G3 Unususl Jobs All Student Resources

Interviewer: Today we’re going to talk to a young man who has chosen an unusual occupation. He’s a smokejumper.

Interviewer: Can you first tell us what a smokejumper does?

Smokejumper: Sure. A smokejumper is a kind of firefighter. But smokejumpers fly over areas that are on fire and jump down into them to fight the fires and put them out.

Interviewer: Sounds dangerous. Do you have to know how to jump from an airplane first?

Smokejumper: I didn’t know how to jump before I signed up, but it’s part of the training.

Interviewer: Can you tell us about your training?

An Interview with a

Smokejumper

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wildfires for at least three months. You have to know about forest fire or wildfire suppression. You also have to know about safety precautions and safety practices in those kinds of fires. Some of what you need to know you get from previous experience, and some of it you learn in college.

Interviewer: What do you like best about being a smokejumper?

Smokejumper: I like doing something that I can feel proud of doing. I like that I can help keep the fires from destroying the land. There’s so much I like!

Interviewer: Thanks for speaking with us!

Smokejumper: In California, smokejumper training is run by the Forest Service. Training groups start up around April 1 and train for six straight weeks. You train every day, all day long. There’s a lot of physical conditioning. You learn about fires and how to put them out. You learn about tree cutting, chain saws, and tree climbing. You also learn how to manipulate parachutes so you land in just the right spot. It’s a lot of work!

Interviewer: Tell us more about the skills you need to become a smokejumper.

Smokejumper: Well, you have to have at least a year of fighting fires behind you. Out of that time, you have to have fought forest or

DID YOUKNOW?

There are more smokejumpers in Russia than in any other place in the world due to the great number of wildfires in that country.

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I recently read an article about worm farming in the paper. I decided to try it. The article said that worms eat plant material. Their droppings, or castings, make very good fertilizer. Our garden hasn’t been doing very well lately. I wanted to try putting worm castings around the plants. I think it will help them grow better.

The first thing I did was to visit some websites about worm farming. I learned that there are many different kinds of worms. For composting, red worms are best because they live up at the surface of the soil, and don’t burrow down into it. Next I got a big plastic tub. I asked an adult to help me drill air holes in the lid. The lid keeps it dark and moist inside, the way worms

blog posted by Valerie Dennis, July 31, 2013 A Worm Farmer’s Blog

A Worm Farmer’s Blog


Credit: © Joerg Mikus/123RF

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meat or dairy products. The worms do their part to decompose the food. I wait until there isn’t much food left before I add more. I read that a worm can process about half of its own weight in a day.

Soon I’ll be able to put castings in the garden. And, when I want to go fishing, I’ll have bait!

like it, but they need air, too. Then I put shredded newspaper in the tub nearly to the top. I sprayed just enough water to make the newspaper damp, but not soggy. I read that the worms need just a little dirt to get started, so I added a cupful and mixed it in. I put the bin in a place where it would always be in the shade. My worm farm was ready to go!

I’m starting with about a pound of worms. That’s about 1,000 of them. I’ve been putting vegetable food scraps in the tub almost every night. I’m careful not to put in

DID YOUKNOW?

To look closely at a red worm, put a piece of red cellophane over the lens of a flashlight. Red worms don’t mind red light as much as white light.


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Milking Poison

If you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have never said, “a snake milker.” Yet that’s exactly what I am. And I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.

I live in southeastern Alabama, home to the Eastern diamondback rattlesnake. It’s the largest snake in North America. It’s also the most poisonous. My office holds bins and bins of these poisonous creatures.

What I like about my job is that it produces something—snake venom, or poison. I freeze-dry the venom and sell it to research labs. They use it to make drugs that treat blood clots, heart attacks, and high blood pressure. They also make antivenin. Antivenin is another kind of medicine.


Credits: main: © Ocean/Corbis; inset: © Science Source

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DID YOUKNOW?

Some Eastern diamondback rattlesnakes can be eight feet long–longer than most people are tall!

The venom drips down into the funnel. The funnel is connected to a collection tube. The venom drips slowly because it is very thick.

Each snake gives up only a little bit of venom at a time. I can get about three tablespoons of venom if I milk twenty snakes. When I’m finished milking them, I make the venom into a powder. And that’s what I sell to the labs.

I’d rather milk a snake than a cow any day! I’s a lot more exciting!

It’s given to a person who gets bitten by a poisonous snake. So I believe I’m doing my part to help humanity.

Getting the venom from snakes is tricky. You have to know what you’re doing in order not to get bitten. I have a special hook that I use to take the snake out of the bin. Squeezing three special places on a snake’s head

makes it open its mouth and expose its fangs. Then the trick is to hold the snake’s head still. I carefully lean the fangs against the inside of a funnel and squeeze again.


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OpenOpen

WideWideWhat happens if you get a toothache? You go to the dentist, of course. But what happens if a lion or a gorilla gets a toothache? A dentist comes to them!

By day, Dr. John Scheels is a dentist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His patients are humans. But by night (and other off-hours), Dr. Scheels treats the animals at the Milwaukee Zoo and at Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo.

Scheels loves his job and is good at it, too. In fact, he’s been called one of the top three zoo dentists in the world. When he hears this kind of compliment, he laughs. And then adds that there aren’t many zoo doctors anyway—at least not with the kind of experience he has.


Credit: © Chris George/Alamy

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teeth, but not all. Because animals cannot talk and tell you where it hurts, they often ignore the pain. Then the only thing to do is to remove the tooth. If the patient is a polar bear, it’s not an easy job. It takes Scheels and nine other people to move this 1 ,100 pound creature into a position in which Scheels can do his work.

Scheels believes he is doing a good service and is honored by the opportunity to do it. He feels that the perspective he has gained has made him a better human dentist, too. And his experiences make for good conversation with his human patients!

Scheels is the first to admit when he doesn’t know something. To treat a gorilla, he first studied the skull of a deceased gorilla from the Milwaukee Zoo. Since then, he’s looked at the skulls of a hyena, a lion, and a koala, to learn how to treat his animal patients.

There are a lot of species of animals to be found at a zoo. Scheels has worked on over seventy of them. Most of his cases involve pulling broken

DID YOUKNOW?

There are over 2,000 zoos in the world. Over 300 of them are in the United States alone.


Credit: © Michael Dunlea/Alamy

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My name is Taylor, and I’m a chimney sweep. I live next door to the family whose house burned down last week. They were okay, thank goodness. Their house burned because the debris in their chimney built up and caught fire. Maybe if they had hired someone like me, the fire wouldn’t have happened.

If you have a fireplace in your house that burns wood, you should hire me every year. I’ll look at your chimney to see if there’s built-up soot. If there’s more than a quarter inch of soot built up, you need your chimney cleaned. Too much soot will clog up the chimney. The clog will keep the smoke from going up and out of your house, and smoke will go into the room instead.

A Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

DID YOUKNOW?

Forty percent of house fires actually happen due to cooking-related accidents.


Credit: © iStockphoto.com/Iztok Grilc

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the floor of the fireplace, and then I’ll vacuum it up. The whole job takes me about an hour. I’ll cover all your floors and furniture to keep them clean. I even wear overalls, gloves, and a hat to keep myself clean.

I do get dirty being a chimney sweep. Your house might get dirty, too. But a dirty house that can get cleaned is better than a house that can’t get cleaned. A house that has burned to the ground is beyond cleaning. And if you’re unlucky enough to be inside the house when it catches fire, you could get hurt.

Chimney sweeps save lives!

Sincerely,

Taylor Cole

Sometimes the soot even catches fire. That’s probably what happened at my neighbor’s house.

Getting your chimney cleaned can be messy. I have a special broom that I put into the fireplace and up into the chimney. I move the brush around the inside of the chimney. That knocks off all the built-up soot. A lot of the soot and dust will come out. It’ll fall to

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Name

Student ReSponSe Sheet IndIvIdual ReadIng

Jobholder’sThoughts

My Thoughts

Key Question

What makes an unusual job worth doing?

On Your Own

1. Read the Key Question. Then read the passage. Look for information about the unusual job in the text that will help you answer the Key Question. Highlight that information.

2. Now look back at your passage. Compare and contrast your thoughts about the job with the jobholder’s thoughts and feelings. Use the Venn Diagram below.

3. Think about the Key Question. Write your answer to the Key Question using what you learned in the passage you read.

My First Answer

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Name

Student ReSponSe Sheet Team Discussion

Jobholder’s Thoughts

My Thoughts

Key Question


Share Your Ideas

Meet with your team. Talk about each passage your team read.

1. Tell the team about the unusual job in the passage. Show your Venn Diagram.

2. Look at the Venn Diagrams your team members made. Compare the jobs in each passage by looking at all of the diagrams. Answer these questions together.

• Dothejobholdersthinktheirjobsareworthdoing?Howcanyoutell?

•Doyouthinkthesejobsareworthdoing?Howdoesthetextsupportyouropinion?

Next, write the jobholder’s feelings and thoughts about the job that will help answer the Key Question on the Venn Diagram below. Write only the thoughts and feelings that are similar in every passage your team read.

Answer the Key Question

Review your team’s Venn Diagram. As a team, write an answer to the Key Question. Use what you learned from the passages to support your answer.


Our Team’s Answer

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G3 Unususl Jobs All Student Resources