Listen & Learn: Carl Sagan
29th January 2025 by Jaksyn Peacock
Pre-listening vocabulary
- astronomer: a scientist who studies space
- habitable: able to support life
- greenhouse effect: the process where certain gases in a planet’s atmosphere trap heat and cause high temperatures
- probe: an unmanned spacecraft sent to collect information
- advocate: to speak in support of a cause
- disarmament: the act of reducing or removing weapons or military resources
Listening activity
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Gapfill exercise
Comprehension questions
See answers below
- Carl Sagan showed that the greenhouse effect was responsible for temperatures on
a. Mercury
b. Mars
c. Venus - Sagan advocated for
a. nuclear advancement
b. nuclear détente
c. nuclear disarmament - Sagan began to fear the effects of global climate change in
a. the 1960s
b. the 1970s
c. the 1980s
Discussion/essay questions
- Do you think space exploration is important for the future of humanity? Why or why not?
Transcript
Carl Sagan was an American astronomer and science writer. He is widely known for his 1980 TV series Cosmos and book by the same name, which helped introduce astronomy concepts to everyday people. Sagan was very interested in the possibility of alien life. He studied the climates of other planets to find out if they were habitable. He was the first scientist to show that the high temperatures on Venus were because of a greenhouse effect. In the 1970s, Sagan led the project of putting together the Golden Records for NASA’s Voyager probes. Sagan and his team chose a series of images and sounds to represent life on Earth. Sagan was very concerned about the future of humanity. He advocated for nuclear disarmament, and his research on Venus’s climate caused him to fear the effects of global climate change early in the 1960s.
Answers to comprehension questions
1c 2c 3a