Reading Assignment 1 L4

1 TILCARA, Argentina—Carmen Salva’s mission may be ambitious, but her belief is simple: “It’s never too early to start caring for the land you live in and grow up in. It’s a great joy to know that I am preparing a new generation to respect the environment.”

That’s why on Saturdays, Salva and a group of 60 to 100 students, parents, and teachers can be found venturing into their mountains, trash bags in hand and llamas in tow. They’re part of Esperanza de Vida (Hope for Life), Salva’s youth environmental group that is trying to clean up the surroundings, one plastic bottle at a time.

Choose the correct heading

• Motivated Youth

• The beginning

• Carmen Salva's mission

Salva was born and raised in the Jujuy (pronounced hoo-whee) province of northern Argentina, an area known for its rich culture and spectacular vistas. Despite its beauty, Salva says there’s no real environmental consciousness in her community. “We have a lot of issues to work on—the problem of water contamination; there’s so much trash,” Salva says. “We can’t just think that it will take care of itself.”

“Our city had no formal recycling program,” says Salva, so she began Esperanza de Vida in 1997 to organize and lead young participants in “making our streets and our environment cleaner.” At first, the group’s activities were limited to cleaning parks near and around the school. But the organization’s efforts have expanded well beyond the immediate area, and other Jujuy schools have joined in. About 150 people now take part, including about 80 children.

Choose the correct heading.

• Salva's mission

• The beginning

• important lessons

Salva and fellow teachers have noticed their students apply as much energy and commitment to the weekend environmental activities as they do to their general subjects. “Some even wait by my house on Saturday for the program to begin,” beams Salva.

The group convenes early in the morning to hike together into the mountains, where they work for hours, picking up trash and separating recyclables. On an average Saturday cleanup, it’s not unusual for the group to collect roughly 60 bags of trash for recycling, clearing thousands of bottles. The llamas help carry the heavy load down from the mountains. The local government helps to transport the collected recyclables to the drop-off center, nearly 50 miles away.

• Motivated Youth

• Learning lessons

• The beginning

Salva says the group is raising awareness, adding new volunteers, and implementing new projects. The children are even teaching their parents to care for the environment around them. “It’s a great joy to know that I am preparing a new generation to respect the environment,” says Salva. “Their children’s children will have another mentality, and our goal will be accomplished.”

Choose the heading

• Salva's mission

• Motivated Youth

• Important lessons

Having reached the highest point of our route according to plan we discovered something the map had not told us. It was impossible to climb down into the Kingo valley. The river lay deep down between mountain sides that are almost vertical. We couldn't find any animal tracks, which usually show the best way across country,and the slopes were covered so thickly with bushes that we couldn't see the nature of the ground. We had somehow to break through to the river which would give us our direction out of the mountain into the inhabited lowlands.

The traveler wanted to get to the river because

• It would lead them to the waterfall.

• It was a quicker route than going over the mountains

• It would show them which way to go.