People are rapidly destroying the world's rain forests. In 1950, rain forests covered about 8,700,000 square miles (22,533,000 square km) of the earth. This area would cover about three-quarters of Africa. Today,
From a hazy mixture of history and legend, we learn that China's first ruling family was the Hsia. The legendary first emperors are said to have tamed the rivers, so that farmers could grow millet and wheat. The
In the AD 500s, an Italian named Benedict of Nursia drew up a set of rules for monks (or people in monasteries). All monks must be poor, unmarried and obedient. Monks wore simple robes, shaved their
Rome grew from a small kingdom in Italy. It became a republic and one of the mightiest empires of the ancient world, with an empire stretching the length of the Mediterranean Sea. At its peak, the Roman Empire
Egyptian picture-writing is known as HIEROGLYPHICS. This language is made up of about 750 signs, with pictures of people, animals and objects. until hieroglyphics was deciphered in modern times, it was not known that most of the picture represented sounds and syllables, not whole words. Scribes used a quick form of writing which was called hieratic. The Egyptians were also good in maths, particularly geometry, which they use in architecture and surveying. They drew up an accurate 12-month calendar of 365 days, and used water clocks to measure time.
More than 5,000 years ago Europeans were building spectacular stone monuments. Many of these are still standing today, as mysterious relics of a long-gone society. The huge stones that were used are called megaliths
Climate is what the weather pattern is like over a long time. The seasonal pattern of hot and cold, wet or dry, is averaged over 30 years. The climate is different around the world as it is not heated evenly by the
WHAT SHAPES THE COASTS?
Coastlines are constantly changing: they are either being eroded or built up. The waves are very powerful and can remove a large amount of material from a coastline, specially during a storm. The sand and pebbles removed from the coastline are carried by the sea and can be dropped further along a coast or out at sea. Many coastal features can be made by steady erosion of the cliffs and headlands such as sand dunes, spits and salt marshes. A beach can make the waves less powerful and reduce the amount erosion of the coast. Steep cliffs and wave-cut platforms can be formed in areas of hard rock. A bay can be carved out in an area where hard rock between it.
River start on the top of hills as small streams channelling the rainfall or as a spring releasing ground water. They begin to cut at and change the landscape on the way to the sea. In the highlands the water can move
Over 10,000 years ago about a third of the land surface was covered by ice. Today a tenth is still covered in ice. Ice sheets can cover very large areas and can be very thick. The world's largest ice sheet covers most of
Glacier begin to from when more snow falls during the winter than melts and evaporates in summer. The excess snow gradually builds up in layer. its increasing weight causes the snow crystals under the surface to
After a rainfall, water fills the stream channels called wadi 1. The rapidly flowing water cuts away the rocks of desert mountains and carries sediments created fan-shaped known as alluvial fans 2. Sometimes, the streams carry water into low areas in the desert plains and form into temporary lakes. The water that collects in these lakes either evaporates or seeps into the ground. Water erosion also creates big flat-topped hills known as mesas 3. and smaller flat-topped hills called buttes 4.
Erosion is the natural process by which rock are broken loose from the Earth,s surface at one location and moved to another. Erosion changes land by wearing down mountains, filling in valleys, and making rivers
The continental margins forms the part of the seabed that borders the continents. It consist of (1) the continental sheft, (2) the continental slope, and (3) the continental rise. The continental shelf is submerged
The bottom of the ocean has feature has varied as those on land. Huge plains spread out across the ocean floor, and long mountain chains rise toward the surface. Volcanoes erupt from ocean bottom, and deep
Plate tectonics is a theory that explains the origin of most of the major features of the Earth's surface. For example, the theory tells us why most volcanoes occur where they do, why there are high ridges and deep trenches in the oceans, and how mountains form. According to this theory, the Earth has an outer shell made up of about 30 rigid pieces called tectonic plates. Some of these plates are gigantic. For instance, most of Pacific Ocean covers a single plate. The plates move about on a layer of rock that is so hot it flows, even though it remains solid. They move at speeds up to about 4 inches (10 cm) per year.
WHAT DID THE CONTINENTS USED TO LOOK LIKE?
When the Earth formed, the lighter elements floated to the surface where they cooled to form a crust. Although the first rock were formed over 3,500 years ago they have not stayed the same. They have been changed from forces on the inside and the outside of the Earth. The coastlines on each side of the Atlantic appear to have a jigsaw fit. It is thought that all the land masses were once joined together forming a super continent called PANGAEA. This split up to form the continents we know today.
WHAT ARE OCEAN TRENCHES?
Trenches are the deepest parts of the ocean. Many renches occur in the Pacific Ocean, especialy its in wesstern portion. Most trenches are long, narrow, and deep, 2 to 2.5 miles (3 to 4 km) below the the surrounding sea floor. The greaest depth anywhere in the ocean is found in the Mariana Trench southeast of Japan. It pluges more than 6.8 miles (11km) below sea level. Frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur along the trenches.
WHAT DEFINES A DAY?
For early peoples, the only changes that were truly regular, were the motion of the objects in the sky. The obvious of these changes was the alternate daylight and darkness, caused by the rising and setting of the sun. Each of these cycles of the sun came to be called a day. Another regular change in the sky was the change in the visible shape of the moon . Each cycle of the moon's changing shape takes about 291/2 days, or a month. The cycle of the seasons gave people and even longer unit of time. There is no longer change in the sky that lasts seven days, to represent the week. The seven-day week jewish custom of observing a sabbath (day of rest) every seventh day. The division of a day into 24 hours , an hour into 60 minutes, and a minute into 60 seconds probably came from ancient babylonians.
FACT FILE
Some clock faces are divided into 24 hours. On such a clock, 9 a.m.
would be shown as 0900 and 4 pm would be 1600. this system avoids
confusion between the morning and evening hours.
WHAT IS THE DEPTH OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN?
The pacific ocean, the largest and deepest of the world's four oceans, covers more than a third of the earth's surface and contains more than half of its free water. The floor of the pacific ocean, Which has an average depth of around 14,000 feet (4,300), is largrly a deep-sea plain. The name Pacific, which means peaceful, was given o it by portueguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan in 1520. The pacific is the oldest of the existing ocean basins, its oldest rocks having been dated at 200 million years. The Pacific Ocean is bounded on the east by the north and south American continents; on the north by the Bering strait; on the west by Asia, the Malay Archipelago, and Australia; and on the south by Antartica.
WHAT CAUSES TIDES?OUR WORLD?
Tides are the periodic rise and fall of all oceans,
caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon. The moon's
pull on the earth draws the ocean water towards the Moon,
making the water form a huge swell. This is known as a high tide.
Water closet to the Moon will always be the point of the highest tide.
as the Earth spins around, different oceans become the closet stretch of water
to the moon. This is why all oceans and seas have different points of high
tide at different times of the day or night.
FACT FILE
Spring tides are tides with unusually
high ranges twice per month when the
Sun,Earth, and Moon are in line.
They can be especially high in the
spring and autumn.
high ranges twice per month when the
Sun,Earth, and Moon are in line.
They can be especially high in the
spring and autumn.
WHAT ARE MOLLUSCS?
WHAT IS INSIDE THE STOMACH?
If you did not have a stomach you could not eat just two or three main
mails each day. You would have to eat lots of tiny ones much more
frequently. The stomach is like a stretchy storage bag for food. It
expands to hold a whole meal. Then the layer of muscle in its walls
contract to make it squeeze, first one way, then the other. Meanwhile
tiny glands in the stomach lining release their digestive chemicals,
including powerful food-corroding acid and strong nutrient-splitting
enzymes. Under this combined physical and chemical attack, after a few
hours the has become a mushy, part-digested soup. Around two to four
hours after arriving in your stomach, The part-digested soup begins to
leave. Small amounts trickle regularly from the stomach into the next
section of the digestive tract the small intestine.
Everything you eat has to be chopped up the broken before the nutrients
or goodness in it can be taken into your blood and used by your body
cell to make energy. This chopping up and breaking down takes place in
your digestive system, or gut. Digestion begins with the first bite. In
your mouth the food is chopped up and chewed by your teeth and mixed
with saliva. Your tongue pushes and kneads the food into the ball. This
ball of food is then pushed down a short tube called the oesophagus to
your stomach. The food leaves to your stomach a little at a time and
goes into your small intestine. This is where most of the digestion
takes place. Undigested food continues on to large intestine, where
water is taken from it, before travelling to the last part of your
intestine, the rectum.
