a) Pre-reading activity:
Fill in the following animal´s and insect´s feeding
classification chart putting 
if it is
possible and X if it is not
possible.
if it is
possible and X if it is not
possible.|
What do
animals, insects & plants eat?
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Plants
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Insects
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Birds
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Butterflies
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Plants
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Young birds
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Birds
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Butterflies
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Caterpillars
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Once you have completed the chart, answer the next questions:
- Which animals eat plants?
- Which insects eat plants?
b) Text
GREEN INVADERS
Green invaders are
taking over America. Nope, not invaders from space. Plants. You might not think
of plants as dangerous, but in this case they are threatening nature's delicate
food web.
The invaders are plants from other countries brought here to make gardens and yards look pretty. Ever since people started to arrive on America's shores, they've carried along trees, flowers, and vegetables from other places.
Now there are so many of those plants, they are crowding out the native plants that have lived here since before human settlers arrived.
And that's a problem, says Dr. Doug Tallamy. He's an entomologist (an insect expert) at the University of Delaware. He explains that almost all the plant-eating insects in the United States—90% of them—are specialized. That means they eat only certain plants.
Monarch butterfly caterpillars, for example, dine on milkweed. If people cut down milkweed and replace it with another plant, the butterflies will not have the food source that they need to survive.
But the trouble doesn't stop there; it goes right across the food web. When insects can't get the right plants to eat and they die off, then the birds don't have enough bugs for their meals. Tallamy points out that almost all migrating birds depend on insects to feed their young.
The invaders are plants from other countries brought here to make gardens and yards look pretty. Ever since people started to arrive on America's shores, they've carried along trees, flowers, and vegetables from other places.
Now there are so many of those plants, they are crowding out the native plants that have lived here since before human settlers arrived.
And that's a problem, says Dr. Doug Tallamy. He's an entomologist (an insect expert) at the University of Delaware. He explains that almost all the plant-eating insects in the United States—90% of them—are specialized. That means they eat only certain plants.
Monarch butterfly caterpillars, for example, dine on milkweed. If people cut down milkweed and replace it with another plant, the butterflies will not have the food source that they need to survive.
But the trouble doesn't stop there; it goes right across the food web. When insects can't get the right plants to eat and they die off, then the birds don't have enough bugs for their meals. Tallamy points out that almost all migrating birds depend on insects to feed their young.
"We
cannot let the plants and animals around us disappear," says Tallamy.
"The way to preserve them is to give them food to eat. But when we plant
non-native plants, we are clobbering the food web, because then we don't have
the insects the birds need to live."
Fewer of the right plants mean fewer bugs, and fewer bugs mean fewer birds. And that's bad for the Earth, because we need a variety of living things to keep the planet healthy and beautiful.
The good news is, gardeners everywhere are working hard to protect native plants and get rid of the invaders. Many local garden centers sell native plants. "Just Google 'native plants' and your location, and you can find out which plants really belong where you live," says Tallamy.
Planting the right things makes a real difference, and fast. He describes planting milkweed in a tiny city courtyard about the size of a living room one spring. By summertime, that milkweed patch had produced 50 new monarch butterflies!
Tallamy encourages kids to go out and plant native plants. "Adopt a bird species in trouble and see if you can't plant some things that will attract the insects they need," he suggests. "It will happen—insects move around a lot, and they will find the plants you put out there for them!"
(Text adapted from http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/stories/spacescience/invasive-plants/ )
c) Post- reading activity
Read the questions below and choose
the right answer, maybe there are more than one correct answer.
1.
Where can we find this the problem
with the plants?
a) Europe
b)
Africa
c) America
2.
Why these “invaders” plants are
located in America?
a) Because they want to make their
gardens pretty.
b)
Because some foreigners bring in the
plants.
c) Because they are much cheaper than
the American´s ones.
3.
Which is the real problem?
a) It is not easy to adapt new species.
b)
American people do not want to buy
species from other countries.
c) It is not easy to buy some kinds of
plants.
4.
They want you to know...
a) The plants that belong to where you
live.
b)
How to manage a garden.
c) Which are the best plants to plant.
5.
How did Tellamy encourage kids to
plant new plants?
a) Focusing on the leaves.
b)
Focusing on how the plant grows.
c) Focusing on the insects.
6.
What happens when the insects cannot
eat the right plants?
a) They go to another place looking for
them.
b)
They eat another kind of plant.
c) They die.
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