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  FancyEnglish             Earth Day 2008              课件首页

        April 22, 2008

(CNN Student News) -- April 22, 2008 Earth Day 2008 - See how nature is leading a cleanup effort on the campus of Duke University. Is this Legit? CARL AZUZ, CNN STUDENT NEWS: Is this legit? The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970. Totally true! Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency that same year. Earth Day 2008 LLOYD: It makes sense that they'd both start at the same time. After all, the goal of Earth Day is to raise awareness about environmental problems, and the mission of the EPA is to protect the environment. You don't have to wait until Earth Day to find ways to go green. A college professor and his students are using nature to clean up their campus. Miles O'Brien explains their eco-friendly efforts. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MILES O'BRIEN, CNN REPORTER: There was a time when city planners thought the concrete solution to the challenge of allowing rivers and cities to co-exist was, well, concrete. But times have changed, and the experts now are paying more attention to Mother Nature's blueprints. PROFESSOR CURTIS RICHARDSON, DUKE UNIVERSITY: What we're trying to do here is use an ecological approach. It's lower tech, but also is more sustainable and more ecologically friendly. O'BRIEN: Curtis Richardson is head of the Duke University Wetland Center. For the past three years, he and his students have re-engineered a polluted stretch of creek that flows through the campus without calling in the cement mixers. RICHARDSON: This is really a very novel way of trying to treat, using Mother Nature's environmental services. O'BRIEN: The problem was runoff. Whenever it rained, all kinds of bad chemicals, from fertilizers to pesticides, would flow straight into Sandy Creek with nothing to stop them. So, Richardson and his students started digging, changing the contours of the land, planting trees, creating a wetland and building a storm water reservoir behind an earthen dam. RICHARDSON: This gives you sort of a natural system where the water can flow out over the banks, and the sediments and nutrients can be retained in the wetlands. O'BRIEN: It's nature's way of cleaning up a mess. And it is working. Three years later, this creek is much cleaner than it was before. And it sure costs a lot less money than pouring all that concrete. Apparently, it's smarter to go with the flow than fight it. Miles O'Brien, CNN. (END VIDEO CLIP) Promo LLOYD: So, what are you doing to celebrate Earth Day? Don't tell us, show us! Log on to CNNStudentNews.com and find out how you can send in an iReport of your environmental activities. And while you're there, check out our Earth Day Learning Activity. It challenges students to examine the pros and cons of some environmental laws.

    

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