2015年10月11日
第一篇
题材划分： 动物类
主要内容：海洋动物由于在水中生活，而水的导热性更强，所以动物在水里需要比较在空气中更好的internal heat。接下来详细的讲解了海洋中的哺乳动物如何来维持身体温度。首先，需要有庞大的体积，海洋动物很少会有小的体型，因为对于大型动物来讲，暴露在水中的皮肤占的体积比率比小型动物低。然后，不同温度地区的海洋动物皮脂厚度不同，whale的皮脂最厚，polar生物比tropical生物的皮脂更厚些，这可以帮助减少内部热量的散发。
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TPO15 A Warm-Blooded Turtle
相关背景知识：
Warm-blooded creatures, like mammals and birds, try to keep the inside of their bodies at a constant temperature. They do this by generating their own heat when they are in a cooler environment, and by cooling themselves when they are in a hotter environment. To generate heat, warm-blooded animals convert the food that they eat into energy. They have to eat a lot of food, compared with cold-blooded animals, to maintain a constant body temperature. Only a small amount of the food that a warm-blooded animal eats is converted into body mass. The rest is used to fuel a constant body temperature.
To stay cool, warm-blooded animals sweat or pant to loose heat by water evaporation. They can also cool off by moving into a shaded area or by getting wet. Only mammals can sweat. Primates, such as humans, apes and monkey, have sweat glands all over their bodies. Dogs and cats have sweat glands only on their feet. Whales are mammals who have no sweat glands, but then since they live in the water, they don't really need them. Large mammals can have difficulty cooling down if they get overheated. This is why elephants, for example, have large, thin ears which loose heat quickly. Mammals have hair, fur or blubber, and birds have feathers to help keep them warm. Many mammals have thick coats of fur which keep them warm in winter. They shed much of this fur in the summer to help them cool off and maintain their body temperature. Warm-blooded animals can also shiver to generate more heat when they get too cold. Some warm-blooded animals, especially birds, migrate from colder to warmer regions in the winter.
There are many advantages to being warm-blooded. Warm-blooded animals can remain active in cold environments in which cold-blooded animals can hardly move. Warm-blooded animals can live in almost any surface environment on Earth, like in arctic regions or on high mountains where most cold-blooded animals would have difficulty surviving. Warm-blooded animals can remain active, seek food, and defend themselves in a wide range of outdoor temperatures. Cold-blooded animals can only do this when they are warm enough. A cold-blooded animal's level of activity depends upon the temperature of its surroundings. A reptile, for example, will increase its body temperature before hunting and is better able to escape predators when it is warm. Cold-blooded animals also need to be warm and active to find a mate and reproduce.
第二篇
题材划分： 农业发展类
主要内容： 农耕的发展对于男女地位的影响。最开始，男女都要一样的在田间耕作，但是耕作面积比较小，所以女性参与耕种男性参与打猎，他们所提供的食物量是一样的，社会地位也是平等的。直到耕犁的出现，女性继续负责种地，而男性开始做一些农场的其他工作，比如农耕用的牛可以做奶制品，纺织也开始出现了。这时，女性开始纺布，并且照顾孩子，而男性承担起了耕种的责任。作者列举了欧洲和亚洲的例子来论证这一观点，但是也表明女人是否参与农业还需要大量的证据支持。随着社会分工的不同，开始出现了重男轻女的现象，因为男性小时候多干活，长大后要养家赚钱。
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TPO14 Pastoralism in Ancient Inner Eurasia
相关知识背景：
Gender equality, also known as sex equality, gender egalitarianism, sexual equality or equality of the genders, is the view that men and women should receive equal treatment, and should not be discriminated against based on gender. This is the objective of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which seeks to create equality in law and in social situations, such as in democratic activities and securing equal pay for equal work. The related topic of rights is treated in two separate articles, Men's rights and Women's rights.
World bodies have defined gender equality in terms of human rights, especially women's rights, and economic development. UNICEF describes that gender equality "means that women and men, and girls and boys, enjoy the same rights, resources, opportunities and protections. It does not require that girls and boys, or women and men, be the same, or that they be treated exactly alike."
UNFPA stated that, “despite many international agreements affirming their human rights, women are still much more likely than men to be poor and illiterate. They have less access to property ownership, credit, training and employment. They are far less likely than men to be politically active and far more likely to be victims of domestic violence.” Thus, promoting gender equality is seen as an encouragement to greater economic prosperity. For example, nations of the Arab world that deny equality of opportunity to women were warned in a 2008 United Nations-sponsored report that this disempowerment is a critical factor crippling these nations' return to the first rank of global leaders in commerce, learning and culture. That is, Western bodies are less likely to conduct commerce with nations in the Middle East that retain culturally accepted attitudes towards the status and function of women in their society in an effort to force them to change their beliefs in the face of relatively underdeveloped economies.
In 2010, the European Union opened the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) in Vilnius, Lithuania to promote gender equality and to fight sex discrimination.
Gender equality is part of the national curriculum in Great Britain and many other European countries. Personal, Social and Health Education, religious studies and Language acquisition curricula tend to address gender equality issues as a very serious topic for discussion and analysis of its effect in society.
A large and growing body of research has shown how gender inequality undermines health and development. To overcome gender inequality the United Nations Population Fund states that, “Women's empowerment and gender equality requires strategic interventions at all levels of programming and policy-making. These levels include reproductive health, economic empowerment, educational empowerment and political empowerment."
UNFPA says that “research has also demonstrated how working with men and boys as well as women and girls to promote gender equality contributes to achieving health and development outcomes.”
第三篇
题材划分：生态环境类
主要内容： 主要讲解了生物演替，第一段讲解了初生演替和次生演替的两种现象的概念以及它们的区别。初始环境不一样，次生是在已有的生物基础之上的。接下来介绍了演替的群落种类都是可以忍耐极端气候的，可以在缺少水分的地方存活，例如苔藓地衣之类的，它们不太需要营养物质，它们可以直接从裸露的岩石中吸收营养，同时也可以帮助分解岩石成细小颗粒。
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TPO19 Succession, Climax, and Ecosystems
相关知识背景：
Ecological succession is the observed process of change in the species structure of an ecological community over time. The time scale can be decades (for example, after a wildfire), or even millions of years after a mass extinction. The community begins with relatively few pioneering plants and animals and develops through increasing complexity until it becomes stable or self-perpetuating as a climax community. The engine of succession, the cause of ecosystem change, is the impact of established species upon their own environments. A consequence of living is the sometimes subtle and sometimes overt alteration of one's own environment.
It is a phenomenon or process by which an ecological community undergoes more or less orderly and predictable changes following a disturbance or the initial colonization of a new habitat. Succession may be initiated either by formation of new, unoccupied habitat, such as from a lava flow or a severe landslide, or by some form of disturbance of a community, such as from a fire, severe windthrow, or logging. Succession that begins in new habitats, uninfluenced by pre-existing communities is called primary succession, whereas succession that follows disruption of a pre-existing community is called secondary succession.
Succession was among the first theories advanced in ecology. The study of succession remains at the core of ecological science. Ecological succession was first documented in the Indiana Dunes of Northwest Indiana which led to efforts to preserve the Indiana Dunes. Exhibits on ecological succession are displayed in the Hour Glass, a museum in Ogden Dunes.
Ecological succession was formerly seen as having a stable end-stage called the climax, sometimes referred to as the 'potential vegetation' of a site, and shaped primarily by the local climate. This idea has been largely abandoned by modern ecologists in favor of nonequilibrium ideas of ecosystems dynamics. Most natural ecosystems experience disturbance at a rate that makes a "climax" community unattainable. Climate change often occurs at a rate and frequency sufficient to prevent arrival at a climax state. Additions to available species pools through range expansions and introductions can also continually reshape communities.
The development of some ecosystem attributes, such as soil properties and nutrient cycles, are both influenced by community properties, and, in turn, influence further successional development. This feed-back process may occur only over centuries or millennia. Coupled with the stochastic nature of disturbance events and other long-term (e.g., climatic) changes, such dynamics make it doubtful whether the 'climax' concept ever applies or is particularly useful in considering actual vegetation.
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