理工類：閱讀理解Citizen Scientists
Understanding how nature responds to climate change will require monitoring key life cycle1 events-flowering， the appearance of leaves， the first frog calls of the spring - all around the world. But ecologists cant be everywhere so theyre turning to non-scientists， sometimes called citizen scientists， for help.
Climate scientists are not present everywhere. Because there are so many places in the world and not enough scientists to observe all of them， theyre asking for your help in observing signs of climate change across the world. The citizen scientist movement encourages ordinary people to observe a very specific research interest - birds， trees， flowers budding， etc. - and send their observations to a giant database to be observed by professional scientists. This helps a small number of scientists track a large amount of data that they would never be able to gather on their own. Much like citizen journalists helping large publications cover a hyper-local beat2， citizen scientists are ready for the conditions where they live. All thats needed to become one is a few minutes each day or each week to gather data and send it3 in.
A group of scientists and educators launched an organization last year called the National Pheonology4 Network. “Phenology” is what scientists call the study of the timing of events in nature.
One of the groups first efforts relies on scientists and non-scientists alike to collect data about plant flowering and leafing every year. The program， called Project BudBurst， collects life cycle data on a variety of common plants from across the United States. People participating in the project - which is open to everyone - record their observations on the Project BudBurst website.
“People dont have to be plant experts -they just have to look around and see whats in their neighborhood，” says Jennifer Schwartz， an education consultant with the project. “As we collect this data， well be able to make an estimate of how plants and eommunities5 of plants and animals will respond as the climate changes.”
詞匯：
Frog n. 蛙 Ecologist n.生態學家 Phenology n.物候學 Bud v.發芽，萌芽；n.芽，花蕾
Neighbor（u）rhood n.近鄰；鄰近地區 Database n.數據庫
Professional adj.專業的，職業的；n.職業選手，專業人員
注釋：
1. life cycle：生命周期，即生物發展過程的系列變化。
2. hyper-local beat： beat 在此做名詞用，意思是：某類新聞報道，如，a business beat; 商業專題報道。這是近年來出現的新詞。Hyper-local beat 即 hyper-local news，指 的是被傳統新聞報道方式所忽略的小型社區或居民居住區里發生的相關信息報道。在美 國由此而誕生了 hyper-local news website，專門對主流媒體所沒有覆蓋的地區所發生 的事件進行報道，其形式多以網民，即短文中所提及的 citizen journalists，上傳所 在社區發生的事件報道、照片或視頻為主。這是網絡時代產生的又一新生事物。
3. data 是復數形式，但常用做單數，所以這里的代詞是 it.另參見 最后 一段“As we collect this data， ……”。這里的 data 也用作單數。
4. phenology：物候學或生物氣候學，是氣候學和生態學的邊緣學科，主要研究氣候環境 對生物的影響。
5. communities：生態學詞匯：生物群落，記載比較相似的環境條件下在特定自然區域或 環境中生活和互相影響的一群植物和動物。