UK ranked 15th for school science education, study about seals 英國中學自然科學教育排世界第十五、研究海豹的水中生活

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UK ranked 15th for school science education 英國中學自然科學教育排名世界第十五

Researchers to uncover secret life of seals 研究人員即將揭開海豹水中生活的秘密

文字稿

Simple science, but today a wider lesson for the UK: technology is changing the world but our schools aren’t keeping up with the best. Ministers around the UK say they need more time. For schools in England a shortage of science teachers – year on year not enough are starting training. And without enough teachers some fear we’ll never catch up.

這些學生正在課堂上學習基本的科學知識，但今天發佈的一則消息給英國人上瞭一堂意義深遠的課：科技正改變世界，但英國的學校卻沒能給學生提供世界最高標準的科學教育。英國的部長們說，他們需要更多的時間來改變這一狀況。英格蘭地區的中學普遍缺少教授自然科學的老師，而參加這類教師培訓的人數連年不足。有些人士擔心在教師不足的情況下，英國將永遠無法與其它國傢並駕齊驅。

Above the waves their lives are well understood. But beneath, Britain’s grey seals are more of a mystery. They spend two-thirds of their time in the water but until now they’ve been little studied. If you want to study these incredible animals up close you do have to get into the water. Around the coast of the UK nearly 40% of the world’s grey seals live here and there are 5,000 of them here, in the Farne Islands. This is Ben Burville. He’s been diving with seals for decades. Now he’s capturing them on camera working with Newcastle University to record behaviour that surprisingly has never been seen before.

雖然我們對英國灰海豹在岸上的生活頗為瞭解，但它們在海洋中的活動卻充滿瞭更多的神秘。灰海豹一生中三分之二的時間都在水中生活，然而到目前為止，幾乎沒有針對它們在水中活動的研究。如果你想近距離地仔細研究這群奇妙的動物，的確需要下到水裡去。世界上約有40％的灰海豹棲居於英國沿岸，其中有5000隻生活在法恩群島附近。這是本·博韋爾（Ben Burville），他在海豹的陪伴下潛齡已有好幾十年。現在，他正和英國紐卡斯爾大學合作，利用攝像機捕捉海豹的影像，並意外地記錄瞭下瞭這群動物從未被人見過的行為。