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What we read
Bixby and Scanlon introduce each unit with a discussion activity, that is, an opportunity for us to share our ideas on the topic of the unit in a way that relates it to our own lives, ideas and experiences. Unit 5 of book 3 (Bixby & Scanlon [=B&S3], 2013, p.47) does this.
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My response
The research solidly shows that brainstorming or discussion activities for groups are more effective if participants start by working individually (O'Connell, 2010; Markman, 2017). In fact, experts at Harvard University's School of Management and elsewhere are sure that this can be very effectively done using online tools (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015). Blogging is one effective way to do this, which is the reason I've turned Bixby and Scanlon's discussion exercise into a quick blogging discussion.
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Bixby and Scanlon's questions
Discuss these questions in a comment.
- Why do some birds migrate?
- What other animals migrate?
- What animals migrate to or from your country?
- What human activities can disrupt of interfere with animal movement?
You can address the questions in any order. You can write one comment, or if you prefer, two comments, but not three. So that you don't worry about Bixby and Scanlon's numbers too much, I replaced them with bullets. We do not care about the numbers that Bixby and Scanlon gave their questions.
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Useful tip 1
Jim: "Because it's hot."
I expect that you have a problem with Jim's answer above. He assumes that we know what he's talking about, and this easily causes problems for readers and listeners. When you write your comments below, just as when we are talking in class, it is a useful communication strategy to imagine that your readers have not heard or read the question you are responding to. You need to write enough so that your comment makes sense for readers who have not read the above questions.
Useful tip 2
You are not writing an academic essay here. This is a fluency activity where your aim is to communicate a series of ideas quickly. It's OK if you go off topic a bit, or even a lot. And unlike in academic work, you don't have to give solid support for everything you say, although it is still a good idea to give some supporting details, examples and explanation to help readers follow your ideas. Just turn your first idea into a sentence or a few, and then do the same for your next idea, and then the next one. And keep going.
Now, open a new comment box and start writing. In your nine minutes, aim to write three paragraphs, that is, one paragraph for each of Bixby and Scanlon's main questions.
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References
- Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing: Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education
- Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2015, April 2). Why brainstorming works better online. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/04/why-brainstorming-works-better-online
- Markman, A. (2017, May 18). Your team is brainstorming all wrong. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2017/05/your-team-is-brainstorming-all-wrong
- O'Connell, A. (2010, February 4). Sometimes, it’s better to brainstorm alone. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2010/02/when-its-better-to-brainstorm
Some birds migrate in search of seasonal food and shelters. Other examples of migrating animals are insects. Interestingly, pandas migrate from China to Thailand not by themselves but by humans. It is to maintain the long-standing diplomatic relations with China. Animal movement can often be disrupted by human activities changing the atmosphere of an area so abruptly that animals do not have ample time for adjustment. One of these examples is deforestation.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that panda's really migrate. Do they migrate, or are they taken by humans who want to indulge their desire for fun by interfering with the natural lives of other animals?
DeleteI grew up on a farm in Australia, so was well aware of the seasons, and this awareness included noticing that different animals were around at different times of year. Some were just born at particular times, such as Christmas beetles, which were seen around Christmas. I guess that they lived underground or somewhere waiting for the right time of year to come out, eat, breed and then die until the next year. But other animals migrated. The most impressive for me were not birds, which I didn't really notice, but the flying foxes. These large bats would come and go every year from other areas. They ate the fruit from trees, and there were thousands of them. When they flew overhead in the early morning or later afternoon to and from their nesting areas, my brothers and sisters and I would lie on the ground and look at them as they covered the entire sky for at least half an hour flying out for their evening meals. During the day, they would sleep hanging upside down on trees in the nearby native forest on my family's land. But by the time I had reached high school, these large flocks had disappeared from our area. There are still a lot of flying foxes in Australia, but I suspect that there is no longer much for them to eat around where my family lives.
ReplyDeleteThe other animals I thought of was koalas. These don't really migrate, but human activity very clearly affects them. They do travel from one tree to another, and this means that they need to cross roads, which is often deadly for them. They don't obey basic traffic safety rules, so are often killed by cars. To help save them, many roads around my home area now have special fencing to stop the koalas moving around they way they used to. This saves their lives, but at the cost of interfering with their free movement. But it's no surprise that human activity is bad for other animals. Shortly after humans first arrived in Australia 40,000 years ago, most of the large animals that had lived there had been wiped out by the first Australians.
In my opinion, the birds' migration occurs due to environmental problems in the land they were living, such as drought.
ReplyDeleteOther animal that also has migration might be fish. From my point of view, the fish started to migrate due to a similar reason to birds. To illustrate, the former habitat might have been out of source of food or the water temperature might have been too high to live.
I think the human activities that can interfere animal movement might be shooting. As you can see, while birds are flying in Triangle shape, shooting can interrupt the shape or worse kill some of the birds in the herd.
I agree with you and I think human activities is the top factor that effects animal movement or animal life.
DeleteFish is a good example of migration. I didn't think about it but I think it is true that fish is also migrate.
DeleteExactly. The issue of shooting animals for fun has long appeared in newspaper. I think one of the solutions would be to make an awareness campaign against this illegal activity.
DeleteI think that some birds migrate because they are in the place where is in a bad condition, for example, insufficient food, too hot or too cold weather. So, they decide to migrate to the place that is in the better condition. Also, there are many birds that migrate to my country and I think there is a period of time that birds migrate to and from my country but I don't know when.
ReplyDeleteI think fish also migrate because in the sea, there is a hot water current and a cold water current and some fish only live in a hot or cold water current so they have to migrate to live in the water current but I don't sure is it call migrate.
In my opinion, human activity that can interfere with animal movement is setting a trap such as fishing bait.
I agree with your opinion.
DeleteIn my opinion, I think animals such as birds migrate because they can't live in some seasons, example in winter,and find somewhere that they can live and then go back in next season.
ReplyDeleteThis is what I had in mind when I read the question. I thought that Bixby and Scanlon meant annual movement to and from the same places, which the fruit bats I wrote about in Australia do. Some of your classmates clearly had a different idea, and it was useful to get their perspective to widen my own understanding.
DeleteI think the reason why some birds migrate is because season changing. When the weather in each place is getting cold, they'll move to find some place which the weather is warmer. Moreover, I think human's activities can damage the migration of birds because nowadays, there are the environment problems that caused by the human, especially the lack of forests spaces. Human destroys bird's house by cutting a lot of trees, birds can't live in the forests, so they only need to leave their home to find the new home.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with the fact human are one of the main causes of unusual migration of bird. Some bird could not adapt to habitat change from the forest to city, so they have to find a new place to live.
DeleteI agree that the environment problem that humans makes damage the nature of birds migration.
DeleteSome birds migrate because they cannot stand the environment in their habitat. The main problem is the climate, usually some birds have to move to different habitat during winter because of the cold weather. In the cold and freezing weather, some birds find it difficult to find food and water and their body systems don't work well. So they have to move to a warmer climate area. Examples of other animals that migrate are whale, wilderbeast and crane. In Thailand, there are some Siberian birds which migrate from Siberia during winter time.
ReplyDeleteSome human activities can disrupt animal migration such as deforestation which leads to global warming and major changes in the earth climate.
I totally agree with your ideas, especially the part about human activities can damage animal's migration. I think this is one of main reason that affected to the migration of every animal species.
DeleteI think the reason why some birds migrate because of the season, their behavior relates a lot to the weather, such as they must move to the warmer place when the winter comes for food.
ReplyDeleteI don't sure about other animal migrate but i think some kinds of fish migrate too.
I think there have some kinds of birds migrate from the Europe to Thailand in winter.
The migration of animal today be effected by a lot of human activities,one example is industrial factories that is the one cause of global warming and that makes birds confuse about the season.
I agree with you about the human activities that effect to the migration of animal and the industrial factories are the good example of these activities.
DeleteI agree with you that global warming make birds confuse about the season.
DeleteWhy do some birds migrate?
ReplyDeleteFrom my point of view, why do the birds migrate is because of the season change so they have to find the new location for live.
What other animals migrate?
There are a lot of animals migrate from somewhere to another places, for example, white bear, birds, etc.
What animals migrate to or from your country?
What human activities can disrupt of interfere with animal movement?
The animal movement can be disrupted of interfere by human activities, for example, a lot of buildings that expand the scope into everywhere will damage the natural environment of many animals.
In my opinion, some birds migrate because the weather in the country which birds live is terrible for living. They will try to find someplace to live or find some food. Moreover, may be it depend on pollution or environment in area that they live. I heard that some birds or whales
ReplyDeletemigrated to my country.
I totally agree with this comment.
DeleteMany species of animal do migrate due to find more suitable condition for living such as water, food, warmer weather, or nesting place. Examples of animal that migrate are bird, seal, and salmon.
ReplyDeleteBird is one of obviously seen migrating animal, but not all of bird do migrate. Some bird that live in temperate to polar zone usually migrate in order to flee from cooler to warmer weather. Also, migration usually occurs during breeding season, because bird parents need to find more suitable place for their nestlings.
However, sometimes, human can be a cause of unusual migration. Human usually make a condition that not suitable for some animal by deforestation, construction, making a habitat loss for those animals. Also, a by-product of global warming make an unusual seasonal change and trigger some animals migration.
I agree with your opinion that the animal not only migrate due to seasonal changing but also for breeding too.
DeleteI totally agree with you. This movement is for surviving.
DeleteMigration is a normal behavior of animals. Some animal migrate because when the season is changed, there might not be enough food for them to stay. For example, when the season change from raining to winter. It is very hard for some animals to find food on this season. So, some animal need to migrate to be able to survive. Birds is another good example for this migration. They might not be able to survive when the season change. There are also more animals that migrate to another place such as Elephant, Tiger and so on.
ReplyDeleteThere are many root cause of the migration. The first one I can think of is the climate change, which might affect these animal to migrate forever. In addition, human is the one who might be a real root cause of the migration including we destroy the forest to establish their habitat, we hunt for food and we might be the main root cause of climate change also. Moreover, human can also disrupt the animal movement because when they move, they need the path which we might already ruin it.
Yes, I totally agree with you and I also think human is the top factor.
DeleteIt is about a weather. Many animals usually migrate to a warmer area in winter because plant can not grow very well in winter. That means many creatures will lack of food source, so they move to a new source. I do not know so much what kinds of animals migrate to my country but bird is one of them definitely. Bird is not an only one animal migrating during the season. Some kinds of fish also have this behavior too. Salmon will migrate between saltwater and freshwater during their breeding season.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, animal hunting can totally interfere their migration. It is a very important problem. It can lead them to extinction.
Some of the birds migrate because it needs to find places where it has a very good environment and appropriate for it to give birth.
ReplyDeleteThe animal that migrate other than some birds are rays, fishes, buffalo etc. and the animal the migrate from my country is birds.
In my opinion, human activities that can disrupt of interfere with animal movement are pollution from cars or some factory and cutting down tree can also cause disruption to the animals.
I agree with you that rays and fish migrate but I don't think that buffaloes also migrate.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete