world.

5. As far as I know, they are working on a project in secret.

6. This town has a booming tourist industry and (a flourishing) real estate market. 7. In the last decade, the digital revolution has stimulated people’s creativity in an unprecedented way.

8. At Xinchejian, China’s first formal makerspace, makers are tinkering with all types of materials, such as metals, plastics and electronic components.

Reading & Comprehending

Reading 1

1. Comprehension Check for Reading 1

1. T 2. F 3. F 4. T 5. T 6. T 7. T 8. T 9. F 10. F

2. Translation

1. 让柴火与众不同的是它既与广义的创客运动有关，又同全球制造业正在经历的转型相关。

2. 一张巨大的木头桌子占据了创客空间的大部分地方，它是可以用于从焊接到编程到社交等多用途的工作台。

3. 当中国开始失去相对于其它国家的成本优势时，它再也无法依赖制造业中传统的低利润、高产量的经济模式了。

4. 正如其名称所暗示，潘希望通过各方协力，能够让中国刚刚兴起的创客文化的小枝条点燃创意之火。

Reading 2

Comprehension Check for Reading 2

1. a full-sized orange robotic giraffe named Russell that chewed, swayed, walked and even talked

2. a giant red weather balloon in the Rose Garden 3. a paper-crafted dinosaur head in the hallway

4. a 3-D-printed sculpture of President Obama’s State of the Union Address 5. a 3-D-printed pancake

6. a microscope made out of folded paper 7. robots made by the Beatty sisters

Integrated Skills Practicing

I. Viewing & Listening

1. When I was very young, I was in love with animation. But I found myself flowing more into sculpture, because I realized from my own temperament, the effort and time involved to make the thing actually move was about the same as the effort and time involved to make an animation.

2. The stuff is all garbage. If it isn’t sorted in a way that makes sense to me, then I’m just warehousing garbage. If things have their place and I know where they are, then this is a stock pile of valuable material. These things are treasures to me, but not if I can’t access them and remember where they are. 3. I found myself in an interesting sort of gap between the maker movement and the art world. The majority of people are excited about it. But they want to know what’s it for. If you have to ask what’s art for, then chances are you will never need art in your home.

III. Writing

Model paper for your reference

There are many benefits of/to bringing the maker movement into the classroom. First and foremost it calls for students to turn from being passive users into active discoverers by stimulating their imagination and creativity. It also allows students to work on “real life” problems in a math or science classroom. This helps students realize the practical aspects of education and can transform their motivation. Moreover, students can learn how to interact with each other effectively, generating a sense of engagement and mutual acceptance. Added to all this, the completion of each project boosts the confidence of students in their capacity to build something useful. In short, the maker movement injects creativity, encouragement, the spirit of teamwork and a sense of achievement into the classroom, opening up a vast and exciting new frontier in the world of education. (137 words)