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As de-escalation progresses around the world and the economy starts to activate, people are slowly starting to plan their holidays in times of a global pandemic, and the first question is "Is it safe to travel now?" This National Geographic article answers some of the questions people are asking themselves, like "Should I get on a plane?", "Should I head to a national park?", "Should I rent a cottage by the sea?", "Should I stay in a hotel?" "Should I use a public restroom (American English for "toilet")? etc.   This article can be easily read by B2 students. I would like to thank my student María A. for sending me this article. The travel industry is taking a proactive strategy to increase safety standards that can guarantee its customers' health and peace of mind.  This Arab News report explains the new measures that have been introduced by Emirates airline to increase hygiene from check-in to disembarkation.  This ...

Shavuot is a Jewish holy day that marks the beginning of the harvest (" Bikkurim"  or the collection and offering of " The First Fruits " to the Temple in Jerusalem) and also the reception of the Torah , with the 10 Commandments, given to Moses at Mount Sinai, 7 weeks after the departure from Egypt in Passover ( Shavuot  means " Festival of the Weeks " in Hebrew).  So, originally, Shavuot had an agricultural origin, which is kept in the tradition of decorating the house with greenery and flowers, or having a pic-nic in the woods or in your garden.  Later, when the Jewish people became more learned, some rabbis added to the festivity the practice of an all-nighter, " Tikkun ", which involves staying awake all night and reading the Torah (the 10 Commandments, Ruth's or Ezekiel's books etc), having social debates about Arts & Culture etc. In 2020, Shavuot is celebrated from sunset May 28th to nightfall May 30th.  If you want to know more...

Photos of the Week section in The Atlantic Although the lockdown restrictions are gradually being eased in many countries, remote teaching is still in effect - and looks set to continue for the unforeseeable future. Here is an activity I’ve been using a lot at the beginning of my Zoom lessons lately. I suppose you can call it a warmer. Activity Level:   any - but would work best with B1+ students; a bit of a struggle for A2 but can be done with a lot of support from the teacher Focus:  Speaking and later  Writing Aim:   Come up with captions for memorable images depicting current events  Preparation Google: BBC Week in Pictures . Find the latest one. The new photo collection is always published on Saturday so, at the moment of writing this, the latest one is for the week of 16 - 22 May 2020:  www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-52768835 Other sources are I use are: - The Guardian  - 20 Photographs of the Week:  www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/series/twe...

Eid-al-Fitr is the first day of  the month of  Shawwal and the day Ramadan ends, so it is celebrated by Muslims around the world: people dress in their best clothes, exchange gifts, attend communal prayers, listen to a sermon ( khutba ), practice charity with the poor ( zakat al-fitr ), and they greet with the words " Eid Mubbarak! " ( Holy Feast! ) as you can read on this web page. In Turkey, this year's  Eid 's celebrations will be severely restricted to fight the spread of the coronavirus epidemic: a strict 24-hour curfew has been ordered in 83 provinces for two days and worshippers will not be allowed to pray in mosques, as you can read in this Aljazeera report and video, which is accessible to B2 students and above. But the epidemic has also brought "amazing signs of solidarity" like the Berlin church that has hosted Muslim worshippers to help them maintain physical distancing rules while they pray together in Eid-al-Fitr , as Aljazeera reports in this ...

You can celebrate International Biodiversity Week (18- 22 May) by watching the first episode of the Netflix documentary " Our Planet ", which has just been released on YouTube.  The stunning beauty of the images, the music, and the impeccable English on the voice of Sir David Attenborough will surely open an imaginary window to the wonders of our natural world and the fragility of its future preservation. Subtitles are available, so this 49':27" documentary can be enjoyed by B2 students and above.

by Andrew Glikson Precis 21–23ʳᵈ centuries’ transient ocean cooling events (stadials), triggered by ice melt flow from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets into the adjacent oceans, herald conditions analogous in part to those of the Younger Dryas stadial (12.9–11.7 kyr) which succeeded the pre-Holocene Bölling-Allerod thermal maximum. The subsequent Younger Dryas cooling event was associated with penetration of polar air masses and ocean currents, leading to storminess, analogous to recent breaching of the weakened polar jet stream boundary, ensuing in major snow storms in North America and Europe and cooling of parts of the North Atlantic Ocean and parts of the circum-Antarctic ocean triggered by the flow of ice melt water from melting glaciers. 21–23ʳᵈ Centuries’ Stadial freeze events IPCC climate change projections for 2100-2300 portray linear to curved temperature progressions (SPM-5). By contrast, examination of transient cooling events (stadials) which ensued from the flow of ...

Coronavirus is also changing fashion. This BBC article talks about how the fashion industry is turning face masks into the trendy accessory of the season:  Angel Obassi's wedding outfit, with a matching face mask, received more than 100,000 "likes" on Instagram and when Tiziana Scaramuzzo posted the images of a trikini as a joke on Elexia Beachwear, she started to receive thousands of orders.  You can also watch a short video where South-Korean designer Paul Parks shows how he sews his new washable and re-usable cotton masks. Read this article if you are ready to fight COVID-19 in style! This report is suitable for B2 students.

Temperatures in April 2020 were very high. The image below shows very high temperature anomalies over the Arctic. The combination image below shows in the left panel the same very high anomalies, compared to 1951-19180. Comparisons with earlier periods can be complicated, due to a lack of data over polar regions, as illustrated by the image in the right panel that shows grey colors over polar regions, indicating missing data. Temperatures in polar regions have risen strongly, so leaving out the rise in polar regions would downplay the global temperature rise since pre-industrial. A recent analysis of the temperature rise therefore uses an adjustment of 0.1°C to compensate for missing data. Ocean heat on the Northern Hemisphere is driving up temperatures in the Arctic. The image below shows that the April ocean temperature anomaly in the Gulf of Mexico in 2020 was 1.71°C or 3.08°F higher than the 1910-2000 average, and the highest on record. Temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico were alre...