full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson: A love story for the coral reef crisis

Unscramble the Blue Letters


First, they have a muoth like a parrot's beak, which is strong enough to bite coral, although mostly they're after algae. They are the lawn mowers of the reef. This is key, because many reefs are overgrown with alage due to nutrient pollution from swagee and fertilizer that runs off of land. And there just aren't enough herbivores like parrotfish left out on the reefs to mow it all down.

OK, second amazing thing. After all that eantig, they poop fine wthie sand. A single parrotfish can produce over 380 kilograms of this pulverized coral each year. Sometimes, when scuba diving, I would look up from my clipboard and just see crntolais of parrotfish poop rnainig down. So next time you're lounging on a tropical white-sand bcaeh, maybe thank of parrotfish.

Open Cloze


First, they have a _____ like a parrot's beak, which is strong enough to bite coral, although mostly they're after algae. They are the lawn mowers of the reef. This is key, because many reefs are overgrown with _____ due to nutrient pollution from ______ and fertilizer that runs off of land. And there just aren't enough herbivores like parrotfish left out on the reefs to mow it all down.

OK, second amazing thing. After all that ______, they poop fine _____ sand. A single parrotfish can produce over 380 kilograms of this pulverized coral each year. Sometimes, when scuba diving, I would look up from my clipboard and just see _________ of parrotfish poop _______ down. So next time you're lounging on a tropical white-sand _____, maybe thank of parrotfish.

Solution


  1. eating
  2. beach
  3. sewage
  4. contrails
  5. raining
  6. mouth
  7. white
  8. algae

Original Text


First, they have a mouth like a parrot's beak, which is strong enough to bite coral, although mostly they're after algae. They are the lawn mowers of the reef. This is key, because many reefs are overgrown with algae due to nutrient pollution from sewage and fertilizer that runs off of land. And there just aren't enough herbivores like parrotfish left out on the reefs to mow it all down.

OK, second amazing thing. After all that eating, they poop fine white sand. A single parrotfish can produce over 380 kilograms of this pulverized coral each year. Sometimes, when scuba diving, I would look up from my clipboard and just see contrails of parrotfish poop raining down. So next time you're lounging on a tropical white-sand beach, maybe thank of parrotfish.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
coral reefs 4
marine biologist 2
entire ecosystem 2


Important Words


  1. algae
  2. amazing
  3. beach
  4. beak
  5. bite
  6. clipboard
  7. contrails
  8. coral
  9. diving
  10. due
  11. eating
  12. fertilizer
  13. fine
  14. herbivores
  15. key
  16. kilograms
  17. land
  18. lawn
  19. left
  20. lounging
  21. mouth
  22. mow
  23. mowers
  24. nutrient
  25. overgrown
  26. parrotfish
  27. pollution
  28. poop
  29. produce
  30. pulverized
  31. raining
  32. reef
  33. reefs
  34. runs
  35. sand
  36. scuba
  37. sewage
  38. single
  39. strong
  40. time
  41. tropical
  42. white
  43. year