Questões de Concursos Inglês

So You Want to Be a Space Tourist? Here Are Your Options

by Adam Mann / Jul.21.2017 /11:30 AM ET

Though we’ve been living in the Space Age for more than half a century, going into space remains an extreme rarity. Fewer than 600 people have gone above the Kármán line — the point, about 62 miles above Earth, that marks the beginning of space — and all were put there by the U.S. or another nation's government.

But the rise of private spaceflight companies like Virgin Galactic and Space X means that the final frontier may soon be within reach of a great many more of us. The firms have announced plans to put private astronauts, a.k.a. space tourists, on orbital or suborbital flights within the next few years.

Initially, the cost of a ride on one of these rockets will be hundreds of thousands of dollars at a minimum. That puts the experience within reach of only the wealthiest people. But advances in rocket and capsule design are expected to lower the price to the point that people of more modest fortunes are able to afford a ticket.

Some projections put the global space tourism market at approximately $34 billion by 2021.

What Space Tourists Can Expect

What exactly is in store for space tourists? The excitement of a rocket ride and a chance to experience weightlessness, for starters. And the bragging rights are hard to beat. But some say the biggest benefit of going into space is getting a dramatic new outlook on life on the fragile blue marble we call home. It’s a perspective shift that could have profound implications not just for individuals but also for society at large.

“I personally believe the planetary perspective is going to be crucial to solving humanity’s biggest challenges over the next century,” says Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides. “I’m inspired that we’ll take people up so they can experience that view, which is said to change your world view in a fundamental way.”

Adapted from: https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/so-you-want-be-space-tourist-here-are-your-options-ncna784166

Glossary

weightlessness: ausência de peso; bragging rights: direito de gabar-se; to afford: poder comprar.

Read text I to answer the question.

TEXT I

Teachers in the Movement: Pedagogy, Activism, and Freedom

In this year's Presidential Address, historian Derrick P. Alridge __________ his current research project, Teachers in the Movement: Pedagogy, Activism, and Freedom. The project builds on recent literature about teachers as activists be tween 1950 and 1980 and explores how and what secondary and postsecondary teachers taught. Focusing on teachers in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, the project investigates teachers' roles as agents of social change through teaching the ideals of freedom during the most significant social movement in the United States in the twentieth century. Drawing on oral history and archival research, the project plans to produce five hundred videotaped interviews that will generate extensive firsthand knowledge and fresh perspectives about teachers in the civil rights move ment. By examining teachers' pedagogical activism during this period of rapid social change, Alridge hopes to inspire and inform educators teaching in the midst of today's freedom and social justice movements.

(Disponível em: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1255911)

Leia o texto para responder à questão.

Building on the professional consensus that no method could claim supremacy, Prabhu (1990) asks why there is no best method. He suggests that there are three possible explanations: (1) different methods are best for different teaching / learning circumstances; (2) all methods have some truth or validity; and (3) the whole notion of what is a good or a bad method is irrelevant. Prabhu argues for the third possibility and concludes that we need to rethink what is “best” such that classroom teachers and applied linguists can develop shared pedagogical perceptions of what real-world classroom teaching is.

H.D. Brown (2002), in his critique of methods, adds the following two observations: (1) so-called designer methods seem distinctive at the initial stage of learning but soon come to look like any other learner centered approach; and (2) it has proven impossible to empirically (i.e., quantitatively) demonstrate the superiority of one method over another. Brown (2002) concludes that classroom teachers do best when they ground their pedagogy in “well-established principles of language teaching and learning” (p.17).

So what are these well-established principles that teachers should apply in the post methods era? One of the early concrete proposals comes from Kamaravadivelu (1994), who offers a framework consisting of 10 macro strategies, some of which are summarized below:

– Maximize learning opportunities. The teacher’s job is not to transmit knowledge but to create and manage as many learning opportunities as possible.

– Facilitate negotiated interaction. Learners should initiate classroom talk (not just respond to the teacher’s prompts) by asking for clarification, by confirming, by reacting, and so on, as part of teacher-student and student-student interaction.

– Activate intuitive heuristics. Teachers should provide enough data for learners to infer underlying grammatical rules, since it is impossible to explicitly teach all rules of the L2.

– Integrate language skills. The separation of listening, reading, speaking, and writing is artificial. As in the real-world, learners should integrate skills: conversation (listening and speaking), note-taking (listening and writing), self-study (reading and writing), and so on.

– Raise cultural consciousness. Teachers should allow learners to become sources of cultural information so that knowledge about the culture of the L2 and of other cultures (especially those represented by the students) becomes part of classroom communication.

– Ensure social relevance: acknowledge that language learning has social, political, economic, and educational dimensions that shape the motivation to learn the L2, determine the uses to which the L2 will be put, and define the skills and proficiency level needed in the L2.

(Celce-Murcia, M. 2001. Adaptado)

Read text II to answer question:

TEXT II

"Schön’s work has restructured how professionals conceive their practice and how they go about learning from ex perience. At the very heart of Schön’s theory lies reflection in action; that is, professionals are supposed to learn, not just to reflect after the fact but amidst action. Indeed, this approach to learning and professional development has been a central cornerstone of the training and education of practitioners across many fields. Schön defines reflection as the ability of pro fessionals to examine their actions and decisions to understand and practice with effectiveness better. The theorist is based on two major types of reflection: reflection in action and reflection on action”.

(Adapted from : https://acadfundu.com/what-is-donald-schons-theory-of-reflective-practice/)

Read this text to answer questions 24, 25 and 26.

In today's dynamic job market, various skills are highly valued by employers, such as effective communication, problem-solving, and adaptability. As well, technical proficiency is often a prerequisite for many positions. It is crucial for individuals to continuously enhance their skills, whether through formal education or self-directed learning. As the professional landscape evolves, staying abreast of industry trends and emerging technologies is essential. It's not only about acquiring new knowledge but also applying it in real-world scenarios. Embracing a diverse skill set, such as both soft skills and technical expertise, can significantly enhance one's employability. As well, cultivating a proactive and collaborative mindset is instrumental in navigating the challenges of the contemporary workplace.

Re-Planting a Forest, One Drone at a Time

That funny little buzz you hear in the forest may not just be the hum of summer insects. In the near future it could be a small fleet of drones, coming to replant and restore forests that have been stripped of trees by industrial-scale deforestation. It’s all part of an ambitious plan by BioCarbon Engineering, a U.K.-based startup on a global mission to battle widespread clear-cutting, which strips more than 26 billion trees off the planet each year. CEO Lauren Fletcher, who spent 20 years as an engineer with NASA, says the only way to fight industrial-scale deforestation is with industrial-scale reforestation. Their idea: plant 1 billion trees a year. The first targets are in South Africa and the Amazonian jungles, both of which have suffered from widespread forest eradication.

BioCarbon’s reforestation scheme is simple and efficient. Here’s a quick look at how it plans to deploy its drone fleet:

1 Do a 3-D aerial survey. First, drones are sent to fly over a potential planting zone, snapping photos that create 3-D maps of the area to be reforested. The number of drones will vary depending up on the size of the seeding.

2 Create a seeding plan. Once all that terrain data has been analyzed, it then generates a seeding pattern that best suits the terrain.

3 Load the seed pods. The drones, which are equipped with guidance and control software, carry pressurized canisters of seed pods with germinated seeds immersed in a nutrient-rich gel.

4 Hover and plant. Flying at a height of 1 or 2 meters, the drones follow the planting patterns, firing the biodegradable seed pods down to the ground. The pods break open upon impact, allowing the germinated seed a chance to take root.

5 Monitor growth. After planting, the drones do low-level flights to assess the health of the sprouts and saplings.

Such “precision forestry,” as BioCarbon calls it, is extremely efficient. A farmer might hand plant as many as 3,000 seeds a day; Fletcher says his drones can drop up to 36,000 seed pods daily, often in areas where a human can’t reach. Working with local ecologists, BioCarbon will use the drones to spread a variety of tree species, as well as microorganisms and fungi designed to improve the soil quality. “The central focus is ecosystem restoration,” Fletcher says.

On a planetary climatological scale, Morton notes that “tropical deforestation plays a big role in global climate cycles,” claiming the accelerated pace of cutting and burning of forests accounted for 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the 1990s. Fletcher and his team want to help reverse that trend. “By planting at the scale we’re looking at,” he says, “we can make a real longterm impact. We hope to do a lot of good in the world.”

(Adapted from https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/07/re-planting-forest-one-drone-time/. Access on 22/8/2017)