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人教课标新教材选必4 Unit 2 拓展阅读
4 Facts About Australia’s National Animal
为澳大利亚的象征之一，袋鼠一直是当地人的骄傲。但袋鼠也给人们的生活带来了烦恼，怎么解决呢？
People from every corner of the globe travel to Australia to meet the kangaroo — the lovely, unusual and uniquely Australian animal that jumps all over this sunburnt continent. Read on for 4 things you might not have known about the red kangaroo.
The kangaroo is one of the earliest symbols of Australia.
The British colonists of the late 18th Century were amazed by this unusual animal, which was first recorded as a kanguru by Botanist Joseph Banks in 1770. They were described as having the head of a deer and the jump of a frog. After pictures attracted European audiences, they soon became a symbol of this faraway Australian continent.
They’ve remained the country’s most well-known symbol .
Over the last two centuries, the kangaroo has become Australia’s most lasting symbol. The roo appears on the Australian Coat of Arms, the tails of Qantas planes, Tourism Australia’s logo, coins, stamps ... the list goes on.
They’re a serious traffic danger.
Almost everyone who’s driven through the outback (内地) has seen kangaroo warning signs, because kangaroos are so common and dangerous on Australian roads. A 90 kilogramme kangaroo jumping at 50 km/h can cause some serious damage to a car flying along the open road. As a result, kangaroo bars are often fixed to protect them.
Australians have been told to eat more of them.
It might sound wrong to eat your national symbol, but several experts have encouraged Australians to eat kangaroos for the sake of the environment. Kangaroos give off less methane (甲烷) than cows, and harvesting their out-of-control numbers helps preserve the natural ecosystem. You can try kangaroo steak, sausages and pizza if you’re up for it.
Australia
Phrases
the world's largest exporter of coal
世界上最大的煤炭出口国
surrounded by the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean
被印度洋和太平洋围绕着
attract hundreds of thousands of immigrants
吸引了成千上万的移民
spend a lot of their free time outdoors
他们花很多业余时间在户外

Sentences
Australia is the sixth biggest country in the world.
澳大利亚是世界第六大国家。
Australia is home to many animal species. In fact, Australia houses more than 10% of the world's biodiversity.
澳大利亚是许多动物物种的家园。事实上，澳大利亚拥有世界上超过10%的生物物种。
Australians love their beaches. When summer approaches, going to their beloved beaches for the summer holiday is the most discussed topic.
澳大利亚人喜欢他们的海滩。当夏天来临时，去他们心爱的海滩度假是人们最常讨论的话题。
Among the most well-known Australian animals are kangaroos and koalas.
澳大利亚最著名的动物包括袋鼠和树袋熊。
Many people visit Australia for its brilliant beaches and year-round sunshine.
许多人去澳大利亚旅游是因为那里有漂亮的海滩和终年的阳光。
Australian Aboriginal art
澳大利亚土著居民(Aborigine)是世界上最古老的民族之一，澳洲独特的地理环境孕育了澳洲土著独特的文化和艺术。
Australia is a very large country with different landscapes. It has rainforests, the outback desert and the seaside. Australia also has a very long history that goes back to an ancient people. They lived there many thousands of years ago and still live there now. In fact, they are the oldest continuous human culture on Earth. They are the Aborigines of Australia.
Long before there were towns in Australia, Aboriginal artists painted the Dreamtime, the Aboriginal story of the beginning of the world. The ancient Aboriginal artists thought that their paintings had special powers. If they wanted to catch a lot of fish, they painted a lot of fish. They also had special rules. For example, they painted certain types of pictures at specific times of the year.
Today, many of the original rock paintings are losing their colour. This is because of bad weather as well as insects and reptiles walking over them. Naturalists are trying to take steps to prevent the loss of these wonderful paintings. They are the oldest art records of human civilisation in the world and they must be protected. Hopefully these paintings will help save the memories of the ancient world of the Aborigines in a modern world that is rapidly changing. Modern Aboriginal artists are also trying to help keep their traditions alive by painting pictures on bark (树皮), paper and wood. Contemporary (当代的) Aboriginal art is getting more and more famous and expensive.
Indigenous Australians
澳大利亚土著人是澳大利亚最早的居民，大约七万年前入住澳洲。他们有着自己的传统文化、语言及艺术，是澳大利亚一道特殊的风景线。让我们一起去了解一下吧。
Indigenous Australians are descendants (后代） of the first human inhabitants of the Australian continent and its nearby islands. They include both the Torres Strait Islanders and the Aboriginal People, who together make up about 2.5% of Australia’s population. The latter is usually used to refer to those who live in mainland Australia, Tasmania, and some of the other nearby islands. The Torres Strait Islanders are indigenous to the Torres Strait Islands between Australia and New Guinea.
Indigenous Australians have made great civilization. Aboriginal art is thousands of years old, and the best known forms are rock art and bark painting（树皮绘画). These paintings usually consist of paint using earthly colors, specifically, from paint made from ochre（赭石). Traditionally, Aborigines have painted stories from their Dreamtime. Modern Aboriginal artists continue the tradition using modern materials in their artworks. Also, Aboriginal People developed unique instruments and folk styles. The didgeridoo is commonly considered the national instrument of Aboriginal People, and it is claimed to be the world’s oldest wind instrument. The more interesting thing is that indigenous Australia’s oral tradition and spiritual values are based upon admiration for the land and a belief in the Dreamtime.
Although the culture and the lifestyle of Aboriginal groups have much in common, Aboriginal society is not a single entity. In fact, there are a great many different groups, each with their own individual culture, belief structure, and language. For example, the Torres Strait Islanders possess a tradition and cultural history different from mainland indigenous traditions. In particular, the eastern Torres Strait Islanders are related to the Papuan peoples of New Guinea, and speak a Papuan language.
Welcome to the Land Down Under
Australia is called the Land Down Under because it lies entirely south of the equator. It stands apart from the rest of the world in many ways. It is the only country that is also a continent, and it’s the smallest continent. Although it has a few mountain ranges, Australia is the world’s flattest continent. It is also one of the driest places on earth. Only the frozen Antarctic gets less rain or snow.
　　With some of the weirdest rocks and animals, Australia is an entirely different place to visit. The platypus looks like an animal put together with spare parts from other beasts. The continent’s wallabies, wombats and over fifty varieties of kangaroos are found almost nowhere else on earth. Fifty-foot-high Wave Rock would be a surfer’s perfect wave, except that it’s solid granite.
　　In the vast centre of the country, known as the Outback, you can drive for hundreds of miles without seeing a person or a car. On the Pacific sea bottom of the Great Barrier Reef off the northeastern coast of Australia, schools of electric-pink fish swim through the world’s largest system of coral reefs.
Winter wonderlands
你想置身于野生动物的天堂，沉浸在洁白的冰雪世界，观赏群鹰翱翔碧空的独特景象吗？那就让我们一起去北美洲看看吧！
Surprise! Some of the grandest sightseeing happens this time of the year. Here are three premier holiday destinations for your cold-weather adventures.
Go Wild in Yellowstone National Park
Winter in Yellowstone means steaming geysers, cold temperatures, the intense quiet of deep snowfall and great wildlife viewing. It also means fewer people; some 29,000 people visit the park in January versus an average of 948,000 in the peak season — July.
Yellowstone hosts the largest concentration of wildlife in the lower 48 states. Bison (野牛) have called the park home since prehistoric times. Some 100 wolves live here, making it one of the best iconic sites in the world to see the once-endangered Canis lupus. The vivid blues of Yellowstone's premier hot springs glow even more brilliantly against a backdrop (背景) of white snow.
See the Ice Show at Lakeshores of the Great Lakes
Two of America's four National Lakeshores lie along Lake Superior, where winter transforms the landscape into a magical world. In these remote northern places, ice is something to be climbed and snowstorms mean better conditions for skiing and snowshoeing.
At Michigan's Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, massive curtains of frozen water cover sandstone cliffs (悬崖), and waterfalls freeze into dramatic columns of yellow and blue ice. The Michigan Ice Fest (Feb. 12-16) offers films, talks and classes in photography and ice climbing. Watching the ice climbers is a draw for many.
Soar with Bald Eagles (白头海雕)
It is amazing to see a bald eagle flying in slow circles in the sky, wings stretched to almost 8 feet across, or to watch it dive for food at speeds of nearly 100 mph. America's founding fathers adopted the eagle — a bird of “supreme (至高的) power and authority” — as the symbol for a new country.
January is National Bald Eagle Watch Month, and you can spot these birds across the U.S. On the upper Mississippi River, as many as 2,500 bald eagles spend the winter feeding on fish below dams and in open water. In late January and early February, the birds begin nest-building. In Virginia, eagles settle along the Potomac in the Elizabeth Hartwell Mason Neck Refuge, just 18 miles outside of Washington, D.C.
Notes:
Lake Superior:苏必利尔湖，是世界上面积最大的淡水湖。
Potomac:波托马克河是美国中东部最重要的河流，流经首都华盛顿。

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