衛星可以幫助識別極度貧困嗎？

河北樂亭第一中學 胡金瑩

題材文章詞數科技296 難度 ★★★體裁建議用時說明文6′

Ending extreme poverty by the year 2030 is the first of the United Nations'17 Sustainable Development Goals.

Experts usuallymeasure poverty by using official census （人口普查）records and other studies,but population counts are costly and slow.Countries usually organize such studies once every several years.However,satellites can map the Earth's surface with great detaileveryfewdays.The imagery（影像）is getting better and less costly asagrowingnumberofsatellite systems go into service.

Researchers have used the brightness of lights in nighttime images toestimatean area's econom-ic activity.One new study has taken themost detailed look ever.Within a single village,itattemptsto find out the poorestindividualhouseholds.The studyinvolvedthe village of Sauri,in rural Kenya.In satellite imagery of the village,researchersmeasured the size of each house and studied the agricultural land surrounding it.Not surprisingly,smaller homes usually housed poorer people.But the researchers also noted other findings.For example,poorer homes often have bare farm fields in September.In rural Kenya,that usuallymeans farmers are preparing their land for a second crop.

Gary Watmough is a geographer and the lead writer of a report on the study.He notes that lateseason rains do not always come to this part of Kenya.In fact,they fail to arrive up to half the time.What'smore,satelliteimagerynotonlyfoundpoorerhouseholds'fieldsweregrowingcropsfor shorterperiodsoftime,buttheyalsowerenotplantingtheirowncropsasearlyasothers.

Experts say it is not the best idea to use only information from satellite images.There is power in combining satellite data and on-the-ground information.

——From VOA

Reading Check

1.What's the featureofusing satellite tomeasure poverty? （nomore than 5words）

2.Whatdid GaryWatmough find according tohisstudy aboutSauri?（nomore than 8words）

Language Study

I.Importantvocabulary

1.every few days每隔幾天

2.a number of一些；許多的

3.estimatev.評價；預測

4.attemptv.嘗試；試圖

5.individualadj.單獨的；個別的

6.involvev.包含；涉及

Ⅱ.Sentence for w riting

“not only...but also...”不但……而且……

What's more,satellite imagery not only found poorer households'fields were growing crops for shorter periods of time,but they also were not planting their own crops as early as others.此外，衛星影像不僅發現貧困家庭田地里種植莊稼的時間更短，而且他們也沒有別人種植得早。

【點石成金】在not only...but also...句型中，but或also可省略其一，但不能同時省略。

【仿寫】定期鍛煉不僅能強身健體，而且能夠讓我們感到放松且精力充沛。