David attenborough a life on our planet worksheet answers

1Listening: A life on our planet

Please read the questions first. Then watch the documentary A life on our planet by David

Attenborough. You can do that on Netflix (switch on English subtitles) or Toledo. Make notes, answer

the questions and make sure you understand what the film is about. On the exam, you are able to

give knowledgeable responses to quotes from the film.

Introduction: Chernobyl

Part 1 How did the world change in one lifetime?

1937

-World population: 2.3 billion

-Carbon in atmosphere: 280 parts per million

-Remaining wilderness: 66%

Since the last mass extinction, the temperature on earth has remained very stable – it has not

wavered up or down by one degree Celsius, thanks to what?

The rich and thriving living world around us has been key to sustaining this ability.

Phytoplankton at the ocean’s surface and immense forests straddling the north have helped

to balance the atmosphere by locking away carbon. Huge herds on the plains have kept the

grasslands rich and productive by fertilizing the soils. Mangroves and coral reefs along

thousands of miles of coasts have harbored nurseries of fish species that, when mature, then

range into open waters. A think belt of jungles around the equator has piled plant on plant to

capture as much of the sun’s energy as possible adding moisture and oxygen to the global air

currents. An the extent of the polar ice has been critical reflecting sunlight back off its white

surface, cooling the whole earth. The biodiversity of the Holocene helped to bring stability,

and the entire living world settled into a gentle, reliable rhythm. The seasons. On the tropical

plains, the dry and rainy seasons would switch every year like clockwork. In Asia, the winds

would create the monsoon on cue. In the northern regions, the temperatures would lift in

March, triggering spring and stay high until they dipped in October and brought about

autumn. The Holocene was our Garden of Eden. Its rhythm of seasons was so reliable, that it

gave our own species a unique opportunity. We invented farming.

This stable climate made for reliable seasons that gave us farming, and thus reliable food. Our

intelligence developed (ideas) and human civilisation followed.

1954

-World population: 2.7 billion

-Carbon in atmosphere: 310 parts per million

-Remaining wilderness: 64%

How would you describe this era?

What does David Attenborough talk about in a life on our planet?

What are five steps to help save our planet as outlined by Mr Attenborough?

What contributed to Earth's gentle reliable steady temperature and rhythm for the last 10000 years?

How old is David Attenborough?