Unit 1Great scientistsBrief Statements Based on This UnitThis unit centers on Great scientists, including some scientists both at home and abroad like John Snow and Copernicus.The students should be encouraged to practise talking about these scientists.The whole unit can be divided into seven parts: warming up, reading, listening and speaking, language focusing, reading and writing, grammar, and assessment.In warming up, there is a quiz for the students to do, which will arouse the students’ interest in knowing about the famous scientists and help the students to know science is very important in our daily life.Group discussion and brainstorming will be used in this period to help the students to communicate with each other using their previous knowledge.In the reading passage, the students will learn about John Snow, who defeats“King Cholera”, and get a general idea about how to examine a new scientific idea.This will help the students to form their own attitude towards science.In learning about language, the students are encouraged to learn the following words and expressions: engine, characteristic, radium, theory, scientific, examine, conclude, analyze repeat, defeat, attend, expose, cure, control, absorb, severe, valuable, blame, immediately, handle, announce, instruct, virus, construction, contribute, positive, movement, backward, complete, enthusiastic, spin, reject, view, steam engine, put forward, draw a conclusion, in addition, link...to..., be strict with, lead to, make sense, point of view.While practising using the language, the students will learn about Copernicus’ Revolutionary Theory, and their skills of reading, speaking and writing will be improved.In listening and speaking, more chances will be given to the students to learn about other scientists and their spirit.The students are encouraged to make up their mind to make contributions to science.The students will be asked to write a letter to Copernicus on the basis of the understanding of the text.The letters are sure to be full of imagination and creativity.Assessment will help the students to look back what they have learned and focus on the difficult and important points.So, this unit will be divided into seven periods as follows:Period 1Welcome to the UnitPeriod 2ReadingPeriod 3Listening and SpeakingPeriod 4Reading and WritingPeriod 5 GrammarPeriod 6Language FocusingPeriod 7AssessmentKnowledge aims:Key words in this unit: engine, characteristic, radium, theory, scientific, examine, conclude, analyze, repeat, defeat, attend, expose, cure, control, absorb, severe, valuable, blame, immediately, handle, announce, instruct, virus, construction, contribute, positive, movement, backward, complete, enthusiastic, spin, reject, view.Key phrases in this unit: put forward, know about, look into, in addition, prevent sth.fromdoing, lead to, make sense, punish sb.for, suggest doing sth.steam engine, draw a conclusion, link...to..., be strict with, lead to, point of view.Key sentence patterns:1 But he became inspired when he thought about helping ordinary people exposed to cholera.2 He got interested in two theories explaining how cholera killed people.3 Only if you put the sun there did the movements of the other planets in the sky make sense.Grammar in this unit:Past participle used as attribute and predicativeAbility aims:1.To talk about great scientists and their great achievements.2.To guess what will be talked about in the listening materials.3.To improve their reading skills.4.To learn to use past participle as attribute and predicative.Emotion aims:To encourage the students to learn about some great scientists and their great achievements and how science helps to improve our society and change our life.Meanwhile, inspire the students to learn from the scientists and form their positive attitude towards science.Period 1Welcome to the UnitThe General Idea of This PeriodThe uni t centers on“great scientists”.This is the first period of this unit.During this period, the students should be encouraged to give their previous knowledge of some of the famous scientists, participate in the activities in class and try to get more information from the discussion.They will take part in different forms of activities, including pair work, group work, competition, and quiz.Group competition will be carried out all through the class.Words and expressions in this unit will help the students to talk about the topic“great scientists”.So at the beginning of this period, the teacher should spend some time training the students to read them and help the students pronounce them correctly.The students are encouraged to learn the new words in groups by themselves, using dictionaries and other reference books.Then more time should be given to the students to get familiar with the words and stly, several sentences will be given to the students to help them to know how to use some of the phrases.This unit is about“great scientists”, so from the very beginning, the teacher can encourage the students talk about their dreams in the future.Then the teacher can let the students brainstorm something about great scientists.The students are free to say anything that they know.The students will be quite interested in this topic.This activity gives the students a chance to express their feelings about their favorite scientist.At the same time, this activity can stir the students’ enthusiasm in science.Then the teacher can have the students match the famous scientists with their discoveries, inventions or theories, making sure that they have some common sense about some world-famous scientists.Later the students will be divided into several groups, describe one of the great scientists and let other students guess who he or she is talking about.In this way, the students should learn to organize their own sentences and express their ideas clearly.After that, the students will feel comfortable to do the quiz in the text.The students should beencouraged to give more information about these ten scientists.Meanwhile, the students’ interest in scientists and science should be cultivated.So two topic discussion questions, as well as the practice exercises are designed.The post-class activities are designed to arouse the students’ interest in science and encourage them to“DIY—do it yourself” in their daily life if they have some doubt in some areas.T eaching Important PointsHave the students discuss great scientists.Encourage the students to hold their views about their future career.Understand and learn the following words and expressions: engine, characteristic, radium, theory, scientific, examine, conclude, analyse, repeat, defeat, attend, expose, cure, control, absorb, severe, valuable, blame, immediately, handle, announce, instruct, virus, construction, contribute, positive, movement, backward, complete, enthusiastic, spin, reject, view, steam engine, put forward, draw a conclusion, in addition, link...to..., be strict with, lead to, make sense, point of view.T eaching DifficultiesWhat can we learn from the scientists?What should we do in our daily life to develop our interest and love for science?T eaching AidsCAI equipment with a Multi-media classroom and other normal teaching tools.Three Dimensional T eaching AimsKnowledge AimsLearn something about some famous scientists in the world.Know about the outstanding discoveries, inventions and theories from some well-known scientists.Try to understand and learn the important words and expressions.Ability AimsDevelop the students’ ability of speaking.Encourage the students to give more information about the great scientists.Emotional AimsEncourage the students to learn more about the great scientists and learn from them.Help the students to form the good habit in learning and encourage the students to take part in social practice.Help the students to realize that it is scientific spirit that makes those scientists successful.Encourage the students to develop their love for science.T eaching ProcedureStep 1 GreetingTeacher: Hello, everyone.Teacher: Hello, Mr.../Ms...Step 2 Lead inT: I’m very glad to see you all here.After a long holiday, all of you look energetic and happy.I hope that we will work hard together happily all through the year.I do believe that a bright future is waiting for you.We are sure to realize our dreams in the near future.By the way, I’d like to know what you would like to be in the future.Let me share your dreams.Anyone who gives your idea will get a star for your group.Ready?Go!S: I admire Y ang Liwei very much, who is a great honour to our motherland.I’d like to be an astronaut like him.T: Y eah, the spacecraft, Shenzhou V, orbited the earth 14 times in 21 hours, making China the third country to have successfully sent an astronaut into space.I hope you will realize your dream.S: I want to be a doctor.I hope I’ll be an outstanding one and be expert in finding cures for different kinds of cancers.T: That’s a good idea.There are so many patients with cancers in the world, who are suff ering a lot.Thank you!S: I want to be an English teacher like you.For one thing, I like English very much; for another, you are not only strict with us but also patient with us.Y ou are just our friends and maybe more than our friends sometimes.T: I’m really glad to hear that.It’s my great honor to be your friends and I like my job very much.S: I’d like to be an expert in environment.Y ou see, with the development of industry, our globe is seriously polluted.Dirty water, polluted air, and loud noise make our living conditions worse.I think we should leave a beautiful world to the next generation.T: Y es, someone predicted that the last drop of water in the world would be the tear of human being’s.I think all of us should pay attention to our environment, and make our contributions to improving the environment.S: I’m so interested in physics.And I have read Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time twice.I hope I will be a scientist like him.As we all know, the development of our society will go hand in hand with the development of science.T: Y eah, I can’t agree with you more.Science plays an i mportant part in the development of our society.There are so many examples in the history of human beings.Ss: ...T: I’m so glad to share your dreams.Y our ambition and careful thoughts really leave a good and amazing impression on me.I like them.In this unit, you will learn something about“Great scientists”.Maybe you will know what you need in your efforts to realize your dreams after we talk about some world-famous scientists.Before we come to“Warming up”, I’d like you to come to the new words in this unit, which will help you to learn this unit.Step 3 Word puzzlesT: Open your books and turn to Page 92.Let’s read the words and expressions together.(Let the students read the words and expressions together.Help them pronounce the new words and expressions ter give them some time to practise reading and remember some easy and important ones.Give more help to those who are poor in pronunciation.) T: Here are some definitions of some of the words from this unit.Please work in pairs and match the words with their definitions.(group competition)Words Definitions or explanationsA.examine 1.general principles of an art or scienceB.repeat 2.say or do againC.theory 3.at once; without delayD.immediately 4.look at...carefully in order to learn about or from...plete 5.of great value, worth or useF.valuable 6.having all its parts; whole; finishedG.announce 7.make knownH.control e or bring to an endI.positive 9.power to order or directJ.conclude 10.quite certain or sureT: Now, let’s check the answers.A—4, B—2, C—1, D—3, E—6, F—5, G—7, H—9, I—10, J—8. Y ou have done a good job.I will give you some more minutes to go over all the words and expressions and then fill in the blanks with proper forms of some of them from this unit.1.“All roads lead to Rome, ”he encouraged me after I failed the entrance examination.2.This sentence doesn’t make any sense.3.Our English teacher is not only strict with us but also friendly to us.4.He is good-looking, apart from his nose.5.It is announced that the spacecraft, Shenzhou Ⅵ, landed on the earth successfully.6.It is not Tom but you who are to blame.7.In 1995, the Chinese government put forward a plan for“rejuvenating the nation by relying on science and education”.And it has helped Chinese scientists make m any breakthroughs.8.Have you drawn any conclusion after you read this passage?T: Well done.So much for the learning of the new words and expressions.Step 4 BrainstormingT: Now let’s come to the title of this unit Great scientists.When we talk about g reat scientists, what will come into your mind(s)?We will go on our competition.S1: Madame Curie, who got two Nobel Prizes, one for physics and the other for chemistry, is really outstanding among all the women scientists.S2: It reminds me of the great inventor named Thomas Alva Edison and one of his famous sayings“Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”S3: Y es, we lead a better life now with the help of science.Without Edison, maybe now we are still living in a dark world.They really make our life easier and more comfortable.S4: I also think of one of the quotes from Albert Einstein, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”S5: All the scientists are devoted to the career that they choose, and they set good examples to us in our work.S6: Take all the scientists for example, if we want to be successful in the future, we should not only learn something from our textbooks, but also take part in social practice and get close to nature to learn more about it.S7: I like plants very much.I just think of the two key scientists in the field of botany, Carl Linnaeus and Joseph Banks.The former one laid the foundation for the classification of plants, while the latter one also made great contributions to the development and direction of botany.Ss: ...T: I’m glad to see that you have a great deal of previous knowledge of famous scientists in the world.Step 5 Previous knowledgeT: Now let’s match some of the great scientists with their famous discoveries, inventions or theories.Let me see who is the quickest in mind and action and can get all the answers correct.Famous scientists Discoveries/Inventions/TheoriesA.Isaac Newton 1.Evolution (进化论)B.Charles Darwin 2.Discovery of Radium（镭）C.Madame Curie 3.Newton’s LawD.Albert Einstein 4.Electric bulbE.Thomas Alva Edison 5.Theory of RelativityF.Nicolaus Copernicus 6.SeismographG.Stephen Hawking7.A Brief History of TimeH.Zhang Heng8.The earth moves around the sun.(Check the answers with all the students: A—3, B—1, C—2, D—5, E—4, F—8, G—7, H—6.)T: Since you have a better understanding of some of the great scientists, let’s play a game. Please work in groups and describe one of the great scientists, and then let other students guess who you are talking about.Group 1: In the eighteenth century, there lived a great scientist who conducted a number of experiments in which he showed what electricity is.Once he did a famous kite experiment on a stormy day, and proved that lightening and electricity are the same thing.S: Benjamin Franklin.Group 2: It is said that this English gentleman was sitting in his garden one day when suddenly he was hit by a falling apple.The story is probably not true, but this man did mention that he got one of his best-known ideas while watching apples fall from a tree.His name makes you think that he was not too interested in old things.He discovered the force of gravity, and he drew up a system of how objects move.His laws for motion are still used in physics today, at least in schools and universities.S: Sir Issac Newton.Group 3:Food is what sets this great mind on fire.Rice, to be exact.This great mind has spent most of his life looking for ways to help farmers grow more rice so that all of us will have enough food to eat.He is known as the father of modern rice, but because of his long friendship with all the farmers in China, he w ould rather be known as“the farmer”.S: Y uan Longping.Group 4:He was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford, England.He has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe.He showed that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes.He has three popular books published: his best seller A Brief History of Time, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays and most recently in 2001, The Universe in a Nutshell.S: Stephen Hawking.Ss: ...T: Well done.Step 6 QuizT: Y ou have already known some information about some of the great scientists.Now let’s do a quiz, trying to find out who these scientists are.Quiz Questions1.Which scientist discovered that objects in water are lifted up by a force that helps them float?2.Who wrote a book explaining how animals and plants developed as the environment changed?3.Who invented the first steam engine?4.Who used peas to show how physical characteristics are passed form parents to their children?5.Who discovered radium?6.Who invented the way of giving electricity to everybody in large cities?7.Who was the painter that studied dead bodies to improve his painting of people?8.Who invented a lamp to keep miners safe underground?9.Who invented the earliest instrument to tell people where earthquakes happened?10.Who put forward a theory about black holes?Check the answers with the students.1.Archimedes2.Charles Darwin3.James Watt4.Gregor Mendel5.Madame Curie6.Faraday7.Leonardo davinci8.Humphrey Davy9.Zhang Heng 10.Stephen HawkingT: Please work in groups and have a discussion to find as much information as possible about these ten great scientists.(The teacher had better join in the discussion and give them some guidance whenever necessary.After the discussion, ask some students to give a short report about what the group have discussed.)(Refer to the information about these scientists below, and various answers are possible.) Step 7 PracticeT: Today we have learned a lot about great scientists in the world.We can learn from them to live our dreams.And we teachers are too willing to help you.In your opinion, what should our school /teachers/students do to tap the students’ potential?S: Our school should give the students more chances to take part in social practice.S: Our teachers should help the students use their imaginations.S: We students should solve the problems on our own.(Ask more students to give their opinions.The teacher should encourage them, join them, praise them, and make comments on their ideas.)Step 8 Discussion (Group Competition)T: Y our ideas are so wonderful and amazing.I admire them very much.Now let’s come to our topic.Topic 1: What can you learn from these scientists?Topic 2: What qualities should we have to be a successful man?(Give the students several minutes to have a discussion.Then let them have a group competition.)Step 9 Summing upT: In this period, we have talked a lot about great scientists.Y ou have a lot of previous knowledge and you are full of imagination and creativity.Those scientists set good examples to us.And I think all of us are happy about learning more of them.After class, it’s better to read some books about them and you can surf the Internet to get more information.And I’d like you to ma ke a“Scientists Album”in the following week.The Design of the Writing on the BlackboardUnit 1Great scientistsPeriod 1Welcome to the UnitBrainstormingResearch and ActivitiesDIY1.Cover a glass of water with a piece of thick paper.Put one hand on the paper and turn the glass upside down.Slowly take your hand away.What happens?Why?2.Fill one glass with fresh water and another glass with salt water. Put an ice cube in each glass.What happens?Why?3.Find out as many famous sayings from those scientists as possible.Reference for T eaching1.Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury(shropshire) to a moderately wealthy family with a strong intellectual heritage.His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a physician, poet and biologist who laid some of the gr oundwork for the grandson’s revolutionary ideas.Charles attended Christ’s College at Cambridge with initial thoughts of entering the clergy, but soon took up studies in biology, zoology and geology.From 1831 to 1836, he served as a naturalist aboard the HMS Beagle on its scientific mission to South America and the Pacific.Back in England, he published a series of scientific treatises which established his reputation as one of the prominent thinkers of his day.From 1842 onwards, he lived on a country estate in Kent and pursued his studies among its gardens and livestock.By 1844, he had written the initial draft of his groundbreaking treatise on evolution and natural selection.However, he left this work unpublished for several years, preferring to refine and elaborate its core ideas.In 1858, he read a forthcoming paper by a fellow scientist Alfred Russell Wallace whose thesis closely paralleled Darwin’s own unpublished ideas, an event which pushed Darwin to go public with his own research.Both Wallace’s and Darwin’s papers were presented to the Linnean Society in a famous July, 1858 meeting. Darwin published The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859, sparking decades of contentious debate which ultimately led to the universal scientific recog nition of Darwin’s thesis.In later years, he developed his ideas further in monographs on different types of plant and animal life.Notes:Shrewsbury: 什鲁斯伯里[英国英格兰西部城市]physician: 内科医生(注意区分physicist, 物理学家)revolutionary: 创新的HMS: （英国）皇家海军舰船(Her/His M ajesty’s Ship)treatises: 论文2.Stephen William Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 (300 years after the death of Galileo) in Oxford, England.His parents’ house was in north London, but during the Second World WarOxford was considered a safer place to have babies.When he was eight, his family moved to St Albans, a town about 20 miles north of London.At eleven Stephen went to St Albans School, and then on to University College, Oxford, his father’s old college. Stephen wanted to do Mathematics, although his father would have preferred medicine.Mathematics was not available at University College, so he did Physics instead.After three years and not very much work he was awarded a first class honours degree in Natural Science.Stephen then went on to Cambridge to do research in Cosmology, there being no-one working in that area in Oxford at the time.His supervisor was Denis Sciama, although he had hoped to get Fred Hoyle who was working in Cambridge.After gaining his Ph.D.he became first a Research Fellow, and later on a Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College.After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973 Stephen came to the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and since 1979 has held the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematic s.The chair was founded in 1663 with money left in the will of the Reverend Henry Lucas, who had been the Member of Parliament for the University.It was first held by Isaac Barrow, and then in 1663 by Isaac Newton.Stephen Hawking has worked on the basic laws which govern the universe.With Roger Penrose he showed that Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity implied space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang and an end in black holes.These results indicated it was necessary to unify General Relativity with Quantum Theory, the other great Scientific development of the first half of the 20th Century.One consequence of such a unification that he discovered was that black holes should not be completely black, but should emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear.Another conjecture is that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time.This would imply that the way the universe began was completely determined by the laws of science.His many publications include The Large Scale Structure of Spacetime with G F R Ellis, General Relativity: An Einstein Centenary Survey, with W Israel, and 300 Y ears of Gravity, with W Israel.Stephen Hawking has two popular books published: his best seller A Brief History of Time, and his later book, Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays.Professor Hawking has twelve honorary degrees, was awarded the CBE in 1982, and was made a Companion of Honour in 1989.He is the recipient of many awards, medals and prizes and is a Fellow of The Royal Society and a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences.Stephen Hawking continues to combine family life (he has three children and one grandchild), and his research into theoretical physics together with an extensive programme of travel and public lectures.3.Humphry Davy, a woodcarver’s son, was born in Penzance in 1778. After being educated in Truro, Davy was apprenticed to a Penzance surgeon.In 1797 he took up chemistry and was taken on by Thomas Beddoes, as an assistant at his Medical Pneumatic Institution in Bristol.Here he experimented with various new gases and discovered the anesthetic effect of laughing gas (nitrous oxide).Davy published details of his research in his book Researches, Chemical and Philosophical (1799).This led to Davy being appointed as a lecturer at the Royal Institution.He was a talented teacher and his lectures attracted large audiences.In 1806 Davy published On Some Chemical Agencies of Electricity. The following year he discovered that the alkalis and alkaline earths are compound substances formed by oxygen unitedwith metallic bases.He also used electrolysis to discover new metals such as potassium, sodium, barium, strontium, calcium and magnesium.Davy was now considered to be Britain’s leading scientist and in 1812 was knight ed by George Ⅲ.With his assistant, Michael Faraday, Davy travelled abroad investigating his theory of volcanic action.In 1815 Humphry Davy invented a safety lamp for use in gassy coalmines, allowing deep coal seams to be mined despite the presence of firedamp (methane).This led to some controversy as George Stephenson, working in a colliery near Newcastle, also produced a safety lamp that year.Both men claimed that they were first to come up with this invention.One of Davy’s most important contributions to history was that he encourage manufacturers to take a scientific approach to production.His discoveries in chemistry helped to improve several industries including agriculture, mining and tanning.Sir Humphry Davy died in 1829.4.Leonardo da Vinci(b.1452, Vinci, Republic of Florence [now in Italy]—d.May 2, 1519, Cloux, Fr.), Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.His Last Suppe (1495-1497) and Mona Lisa (1503-1506) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance.His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of his time.5.Madam Curie is a French professor of physics.She was born in Poland in 1867.In 1891 she went to study in Paris University because at that time women were not admitted to universities in Poland.When she was studying in Paris, she lived a poor life, but she worked very hard.In 1895 she married Pierre Curie, and then they worked together on the research into radioactive matter.They discovered two kinds of radioactive matter—polonium and radium.In 1904 she and her husband were given the Nobel Prize for physics.In 1906 Pierre died, but Marie went on working.She received a second Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911.So she became the first scientist in the world to win two Nobel Prizes.6.James Watt: British engineer and inventor who made fundamental improvements in the steam engine, resulting in the modern, high-pressure steam engine (patented 1769).7.Gregor Mendel was an Austrian botanist and founder of the science of genetics.Through years of experiments with plants, chiefly garden peas, he discovered the principle of the inheritance of characteristics through the combination of genes from parent cells.8.Archimedes: Greek mathematician, engineer, and physicist.Among the most important intellectual figures of antiquity, he discovered formulas for the area and volume of various geometric figures, applied geometry to hydrostatics and mechanics, devised numerous ingenious mechanisms, such as the Archimedean screw, and discovered the principle of buoyancy.9.Michael Faraday (September 22, 1791—August 25, 1867) was a British scientist(a physicist and chemist) who contributed significantly to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. He also invented the earliest form of the device that was to become the Bunsen burner, which is used almost universally in science laboratories as a convenient source of heat.Michael Faraday was one of the great scientists in history.Some historians of science refer to him as the greatest experimentalist in the history of science.It was largely due to his efforts that electricity became a viable technology.The SI unit of capacitance, the farad(symbol F) is named after him.。
