!
i
What did you learn about humpback
whales from the text? What else would you like
to know about them? Work in groups. Collect
information, then prepare a presentation on
humpback whales. You can visit this website:
htm
ICT
5
Complete the phrases with the words in the
list. Choose five phrases and make sentences
using them.
•
government
•
create
•
build
•
natural
•
face
•
leave
•
environmental
•
extreme
•
lay
•
musical
1
. . . . . . . . .
his career
2
. . . . . .
you stunned
3
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
feeling of smallness
4
. . . . . . . . . . . .
songs
5
. . . . . .
composition
6
. . . . . . . . . . .
process
7
. . . . . . . . . . . .
grants
8
. . . . . . . .
movement
9
. . . .
the foundation
10
. . . . . . . .
extinction
Speaking
6
In pairs, ask and answer questions based on
the text. Then, take the roles of Roger Payne
and an interviewer. Use the information in the
text to interview Mr Payne.
Payne chose whales. In 1967, he discovered, along with
researcher Scott McVay, that male humpback whales
create songs that contain many elements, such as
rhyme, rhythm and structure, that are also found in
human music.
To Payne, this suggested that
musical composition was a natural process rather than a
unique
part of human culture.
However, scientists were less than enthusiastic. "When I
first suggested that whales could hear each other across
oceans, it very nearly
ruined
my career," says Payne.
By the time they had accepted the idea of
humpback songs, Payne had already transformed
whales into a powerful symbol of the need to protect our
planet.
He became an environmentalist at a time when there
wasn't much of an environmental movement to join.
Greenpeace was just getting started and the commercial
whaling industry was still very much alive.
While
Payne didn't
coin the term
‘save the whales,’ his work
on whale conservation laid the
foundation
for the Save-
the-Whales campaign, one of the first popular
environmental movements in America.
Although commercial whaling was
banned
in 1986,
whale populations are still under threat. Norway has
repeatedly ignored the ban, Iceland has started to
openly
hunt whales again and Japan kills about 440
whales every year for what it calls ‘scientific research’.
Meanwhile, many species of whale face
extinction and could soon disappear completely.
“The Save-the-Whales movement was an important first
step,” says Payne. “
Whales can remind us of our
smallness, and of the brief time we've had on this planet.”
Payne, the biologist turned conservationist, may have
been the first to understand that the secret to our own
survival may be in understanding our own
insignificance
.
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3
5
4
6
MODULE 4
11
