Hola mis queridos amigos, hoy vamos a conocer un poquito más sobre Parques Nacionales y especialmente sobre el Parque Nacional más antiguo de Estados Unidos: "Yellowstone".
Information: from Speak Up magazine.
Photos: alpinehouse.com / yellowstonenationalpark.com / yellowstonepark.com / largestnationalpark.com
THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
Millions of children love Yogi Bear. This popular cartoon character was on TV for the first time in 1958, and has been in many comic books, TV shows and films. He lives in Jellystone Park and often steals picnic baskets from the park's visitors, to the disapproval of Park Ranger Smith. But did you know that the cartoon is based on a real place and on real people?
THE OLDEST PARK
The place is Yellowstone National Park, which is the oldest national park in the US. The people are the National Park Service Rangers, or simply park rangers. They work for the National Park Service (NPS), a US government agency that protects all of the country's national parks. The NPS was 100 years old on August 25th last year so that was an important year in its history.
NATIVE AMERICANS
Before Yellowstone became a national park, it was simply another area of land in North America, situated over the biggest supervolcano on the continent. For 11,000 years, Native Americans lived there alone. Then in the early 1800s, explorers from Europe began to go there and document what they saw : hot springs, geysers, canyons, forests, rivers and animals, including of course bears like Yogi!
THE PRESIDENT
In 1872, President Ulysses S. Grant officialy named this area of almost 3,500 square miles in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, Yellowstone National Park. A national park is an area that the government protects and preserves for public enjoyment. Today there are 59 national parks in the US, and many other protected monuments and properties.
PARK RANGERS
So who's going to protect and preserve those millions of acres? The answer is: park rangers. If you go to any national park in the US, they will probably be among the first people you see. They are indenfifiable by their iconic uniform, which includes a grey shirt, green pants and a hat. Their job is to educate people and enforce the law by helping visitors, for instance, and ensuring that they obey the rules.
VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA
If you want to become a park ranger, you must have a bachelor's degree or one year of pertinent work experience. You must also do special training. Most people who are interested in the job begin by volunteering at a national park. Each year, more than 85,000 volunteers do more than three million hours of work in US national parks, so their role is also very important.
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THE TOP FIVE MAGNIFICENT NATIONAL PARKS IN THE US
-YOSEMITE National Park (California)
-GRAND CANYON National Park (Arizona)
-CARLSBAD CAVERNS National Park (New Mexico)
-GLACIER National Park (Montana)
-HAWAII VOLCANOES National Park (Hawaii)
DANGER!!!!
In general, national parks are very safe but accidents sometimes happen.
In April 2015 a 29-year-old man from Nevada tragically died after he fell 120 metres into the Grand Canyon.
In August, a French couple died of heat exhaustion while hiking in the desert at White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.
Three days later, a grizzly bear killed a 63-year-old man in Yellowstone National Park.
But the biggest killer seems to be water. According to the National Park Service, 34 per cent of all deaths in the parks are caused by drowning, followed by falls (14 per cent) and motor vehicle accidents (12 per cent)
NATURAL AND CURIOUS FACTS
**Forget forests and desert: New York's Statue of Liberty and Alcatraz Island off the coast of San Francisco are also officially National Parks.
**Sequoia National Park, California is home to the largest living singlestem tree (one trunk only) in the world, the wonderfully named "General Sherman". The tree is 84 m tall.
**The biggest park is Wrangell-St Elias in Alaska. It covers an area larger than Switzerland.
**Poor Delaware!! It's the only state in the country not to have a national park, monument or any other site in the federal system.
**White Sands National Monument in New Mexico contains the largest gypsum dune fields in the world. But because the park lies adjacent to a military installation, it is often closed to the public.
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EXERCISES
1 Choose the noun from the list that best fits the gap.
explorers / characters / programmes / parks / rangers / volunteers
a) Yogi Bear is one of the most popular cartoon _______ in the US.
b) The country has 59 national _______ of which Yellowstone is the oldest.
c) These are protected and preserved by the park __________, who work for the NPS.
d) They are joined by thousands of _________many in the hope of a permanent job.
e) Yellowstone was first documented by European _______ in the early 1800s.
f) A series of special ______ was planned to celebrate the NPS's 100th anniversary.
2 Park rangers have different responsibilities. Match these duties fo their meanings.
Protect a) defend
Preserve b) maintain
Enforce c) uphold
d) apply
e) administer
f) shield
g) impose
h) sustain
i) guard
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VOCABULARY
-SPRING: manantial.
-GYPSUM: yeso.
-ENJOYMENT: disfrute.
-PANTS: pantalones (en inglés americano)
-TO ENFORCE: hacer cumplir.
-LAW: ley
-BACHELOR'S DEGREE: licenciatura, grado.
-HEAT EXHAUSTION: golpe de calor.
-TO HIKE: ir de excursión, hacer una caminata.
-TO DROWN: ahogarse.
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SOLUTIONS TO THE EXERCISES.
Exercise 1 a) characters b) parks c) rangers d) volunteers e) explorers f) programmes
Exercise 2 PROTECT: defend, shield, guard. PRESERVE: maintain, uphold, sustain. ENFORCE: apply, administer, impose.
HAVE A NICE DAY MY FRIENDS!
HAVE YOU EVER VISITED YELLOWSTONE PARK?
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