Humans and Environment
Unit 5 · English for Today — Class 8
The Little Bird 🐦 · Poems about Nature 🌿 · Dancing Bears 🐻 · The Farming Teacher 🌾 · We Lost Our Home 🏚️
🎯 Learning Objectives
After studying this unit, we will be able to:
Main Themes — This unit explores the bond between humans and the natural world — kindness to animals, the beauty of nature, the joy of growing things, and the pain of losing one’s home to environmental change. Each lesson teaches us to respect and protect the world we share. 🌍
A little siskin in a cage by the window
Seryozha’s mother saw that he had forgotten to close the little door of the cage and called after him, “Close the cage door, Seryozha, or your bird might fly out and hurt itself.”
No sooner had she said this than the siskin found the door, spread its wings happily and flew across the room to the window. But it did not see the glass pane. It hit the pane and fell to the windowsill.
Seryozha came running, picked up the little bird and took it back to the cage. The siskin was alive, but it lay on its breast with its little wings spread out and was breathing jerkily. Seryozha began to cry.
Seryozha: “Mamma! What’ll I do?” Mother: “There’s nothing you can do now.”Seryozha did not leave the room that day. He kept gazing at the siskin, which lay breathing jerkily. When he went to bed that night the bird was still alive. He could not fall asleep for a long while — no sooner would he close his eyes than he would imagine the siskin lying there, gasping for breath.
The next morning the siskin was lying on its back with its legs curled up. It was dead. Never again did Seryozha catch another bird.
- Why did the mother warn Seryozha?
- What happened when the siskin flew to the window?
- How was the bird breathing after it fell?
- What did Seryozha do all day?
- What lesson did Seryozha learn at the end?
✅ 1. Because the cage door was open and the bird might fly out and hurt itself.
✅ 2. It did not see the glass pane, hit it and fell to the windowsill.
✅ 3. It was breathing jerkily (in short, broken breaths).
✅ 4. He stayed in the room and kept gazing at the siskin.
✅ 5. He learned never to catch a bird again — to value animals’ freedom and life.
🎯 MCQ — Lesson 1 (The Little Bird)
The beauty of the natural world in poetry
Keep one
<div class="poem-stanza">…</div> per stanza,and add a
<span class="poem-author"> at the end for the poet’s name.
As you read the poems, notice rhyme and rhythm. Practise reading the lines with the right stress and pauses.
Bears dancing under the full moon
Two Alaskan Kodiak bears joined a small circus, where the pair appeared in a nightly parade pulling a covered wagon. They were taught to somersault, to spin, to stand on their heads, and to dance on their hind legs, paw in paw, stepping in unison. Under a spotlight, the dancing bears — a male and a female — soon became favourites of the crowd.
The circus toured south through Canada to California, down into Mexico, through Panama into South America, and down the Andes to the southernmost isles of Tierra del Fuego. There a jaguar mauled the animal trainer, and the shocked show people disbanded in dismay and horror.
In the confusion the bears went their own way, wandering off into the wilderness on those densely wooded, windy, subantarctic islands. In a climate they found ideal, the bears mated, thrived, multiplied, and after many generations populated the whole island. Seventy years later, scientists discovered that every single bear could still perform splendid circus tricks.
On nights when the moon is full, they gather to dance. They gather the cubs in a circle inside a sparkling crater left by a meteorite. Its chalk-white walls fill with a pool of moonlight, twice as bright as anywhere else in the vicinity. Scientists think the full moon reminded the first two bears of the circus spotlight — and so, paw in paw, their descendants still dance in brilliant silence.
🎯 MCQ — Lesson 3 (Dancing Bears)
Children learning to plant a field with their teacher
The farming teacher handed out spades and hoes and started the children on weeding. He told them how hardy weeds were, how some grew faster than crops and hid the sun from them, how weeds gave bad insects a hiding place, and how they could be a nuisance by taking all the nourishment from the soil. While he talked, his hands never stopped pulling weeds — and the children did the same.
Then he showed them how to hoe, how to make furrows, how to spread fertilizer, and everything else needed to grow things in a field. When a little snake nearly bit Ta-chan, the teacher reassured him: “The snakes here ain’t poisonous, and they won’t hurt you if you don’t hurt them.”
Besides farming, he told them interesting things about insects, birds, butterflies and the weather. His strong, gnarled hands seemed to show that he had learned everything himself through experience. By the time the field was planted, the children were dripping with perspiration — but proud, for it was an almost perfect field.
From that day, the children held the farmer in high esteem, calling out “There’s our farming teacher!” whenever they saw him. They learned the wonder and joy of seeing the seeds they had planted sprout. Terrible things were beginning to happen in the world — but as the children watched their tiny field, they were still enfolded in the very heart of peace.
🎯 MCQ — Lesson 4 (The Farming Teacher)
Families displaced by the Kaptai dam in the Chittagong Hill Tracts
Hakkonchandra village lay to the east of the Kaptai dam, in the Rangamati district of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT). A family there from the Boro Hambe clan had a son who became one of the very first ivory craftsmen among the Jumma population of the region. His niece is the grandmother whose story is told here.
She thinks she is over eighty years old now and is one of the eyewitnesses of this episode in CHT history. Her family was relatively affluent — her father was a schoolteacher — and Sushama Chakma never knew paucity or poverty in her early years.
When the northern parts of CHT were permanently submerged by the Kaptai dam, the Chakma, Hajong, Marma and adi-Bangali residents all lost their possessions. The wealthiest families became displaced people, moving constantly from place to place. About 50,000 Chakma, Hajong and Tripuri people had to leave the country and migrate permanently.
Like many others, she lost a secure life, her homeland and her relatives. Her husband had to give up his public service to live like a refugee. Her only possessions were memories of better times and the determination to survive. Despite the constant struggle, the sun never shone for her family.
🎯 MCQ — Lesson 5 (We Lost Our Home)
📘 Important Word Meanings — All Lessons (বাংলা অর্থসহ)
| 🔤 Word / Phrase | 📖 Meaning (বাংলা) |
|---|---|
| siskin 🐦 | একপ্রকার ছোট গানের পাখি — a small singing bird |
| cage 🪶 | খাঁচা — a box of bars for keeping a bird or animal |
| pane 🪟 | জানালার কাঁচ — a sheet of glass in a window |
| jerkily 💨 | থেমে থেমে / ঝাঁকুনি দিয়ে — in short, sudden, uneven movements |
| gasping 😮💨 | কষ্টে শ্বাস নেওয়া / হাঁপানো — struggling to breathe |
| windowsill 🪟 | জানালার তাক / কিনারা — the ledge at the bottom of a window |
| curled up 🌀 | গুটিয়ে যাওয়া — bent or rolled into a curved shape |
| somersault 🤸 | ডিগবাজি — a roll of the body, heels over head |
| in unison 👣 | একসাথে / সমতালে — doing the same thing at the same time |
| disbanded 💥 | ভেঙে যাওয়া / বিলুপ্ত হওয়া — broke up and stopped existing as a group |
| wilderness 🌲 | বন্য জনহীন প্রান্তর — wild, uninhabited natural land |
| thrived 🌱 | সমৃদ্ধ হওয়া / বেড়ে ওঠা — grew well and prospered |
| crater 🕳️ | গর্ত / খাদ — a large hollow, often made by impact |
| vicinity 📍 | আশপাশের এলাকা — the surrounding area; nearby region |
| weeding 🌿 | আগাছা পরিষ্কার করা — removing unwanted wild plants |
| hoe 🪓 | নিড়ানি / কোদাল — a tool for loosening soil and clearing weeds |
| furrows 〰️ | লাঙলের রেখা / নালা — long narrow grooves cut into the soil |
| fertilizer 🧪 | সার — material added to soil to help crops grow |
| nuisance 😣 | উপদ্রব / বিরক্তিকর জিনিস — something annoying or troublesome |
| gnarled ✋ | গিঁটযুক্ত / অমসৃণ — rough, knotted and twisted (often from hard work) |
| perspiration 💧 | ঘাম — sweat from the body |
| esteem 🙏 | সম্মান / শ্রদ্ধা — great respect and admiration |
| sprout 🌱 | অঙ্কুরিত হওয়া — when a seed begins to grow from the soil |
| submerged 🌊 | তলিয়ে যাওয়া / নিমজ্জিত — covered completely with water |
| displaced 🚪 | বাস্তুচ্যুত — forced to leave one’s home or land |
| affluent 💰 | সচ্ছল / ধনী — wealthy; having plenty of money |
| paucity 📉 | অভাব / স্বল্পতা — a shortage or lack of something |
| refugee 🧳 | শরণার্থী — a person forced to flee their home for safety |
| possessions 📦 | সম্পত্তি / সম্পদ — the things a person owns |
| migrate ➡️ | স্থানান্তরিত হওয়া / অভিবাসন করা — to move permanently to another place |
| eyewitness 👁️ | প্রত্যক্ষদর্শী — a person who saw an event happen |
🗺️ Unit Summary — At a Glance
🐦 L1 — The Little Bird — Seryozha leaves the cage door open; the siskin flies into the glass pane and is hurt. Despite his care, the bird dies. He never catches another bird — a lesson in kindness to animals.
🌿 L2 — Poems about Nature — A collection of poems celebrating the beauty of the natural world, taught through reading aloud, rhyme and rhythm.
🐻 L3 — Dancing Bears — Two circus bears escape into the wild after a jaguar attack, thrive on a remote island, and pass their dancing on for generations — dancing under the full moon.
🌾 L4 — The Farming Teacher — A farmer teaches children to weed, hoe and plant a field, and about insects, birds and weather. They learn by doing — gaining skill, pride and peace.
🏚️ L5 — We Lost Our Home — Sushama Chakma’s family lost everything when the Kaptai dam submerged their CHT village. About 50,000 people migrated away — a real human cost of environmental change.
🃏 Fun Card — Flashcards
Tap a card to flip and see the বাংলা meaning! Swipe / scroll to see all cards.
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🧠 FunCheck — Vocabulary Challenge!
Test your word power! 10 questions on new vocabulary from Unit 5.