B. Look at the following list of innovations. In your opinion, which is:
· the most important?
· the most useful?
· the most controversial?
· The most unpopular?
1836 - telegraph
1876 - telephone
1901 - the vacuum cleaner
1923 - the traffic signal
1956 - TV remote control
1973 - cars with airbags
1979 - personal stereo
1986 - laptop computer
1994 - GM (genetically-modified) products
1969 - ARPANET
1991 - WWW
2001 - digital satellite radio
2005 - electronic paper
C. Use the adjectives above to describe these innovations. What other innovations would you add to the list?
VII. Writing: Our changing world.
When you think of all the problems caused by people driving to and from work every day and the amount of stress that commuting causes them, you may be of the opinion that in a very few years time most people will work from home. Work in groups of 3 or 4, discuss the problems of over-crowded cities and villages in terms of innovative management. Suggest in writing several ways of their solution and put your information in the form of a scheme, a table, a chart, etc.
Lesson 3. Science and Technology.
I. Starting up
1) We are consuming the earth’s natural resources at an increasingly unsustainable rate. We have to change our methods of waste management if we continue with our lifestyles of high consumerism. Fortunately, there is a massive scope for us to improve. The Government have highlighted key proposals for action (www.defra.gov.uk ) and now have outlined their ideas for improving waste management.
2) There is rarely such a thing as “waste”: rather there are materials that sometimes end up in the wrong place.
3) Efforts to reduce, re-use, recycle waste and recover energy from waste are ways to advance to a conserver society.
4) Yet, there are opportunities to stimulate investment in collection, recycling and recovery infrastructure, and markets for recovered materials that will maximise the value of materials and energy recovered;
5) and improve national, regional and local governance, with a clearer performance and institutional framework to deliver better coordinated action and services on the ground.