National Geographic - Our World
Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/694545
10 Our World Readers, Big Books and Story Time DVDs Bring storytelling into your classroom! Facts About Gold What Is Gold? Gold is a very valuable, shiny metal which is usually yellow in colour. It is one of the first metals people knew and used. It is believed that gold was first used in the Middle East, where the first known civilisations began. The first gold objects date back more than 6 000 years. Gold, which was found in streams, became highly valued in human cultures around the word. It has been found in tombs and with artefacts that date back to the earliest civilisations. Countries around the world used it as money for hundreds of years. Egyptians used gold as money as early as 1 500 B.C. Why is Gold so Valuable? Gold is valuable for a number of reasons. Of course it is beautiful. But gold is also a very easy metal to work with. It is soft and can be melted and shaped without difficulty. Gold doesn't rust. It is also difficult to find and there is not a large amount of it left on Earth. How is Gold Used Today? Today, most gold is used to make jewellery. However, because gold is so easy to work with and does not rust like other metals, lots of modern uses for gold have been discovered. Gold is used in lots of electronic devices like mobile phones, computers, printers, photocopiers, televisions and calculators. Gold parts have even been used in cars, in heart surgery and on space shuttles! 13 12 What's in My Classroom? Level 1 King Midas and His Golden Touch, Level 6 Our World Readers 6 levels 9 full-color Readers per level 18 Big Books for levels 1 and 2 Original stories, folk tales, myths and non-fiction from around the world Story Time DVDs support each level with a hosted video segment for every reader Encourage reading for fun and bring storytelling into your English language-learning classroom!