Unit 5 Revealing Nature Developing ideas Reading 课件-2023-2024学年高二英语外研版（2019）选择性必修第一册

Unit 5 Period 4 Reading 新 课 导 入 What do you think plants can do? 课 堂 学 习 1 Look at the pictures and tick what plants can do. attack breathe eat sleep move speak steal think √ √ √ √ √ Now talk about what else you think the plants can do and give examples. make medicine protect environment reduce noise predict the solar terms Do you think that plants can communicate with each other? If so, how can they do that? The Secret Language of Plants Talking plants have long been a thing of myths and legends. Many cultures have stories of talking trees that give advice as well as warnings to people. Alexander the Great and Marco Polo were said to have visited such a tree in India. And in some modern stories, such as the film Avatar, trees can communicate with animals and people. With us long believing that talking plants are fantasy, new research has revealed something amazing: it appears that plants can communicate after all. It has been known for some time that plants use chemicals to communicate with each other. This happens when a plant, say a bean plant, gets attacked by insects. The plant releases tiny amounts of chemicals from the leaves that are being eaten. This is like a warning, or a call for help: “I'm being attacked!” When another bean plant detects the chemicals from its injured neighbour, it starts to release its own, different chemicals. Some of these chemicals drive insects away. Others attract insects - the wasps! The wasps kill the insects that are eating the bean plants. Scientists hope to learn more about this plant warning system, so that we can use it to grow crops without pesticides. More surprisingly, plants also use sound to communicate. People can't hear these sounds, but plants are making them. Some plants make noises with their roots. Corn and chilli plants do this. They also “listen” to the noises from other plants. A chilli plant can tell if a neighbouring plant is helpful or unfriendly. Some trees make clicking noises when there is