________________________________

Village Oven Bakes Again

We get most of our heat and light from electricity. The problem is,
electricity can be expensive!
我們的熱能以及光都是靠電力。但是電費很貴喔！

Thousands of years ago, in England, owning an oven was expensive too. Most
people didn't have one in their home.
好幾千年以前，大多數的英國人家裡沒有窯，因為窯太貴了。

Instead of lots of little ovens, most villages had just one that was really
big. They called it the 'village oven'. The baker would use it first. Then,
while the oven was still warm, everyone else could use it too!
當時村莊裡面會有一座共用的窯。烘焙師傅先用，他烤完之後，其他的村民也趁熱去使用。

Last year, a baker in England decided to bring the village oven back! He
wanted to help people pay their electric bills, so he opened up his huge
kitchen for everyone to use, and even offered to cook some things for free!
去年有一個英國的烘焙師傅，他想幫大家省電費，所以恢復了這個傳統。他讓大家用他的廚房，還免費烤東西給大家吃！

They call him Baker Ed. He's helped people in his town lots of times before.
He's held free cookery classes and free kid's clubs. And when it's cold he
lets people use the heat of his oven to keep warm!
大家叫他 Ed
師傅。他以前也常常幫助他的村莊。他會開免費的烘焙課，還有小孩的社團！很冷的時候，他也會讓大家在他的烤箱旁邊取暖！

His neighbors and friends think he is doing an amazing thing, helping people
to eat and keep warm while electricity is so expensive. Bravo Baker Ed!
________________________________________

Vocabulary
英國的麵包師傅，把自己的大烤箱開放給他人使用，暖胃又暖心。

1. cook 烹飪。
It's so cold here! 這裡好冷喔!
You have to cook something, Paz! Anything.
你一定得煮一點兒東西，派絲，什麼都好。

2. oven 烤箱。
Okay, let me bake some cookies and bread in the oven.
好吧，我來用烤箱烤一些餅乾和麵包。
Great idea! 好主意!
Let's fire up the oven now. 我們現在就把烤箱熱起來。

3. kitchen 廚房。
Not so fast.不要這麼快。
I need to prepare the stuff first. 我需要先準備材料。
Would you like to help me in the kitchen? 你可以來廚房幫我嗎?
I'd be happy to. 我很樂意。

4. warm 溫暖的。
Finally, I'm feeling warm! 我終於覺得暖和了。
Can you smell that? It's our bread baking. 你聞得出來嗎?我們的麵包正在烤。
I love warm bread! 我愛熱麵包!

記得多多使用這些單字!

cook烹飪
oven烤箱
kitchen廚房
warm溫暖的
________________________________________

Quiz
1. What can fire not do?
A: Light our homes
B: Keep us tall
C: Cook our food

2. Where did they use village ovens thousands of years ago?
A: England
B: Finland
C: Legoland

3. What do they call the kind baker in this story?
A: Baker Jed
B: Baker Ed
C: Baker Ted

Answers
1. B
2. A
3. B

 

________________________________

Hi there, it's time for another episode of News Bites!

I'm Nancy Sun…

And I'm Trevor Tortomasi.

In today's news:

Citizen scientists, art on money, and a bigger sun.

Stay tuned and we'll tell you more about these stories, coming up next!
________________________________

號召公民科學家
"Citizen Scientists" Help Termite Study

Would you like to be a scientist when you grow up?

How about starting now?

Researchers at National Chung Hsing University were working on an important
project.

They wanted to learn more about termites (白蟻).

They wanted to know which types of termites did the most damage (損害) to
buildings in Taiwan.

To do this, they would have to catch termites that were living in buildings.

But they couldn't go into people's homes to do their work.

So they asked for people's help.

They put out a call for "citizen scientists" (公民科學家).

They asked these citizen scientists to catch termites.

The researchers also set up a website (網站).

People can record the time and place where they caught the termite.

They can then send the termites to the university.

More than 200 citizen scientists sent termite samples (樣本) to the
university.

The researchers got more than 3,000 termite samples.

All this helped the researchers learn something important.

They found that the termites that did the most damage to buildings are the
Formosan termite, and the Asian subterranean termite.

分析樣本以後，研究人員發現危害臺灣建築物最嚴重的是臺灣家白蟻與格斯特家白蟻。

This helped them come up with better ways to stop the termites and protect
buildings.
________________________________

阿根廷藝術家用紙鈔作畫
Argentine Artist Paints on Money

Artists sometimes make money through their artwork.

But what if their artwork IS money?

Sergio Guillermo Diaz paints on banknotes (紙鈔).

The artist from Argentina paints pictures on the country's money, "pesos"
(比索).

Sergio has painted movie characters on $2 and $5 peso bills.

He has even painted soccer star Lionel Messi lifting the World Cup on a $10
peso bill.

Why not just use normal paper?

Sergio says the peso bills are not worth much (價值低).

He says once he paints on the money, he can sell it for much more.

There's a bigger picture here (完整情況、主要的事情).

In the past few years, Argentina's money has lost a lot of value.

This is because of inflation (通貨膨脹).

It's when the cost of things go up.

Inflation happens for many reasons.

But inflation in Argentina has been made worse by world events, like the
COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Now, a $1,000 peso bill is worth around just $170 NT.

And that $1,000 peso bill is not enough to buy a combo meal at a fast food
restaurant, which costs around $1,500 pesos.

阿根廷公布的11月通膨年增率，已升至92.4％，成為全球通膨最嚴重的國家之一。

Sergio says his art shows how inflation affects the lives of Argentinians.
________________________________

全年看太陽最大的「近日點」
Earth's Closest Point to the Sun

We've had some cold weather recently.

So you may be surprised to know...

Our planet was closest to the Sun last week.

The Earth orbits (地球公轉) once around the Sun every year.

And Thursday last week, the Earth was at the place in its orbit that brings
it closest to the Sun.

That point is called "perihelion" (近日點).

「近日點」是一年中地球最接近太陽的位置，也是全年中太陽看起來最大的一天。

Perihelion comes around about two weeks after December solstice (冬至、至日).

This year, it happened on January 5th, shortly after 12 AM.

At that time, Earth was about 147,000,000 kilometers from the Sun.

And to us, the Sun looked about 11 percent bigger than usual.
________________________________

So, in today's News Bites:

Researchers wanted to know which types of termites did the most damage to
buildings in Taiwan.

So they asked citizen scientists to catch termites and send the termites to
the university.

This helped researchers come up with better ways to stop the termites and
protect buildings.
________________________________

Argentinian artist Sergio Guillermo Diaz paints on banknotes.

Sergio says the peso bills are not worth much.

He says once he paints on the money, he can sell it for much more.
________________________________

And,

Thursday last week, the Earth was at the place in its orbit that brings it
closest to the Sun.

That point is called "perihelion".

Perihelion comes around about two weeks after December solstice.
________________________________

And that's all for today's episode of News Bites!
________________________________

主播每周一問
Have Your Say

This week, we want you to have your say about trying something again.

Sometimes, we want to do something great… but maybe we can't do it right.
And later, we wish we could "re-do" it, or do it again, to see if we could
have done it better.

So, if you could redo anything in your life, what would you change?

Record your message and send it to newsbites@icrt.com.tw with your name and
age, and if you'd like, the name of your school.

Make sure to send us your recording by Thursday at noon, and you might hear
your message on our show on Friday!