Learn English with English, baby!

Join for FREE!

Social_nav_masthead_logged_in
 
Drought
简体
Drought
旱季

Present Perfect Tense

Date: Sep 05 2011

Themes: News, Weather

Grammar: Present Perfect Tense

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

Go Super to Listen Go Super!

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Go Super to Listen Go Super!

Water covers over 70% of the Earth and makes up more than 60% of the human body. So how can it be that so many places on the planet do not have enough water?

Even though there is a lot of water on the planet, only about 1% of that water is drinkable. Unfair or poor management of the Earth’s water resources makes it even more scarce in many parts of the world.

In times of drought, the lack of water is even greater. During the summer, when there is less rain and higher temperatures, many areas experience drought and need to find ways to conserve water. Hear Jason and Amy talk about the water shortage in Jason’s home state.

地球上,70% 多的面积都被水覆盖,人体所含水分超过 60%。但是为什么地球上很多地方还是缺水呢?
尽管地球上有很多水,但是可饮用水大约仅占 1%。对水资源的不合理利用或缺乏管理导致很多地区更加缺水。旱季时,缺水现象更加严重。在夏季,当降雨量小,并且伴随高温天气时,很多地区都会经历干旱,需要寻找存水的方法。请听詹森和艾米谈论詹森家乡缺水的事情。

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

Log in to Listen

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jason

Jason

Amy

Amy

Jason:  My parents live in New Mexico, and it recently rained for the first time this year.

Amy:  Wow. What?

Jason:  Yeah.

Amy:  Oh my gosh. Is there a huge drought there?

Jason:  Definitely. There’s kind of always been a drought there, like as long as I’ve been alive. But it’s exceptionally bad this year.

Amy:  So how is that affecting people? Is it difficult to get water, or are people being advised to try to conserve water?

Jason:  Definitely there’s a big campaign to conserve water. You know, everything from reducing your toilet flow to, like, people are…I think there’s only certain days you’re allowed to water your lawn, and only certain times.

Amy:  Right. Well, that takes a ton of water.

Jason:  Yeah. It’s not so bad, like you can still get drinking water and stuff. There’s underground water. But I guess that won’t last forever.

Amy:  It’s so funny, because I think there’s a lot less usable water out there than we think.

Jason:  Oh my gosh, yeah, it’s crazy. And it’s such a fragile system, like once it gets polluted it kind of never gets out of it. It’s a big problem. People are saying that, you know, energy was the crisis of the last century and sort of continues to be, but that water is going to be the crisis of the next century. And that is kind of scary, since we don’t need energy to live, whereas we do need water.

Amy:  Great, something else to worry about.

 

Grammar Point

Go Super to learn "Present Perfect Tense" from this lesson Go Super!

Quizzes

Go Super to take Quiz Go Super!

 

Lesson MP3

Go Super to download full lesson MP3 Go Super!

The iTEP® test

  • Schedule an iTEP® test and take the official English Practice Test.

    Take Now >

Discussion

Go Super to Listen Go Super!

Jason is from New Mexico, a state that gets very little rain. It recently rained in his hometown for the first time all year!

Like many other places around the world, Jason’s hometown is experiencing a drought. Because there is a shortage of water, people are doing different things to conserve, like watering their lawns less.

Amy and Jason agree that water shortage is a big problem. In the future it could get even worse. For that reason, it’s important to conserve.

Is there a water shortage where you live? What can people do to conserve water?

 

Comments

Log in to Comment

rosy911

rosy911

Saudi Arabia

unfortunately,ther is ashortage water her where i live,so ther is a huge campaign to conserve a water,and most people became aware waters value,and put in top of the chart,we all aware that ther is no life without water,

09:40 AM Jan 13 2012 |

wasimreza

Barbados

luckily the area i live in there is no drought. however drinking water in general is a problem in the city i live but not in the area i live. thank to ebaby for sharing this article. i consciously do very little to conserve water even if my city is facing the problem. now that i am inspired to do so and may be my single move will add atleast something to water conservation as a whole

02:46 PM Sep 10 2011 |

M.NOUR

M.NOUR

Sudan

every thing  on our planet depent on   water not only the  human , animals agriculture and so ,, just realize that the next generation may suffer because of us or maybe ever us after  some time ,so please habituate your self  to conserve the water ,,if you’re suffering others do 

03:37 PM Sep 09 2011 |

Jalal166

Jalal166

Saudi Arabia

Drought is a huge massive problem

02:43 PM Sep 09 2011 |

samirah

samirah

Saudi Arabia

I used to hear in my country that there will be a war over water on coming years .I hope we  have  not such crisis  especially in my country that is associated with  high temperature  Cry . actually,the extravagant   use of water makes me see red. ...Remember we r not only creatures which live on this planet . so plz dont be selfish , and pay more attention to ur using of water …....

08:00 PM Sep 08 2011 |

free7soul

free7soul

Sudan

ooh again the drought belive that 


Dying plants from drought?due to lack of rain I have some outside bushes that look pretty dead,,,still have some green on them will it do any good to water them now,,,would like to save them is this possible…? rating them one looks half dead the other one looks around 60-70% dead

11:50 AM Sep 08 2011 |

mshare

mshare

Saudi Arabia

Despite of the fact that I know in here in my country that it rains once a year ,consequentially, there are some problems pertaining to that .


Mostly , people don’t care about this because they haven’t experienced a kind of shortage of drinkable water . I also mean since they haven’t suffered from sort of  a shortage of water, but who knows water is believed to be the crisis of the next century as they said . therefore , we are all required to do something like , aware people of that tremendous problem by either making from time to time awareness campaign or starting conserving water for the next generations by not wasting water on worthless things  .

11:40 PM Sep 07 2011 |

kush patel

Georgia

i can learn my english

08:40 PM Sep 07 2011 |

wasser

Germany

I am extremely important, so save me! Wink

01:49 PM Sep 06 2011 |

liuying1108

China

Each of us should raise our awareness of water-saving, and should try to make some changes step by step in our daily lives~~

10:55 AM Sep 06 2011 |

Joy4short

Joy4short

Japan

Water  is  one  of  life’s  basic  needs.We’re  gonna  start  moving  before its too  late.

09:03 PM Sep 05 2011 |

JAY&JOY

United States

People rarely recognize how important it is. Because they never went through the shortage of water in their life. But the time which faces big trouble will come soon. It could be next generation. No one knows the coming future. Have you ever imagined how terrible it is living without water?? No. 

06:50 PM Sep 05 2011 |

sheethal diya

India

Planting is the one of the best way to get rainfall..GO GREEN

03:24 PM Sep 05 2011 |

lvtea

China

i was a student of  Dalian University of Technology , Dalian may be a beautiful city famous for its sea.But here is a city which is experiencing water shortage .Water is important to us , if there is no water,we will soon disappear from this planet,so ,please ,save our water ,save us

03:19 PM Sep 05 2011 |

friendlyboy1

Turkey

we should save the water resources cause the earth can’ get rains like old,,,

03:12 PM Sep 05 2011 |

Kotisha

Kotisha

Russian Federation

Fortunatly, there is no water shortage where I live. But I suppouse that people should take care of water resources. For example when I wash up or take a bath I always try to save water. To my mind people should think about the next genarations and save natural resources!!!

02:48 PM Sep 05 2011 |

Bruce_zhou

China

As we all know,anybody and animals can not live without water,even though there have a lot of water on the earth,but you know,actually mostly water in the sea don’t suit human’s life,in fact,we have not enough water for drinking,so we must prevent water be wasted,this is definitly serious problem in nowadays,of couse ,also for future generations,on the other hand,the river and sea pollution more and more serious day by day,so we should save and protect water whenever also tell everyone who is your friend or relative do the same thing.

01:59 PM Sep 05 2011 |

sabynette22

Algeria

water is necessary to our lives since it covers 60% of our  body so it’s kinda of scary to think about the fact of water’s shortage, how are we gonna survive without it???OMG

12:11 PM Sep 05 2011 |

alcide

Italy

i am a farmer…...i know the drought

11:59 AM Sep 05 2011 |

i love life

Palestinian Territory, Occupied

initially we need to a big campagin over the world for definition on the important water i think every thing depend on the water we cant lives without water but so difficulit when we seen how is a big countires over the world seek after to control on every thing for globaliztion and to become leadership on all world for example united state and unaited kingdoom and france specially in africa continent those contires they are of the basic reason in the crisis over the wrold should on this others countries respect hopeful and ambitions and desires poor countries enough love to won property for


water not just gift from god no water to express about our lives we should to conserve it forever i guess the next war will be to get on water not just to get on money or oil or reputation i have to say if any one to use water you must to used according with your need no more we have in islamic religion many instruction to calls conserve on the water every thing living back to water

11:51 AM Sep 05 2011 |

Likes (24):

See all >

Share this lesson:

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Bebo
  • Share on Myspace
  • Share on Twitter
  • Email this to a friend
  • Share on Sina

Post Ebaby! lessons on your blog:

Ebaby! Cast