4_5823367498891790911.pdf

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Published by Macmillan Education Ltd. © Macmillan Education Limited, 2021.
Home >> Adults >> General English >> NEWS LESSONS
Warmer
a. What do you know about the polar regions? Choose the best answers.
1. Polar bears are found in the Arctic / Antarctica.
2. Penguins are found in the Arctic / Antarctica.
3. Antarctica is the driest / wettest continent on Earth.
4. The first person to reach the South Pole was American / Norwegian.
5. Three / Seven countries have territories on Antarctica.
6. About 68% / 98% of Antarctica is covered in ice.
Key words
a. Fill the gaps in the sentences using these key words from the text.
artefact bulldozer coordinates (noun) devastating expertise heavy-duty intact
maritime navigator odds pound (verb) rip (verb) sledgehammer valour wreck
1. A / An accident or disaster is one that takes place at sea.
2. A / An is a ship that has sunk.
3. If you something, you hit it several times with a lot of force.
4. is the special skill or knowledge that you get from experience or training.
5. A / An event or phenomenon causes a lot of damage or harm.
6. If you something open, you tear it quickly and with a lot of force.
7. is a formal term for bravery.
8. If people do something against the , they manage to do it despite their chances of
success being very small.
9. If something is , it is not damaged or lacking any parts as a result of something that
has happened.
10. A / An is an object that was made a long time ago and is historically important.
11. If something is described as , it is strong and not easily damaged.
12. A / An is a long heavy hammer that you swing with both hands.
13. A / An is a heavy vehicle with a large curved open container at the front, used for
moving earth and stones.
14. are a set of numbers that give the exact position of something on a map.
15. A / An is someone who plans the direction in which to travel.
Level 3: Advanced
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Antarctic expedition to renew search for Shackleton’s ship Endurance

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Antarctic expedition to renew
search for Shackleton’s ship
Endurance
Dalya Alberge
The location of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s
Endurance has been one of the great maritime
mysteries since the ship became trapped in
ice and sank in 1915. Finding this symbol of
the ‘heroic age’ of polar exploration at the
bottom of the Weddell Sea was long thought
impossible because of the harshness of the
Antarctic environment – ‘the evil conditions’,
as Shackleton described them.
Now a major scientific expedition is being
planned with a mission to locate, survey and
film the wreck. Endurance22 will launch early
next year, in a vessel that will brave the most
treacherous frozen waters, pounding its way
through miles of pack ice.
The effects of climate change will make the
expedition a little less difficult, with melting ice
easing the vessel’s passage. An international
team of scientists with expertise in the study
of ice and climate will be on board, advancing
knowledge of the Antarctic environment.
Mensun Bound, its director of exploration,
headed the 2019 search for the Endurance
that had to be called off because of extreme
weather conditions, after an underwater vehicle
became trapped beneath the ice. ‘I have mixed
emotions. On the one hand, there’s great
excitement. On the other, for the last three
years, I’ve had to carry this persistent sadness
in me that we didn’t find it last time. It’s never
far from my thoughts. That ship is always
playing with my imagination,’ he said.
Bound said global warming in the Antarctic is
‘absolutely devastating’, but that the melting
ice ‘has improved our chances’ of discovering
the shipwreck. Discussing the dangers, he said
that if tourist ships were to venture deep into
the Weddell Sea, they would be ripped open by
the ice.
Shackleton’s attempt to cross Antarctica is an
epic story of valour and survival against all
the odds. The Endurance became trapped in
ice off the Caird Coast and drifted for months
before being crushed and sinking. The men
drifted on ice floes for months. Food became
an anxiety and when the expedition dogs were
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shot they were eaten. Eventually they took to
their boats reaching the uninhabited Elephant
Island, where they lived off penguins and seal
meat. Shackleton and five others then headed
for the island of South Georgia in a whale boat,
eventually rescuing the others from Elephant
Island, with all 28 of the crew returning alive.
The Endurance is believed to lie at a depth of
more than 3,000 metres. Although the vessel
was crushed, its timbers are likely to be well
preserved as a result of the extreme cold,
the absence of light, and the relative lack of
oxygen. It is possible that the vessel’s strength
of construction means that much of it is intact.
There are even hopes that the expedition
could find glass plates abandoned by the
photographer, Frank Hurley, among other
artefacts on the wreck.
The vessel for Endurance22, SA Agulhas II,
belongs to the South African government and
will set off from Cape Town early next year,
after two years of planning. It has heavy-duty
ice-breakers that will pound their way through
the pack ice for miles on end. Bound said: ‘Our
ship is part sledgehammer, part bulldozer, part
Swiss army knife. It is a battle. Last time, we
ourselves became trapped in the ice, not once
but several times, just as the Endurance did,
and those were quite worrying moments.’
The team will be using Saab Sabertooth
underwater search vehicles, equipped
with sensors, lights and cameras to bring
discoveries to a worldwide audience. If the
Agulhas II cannot get near enough, they are
planning an ice camp where the Sabertooth
could be lowered through a hole drilled in the
ice. John Shears, the expedition leader, said
that with the vessel, an outstanding crew and
cutting-edge technology, ‘there has never been
as good an opportunity to locate Endurance’.
Bound has been researching archival material
in the search for clues to the wreck’s location
beyond the famous coordinates recorded by
Frank Worsley, Shackleton’s master navigator.
‘It all depends on that one little piece of
information,’ he said. ‘We were close in 2019.
We covered well over half of the search
area – up to 9 km across … But Worsley
never took his coordinates on the day the
ship sank. His last observation was almost
three days before. What was the ship doing in
those three days? What was the speed and
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Level 3: Advanced

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Level 3: Advanced
direction adrift? All those things I have to take
into account.’
Donald Lamont, chairman of the Falklands
Maritime Heritage Trust, said: ‘We hope that
this effort will bring the story of Shackleton and
his ship to a younger generation, inspiring their
interest in the science and the environmental
importance of Antarctica for all of us.’
© Guardian News and Media 2021
First published in The Guardian, 05/07/2021
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Comprehension check
a. Answer the questions using information from the article.
1. Why did people think it was impossible to find the Endurance?
2. What will make the expedition to find the Endurance a little less difficult?
3. Apart from bad weather, what caused the 2019 expedition to be called off?
4. What would happen to tourist ships that tried to enter the Weddell Sea?
5. What happened to the Endurance?
6. How did the crew of the Endurance survive on Elephant Island?
7. How many of the crew of the Endurance survived?
8. What may have helped to preserve the wooden hull and decks of the Endurance?
9. What specific artefacts are the members of the expedition hoping to find?
10. What will they do if they cannot get near enough to the site of the wreck?
11. What roles did Frank Hurley and Frank Worsley have on the Endurance?
12. When were the ship’s coordinates last taken?

Key language
a. Complete the table.
Adjective Noun
1. harsh
2. complex
3. anxious
4. absent
5. archive
6. treachery
7. persistence
8. hero
b. Use these words to write at least 5 sentences about the text.
Level 3: Advanced
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Discussion
a. Discuss these statements.
• ‘There is no point wasting money on expeditions to locate shipwrecks.’
• ‘Bringing history to life is a valuable lesson.’
• ‘The world is too small now. There is nothing left to explore.’
In your own words
a. Use the Internet to find out about another famous maritime mystery. Use an Internet
search engine to find information about the Marie Celeste. Write a short report that includes
the following:
• when and where the ship was built
• where it was sailing from and its destination
• what its cargo was
• the number of people on board
• when and where its coordinates were last recorded
• different theories about what happened
Level 3: Advanced
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6

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Level 3: Advanced – Teacher’s notes
If you manage to do something against the odds,
you do it against all expectations, as in ‘The team
was expected to lose the match but against all the
odds, they triumphed’.
Coordinates are the numbers indicated by the
longitude and latitude of a particular position shown
by the onboard instruments of a ship or plane.
Key:
1. maritime
2. wreck
3. pound
4. Expertise
5. devastating
6. rip
7. Valour
8. odds
9. intact
10. artefact
11. heavy-duty
12. sledgehammer
13. bulldozer
14. Coordinates
15. navigator
3. Comprehension check
a. The answers given are only suggested answers
and students may correctly answer the questions in
different ways; e.g. in #5, they may say ‘It sank after
being crushed by the ice’ or similar.
Key:
1.
because the environment in Antarctica is
so harsh
2. the effects of climate change
3.
An underwater vehicle became trapped beneath
the ice.
4.
They would be ripped open.
5.
It became trapped in the ice and was then
crushed and sank.
6.
They lived off penguins and seal meat.
7.
all of them
8.
the extreme cold, the absence of light and the
relative lack of oxygen.
9.
the photographer’s glass plates
10.
They will lower underwater search vehicles
through a hole in the ice.
11.
photographer and navigator
12.
almost three days before it sank
1. Warmer
a. The purpose of this activity is to introduce the topic
of exploration of the polar regions. Despite all the
ice there, Antarctica is surprisingly the driest of the
seven continents. The Norwegian explorer Roald
Amundsen reached the South Pole in 1911. The
American Robert Peary claimed to have reached
the North Pole in 1909, but this claim was never
verified. The seven countries with territorial claims
in Antarctica are Argentina, Australia, Chile, France,
New Zealand, Norway and the UK. Five other
countries have or had scientific stations there.
Key:
1. the Arctic
2. Antarctica
3. driest
4. Norwegian
5. Seven
6. 98%
2. Key words
a. Ask students to do the exercise individually and
then compare their answers in pairs or small groups.
Point out that wreck and shipwreck are two ways of
saying the same thing, although wreck can also be
applied to other forms of transport that have been
involved in an accident.
Article summary: The article describes
the search for the wreck of the Endurance
that lies somewhere in the frozen waters
of Antarctica.
Time: 45 – 60 minutes
Skills: Reading, Speaking, Writing
Language focus: Vocabulary
Materials needed: One copy of the
worksheet per student

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Home Adults General English NEWS LESSONS
Level 3: Advanced – Teacher’s notes
4. Key language
a. Students could be asked to do this exercise
individually and then compare their answers in pairs.
Ask students to refer back to the text to see the
words in context.
Key:
1. harshness
2. complexity
3. anxiety
4. absence
5. archival
6. treacherous
7. persistent
8. heroic
b. Students use the nouns or adjectives they chose to
write sentences about the text.
5. Discussion
a. Allow students time to note down their ideas about
each statement and encourage them to say why they
agree or disagree with each one.
6. In your own words
a. Ask students to open an Internet search engine
and enter ‘the Marie Celeste’ or ‘the mystery of the
Marie Celeste’. They should then find and note down
key information about the mystery and write a short
report focusing on the guidelines shown.
The task could also be done as homework and
students could then present their reports to the class.

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