How many kinds of cacti are there? – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.hey it's Jay ever seen one of these before this is a plant called a cactus maybe you've seen one of these growing in a pot before cactuses also called cacti don't need a lot of water so lots of people find them easy to grow as decorations for their homes if you live in certain parts of North or South America you might have also seen cacti growing in the wild like these CAC come in lots of funky shapes and sizes and many of them have another way of getting noticed these spiky spines someone named Abby has a question about cacti let's call Abby now hi Jay hi Abby I have a question for you how many CTI are there that's a great question I want to introduce you to someone who knows a lot about this her name is Elia Bravo ois Elia Bravo ois was born in what is now Mexico City in the year 1901 as a kid she and her family spent lots of time outside at night they stargazed and during the day they took walks among the cacti and other plants near their home Elia Bravo oise fell in love with plants Elia did well in school and her family dreamed that she would grow up to become a doctor but she realized she had a different dream so halfway through studying medicine in college she switched to studying plants instead after she graduated Elia Bravo Alise took on a big new goal she wanted people everywhere to learn about the plants she'd grown up with in Mexico I'm curious if you wanted everyone to learn about plants that grow near where you live what would you do how could you share that information now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss okay ready Elia Bravo ois lived in a time before a lot of the tools we use to share information today existed there was no social media no internet and far fewer films than there are today so OT decided to write a book about Mexican C CTI her book was going to be a guide to the many different kinds of cacti in Mexico what they looked like where they grew and what made them special this wouldn't be easy there were hundreds of different types of cacti in Mexico and she was sure there were more that scientists hadn't even studied yet she got to work she carefully read the research of other scientists who had studied cacti before her then she set out into the wild to do her own research she traveled all around Mexico looking for cacti she hiked through deserts mountains and jungles it was hard work but the cacti she got to observe were amazing she studied Barrel cacti she studied colorful prickly pear cacti she studied Sagat cacti that were as tall as trees but Elia didn't just want to learn about these cacti for herself she wanted to share what she learned she wanted people reading her book to feel like they were taking a cactus field trip across Mexico like they were standing next to her as she inspected each Cactus so she carefully recorded her observations of each kind of cactus she encountered she took photos she made sketches she sliced parts of the cacti open and sketched what she saw inside she dug down to the roots of the plant and sketched those too she collected hundreds of of thousands of plant samples she described each sample in detail and compared it to other cacti she had seen finally after years of research she published Las caas de Mexico or the cacti of Mexico she achieved her goal her book was more than 700 pages had 324 photographs and described most of Mexico's many kinds of cacti nobody had ever put that much information about cacti together in one place people used her book to learn about cacti for years and years to come but Elia Bravo Elis did not stop there she dedicated the rest of her life to the study of cacti after publishing her book Elia became a beloved teacher helping many others learn to study cacti she published more research and wrote more books she started the cactus Society of Mexico she knew that the more that people learned about cacti the more they would care about these prickly and perfect plants and the more they would care about protecting the places in nature where they grow her work was so important that some scientists now call Elia Bravo o laa Las caas the queen of cacti because of her work and the work of scientists she taught and inspired we now have identified nearly 2,000 kinds of cacti in the world so in summary much of what we know about cacti we owe to the work of Elia Bravo ois she explored across Mexico and carefully recorded observations of hundreds of types of cacti she encouraged others to continue her work and we've now recorded nearly 2,000 different kinds of cacti and there's still more to do even at the end of her life Elia Bravo oise knew that there was still much more to learn discover and share about these plants maybe you'll be the next person to carry on her work studying cacti or maybe you'll carry on her work in a different way by learning more about the things you're curious about whatever that may be and sharing what you learn with other people just like she did that's all for this week's question thanks for asking Abby now we'll be back with a new episode in a couple of weeks but in the meantime here are some older questions from the question jar you can vote on which one you think we should send out next week you can choose from how do batteries work why do we sweat when we play sports or how does hand sanitizer kill germs so submit your vote when the video is over we want to hear from all of you watching there are Mysteries all around us stay curious and see you next week