Why is culture important and how does it answer the question "What is cultural identity?"? Culture is the underlying foundation of traditions and beliefs (26) help a person relate to the world around them. It is the basis for (27) superstitions they may have. It is the aversion to specific types of meat, or which days you can work on. Culture gives us a definite starting (28) when beginning to search for our roots. Knowing where a person comes from will help to define how they look at their family obligations (29) how they celebrate important milestones in life.

As a person has given up their cultural identity, they can no longer identify themselves with the things that were once the most important things in their lives. They lose direction. As time (30) by and they continue to forget about their past and their natural traditions, their identity becomes less and less pronounced.

LITTER ON MOUNT EVEREST

Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world. It is also the highest trash pile in the world. About 400 people try to reach the top every year. Having many climbers means a lot of trash.

It is very dangerous to climb Mt. Everest. The air is very thin and cold. Most people carry bottles of oxygen; they could die without it. When the oxygen bottles are empty, people throw them on the ground. When strong winds rip their tents, people leave them behind. They don’t have the energy to take the trash away. They only have enough energy to go down the mountain safely.

Trash is a terrible problem. Since people first began to climb Mt. Everest, they have left 50,000 kilos of trash on the mountain. Several groups have climbed the mountain just to pick up the trash. When people plan to climb the mountain, they have to plan to take away their trash.

How do children learn about wildlife? And is what they learn the sort of thing they should be learning? It is my belief that children should not just be acquiring knowledge of animals but also developing attitudes and feelings towards them based on exposure to the real lives of animals in their natural habitats. But is this happening?

Some research in this area indicates that it is not. Learning about animals in school is often completely disconnected from the real lives of real animals, with the result that children often end up with little or no understanding or lasting knowledge of them. They learn factual information about animals, aimed at enabling them to identify them and have various abstract ideas about them, but that is the extent of their learning. Children’s storybooks tend to personify animals as characters rather than teach about them.

For direct contact with wild and international animals, the only opportunity most children have is visiting a zoo. The educational benefit of this for children is often given as the main reason for doing it but research has shown that zoo visits seldom add to children’s knowledge of animals - the animals are simply like exhibits in a museum that the children look at without engaging with them as living creatures. Children who belong to wildlife or environmental organizations or who watch wildlife TV programmes, however, show significantly higher knowledge than any other group of children studied in research. The studies show that if children learn about animals in their natural habitats, particularly through wildlife-based activities, they know more about them than they do as a result of visiting zoos or learning about them in the classroom.

Research has also been done into the attitudes of children towards animals. It shows that in general terms, children form strong attachments to individual animals, usually their pets, but do not have strong feelings for animals in general. This attitude is the norm regardless of the amount or kind of learning about animals they have at school. However, those children who watch television wildlife programs show an interest in and affection for wildlife in its natural environment, and their regard for animals in general is higher.

(Adapted from New English File, by Christina Latham -Koenig, Oxford University Press)