 Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. Coming up on the program, Gregory Stockle reports on a drought endangering communities in the Amazon rainforest. Gina Bennett has a story on German companies using robots to fill jobs in a labor shortage. Jill Robbins and I have the Education Report on using AI chatbots in math and computer science courses. Later, John Russell presents the lesson of the day. But first, here is Gregory Stockle. A drought is endangering communities in the Amazon, a large rainforest in South America. Public officials in Brazil are attempting to transport food and water to thousands of distant communities. The situation is more complex as the area has few roads. Boats are the main transportation to these communities. Across the huge Amazonas state, 59 out of its 62 municipalities are under a state of emergency. About 633,000 people are affected. In the capital Manaus, the large Negro River is at its lowest level since official measurements began 121 years ago. The Negro flows into the Amazon River. The city of Corero de Varsia is in great need. It lies by the Amazon River, not far from Manaus. Recently, the municipality gave out emergency supplies. The city used a boat that normally transports farm animals. The Associated Press joined on transport operations to two communities. Each family received a basic food supply and 20 liters of water. It was enough for just a few days, but difficult to carry in the heat. I will have to carry the food package on my back for half an hour. Bojas Bachista Jesusa told the AP. He owns a small farm in Salazarro community. He said the biggest problem is getting drinkable water. He has to walk a long way for that, he says. Everybody in Corero de Varsia has been affected by the drought, said Gen Costa Jesusa. He is chief of civil defense of Corero de Varsia, a municipality of 19,600 people. Most of them live in rural areas. Unfortunately, people don't have water. Some lost their crops, while others couldn't transport their output, he said. Costa Jesusa reported also that the municipality will complete the first transports to all rural communities next week. The local government is now planning two more transports. They are waiting for state and federal aid. Periods of dry weather are part of the Amazon's usual weather pattern. Lighter rainfall happens from May to October for most of the rainforest. This year's dry season is longer because of two different weather events, the warming of Northern Equatorial Atlantic Ocean waters and El Niño. El Niño is the warming of surface waters in the Equatorial Pacific area. It will be at its strongest point between December and January. I'm Gregory Stockle. German businesses are increasingly turning to robots to fill jobs as the country faces a severe labor shortage. The situation left about 1.7 million jobs unfilled across Germany in June, official data showed. The country's chambers of commerce and industry has estimated that half of German businesses are currently struggling to fill positions. Germany is Europe's largest economy. One of the country's biggest labor issues is the large number of people retiring from the so-called baby boomer generation. People in this group are between the ages of 57 and 75. The nation's birth rate has also been going down for years. Economic experts say it is difficult to replace these retiring workers. Many younger workers do not want to take jobs seen as dirty and dangerous. The job shortage situation is currently reducing growth in Germany by about $109 billion a year, official estimates suggest. The Federal Employment Agency predicts the amount of available workers will shrink by 7 million people by 2035. The problem is affecting large, medium, and small businesses across the country. Some have decided to replace retiring workers with robotic systems. With similar issues affecting other developed economies, robotic and artificial intelligence or AI technologies will continue to expand, said Neela Richardson. She is the chief economist at financial provider ADP. Long term, all those innovations are a game changer for the world of work. Germany will do their job differently, Richardson told Reuters. Heavy investment in automation by car makers and other major industrial companies has made Germany the world's fourth largest market for robots, the largest in Europe. But as robots become less costly and easier to operate, even smaller companies are also using them. The International Federation of Robotics has estimated that about 26,000 robotic machines were put in place in Germany last year. Robots enable the survival of companies that see their future at risk due to staff shortages, said Ralph Winkleman, director of Fanuk, Germany. The company sells about half its Japanese-made robots to small and medium-sized businesses. The company run Rolex is a German company that produces systems to protect industrial electronics and control equipment. It bought its first robot last year to permit production to continue at night. Rolex has already bought a second machine and plans to continue investing in automation. It is great when you turn on the light in the morning and the parts are in the storage container and have been processed, Rolex CEO Matthias Rose told Reuters. Industry experts say increasing robotic operations are also a sign that robots have become easier to use with no special skills required. Most now come with a human-machine interface, which operates similarly to a smartphone, said Florian André. He is a co-founder of Sherpa Robotics, a startup that targets companies with between 20 and 100 employees. Human workers and trade unions, which in the past were fearful of job losses linked to robots, have taken an increasingly favorable position. A public opinion study published in June by a robots marketplace organization found that nearly half of German employees see robots as a help to the labor shortage. I'm Gina Bennett. Some schools in the US are considering whether to ban chatbots, which use artificial intelligence or AI. However, some math and computer science teachers think chatbots, which learn about subjects from the Internet, are just another tool. Jack Price has taught math using Wolfram Alpha. It is a website that solves algebraic problems online. It has long threatened to make algebra homework a thing of the past. Teachers learned to work around and with it, said Price. He is an assistant professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Puget Sound in the western state of Washington. Now, students have a new online service that provides homework help using AI, chatGPT, that teachers must deal with. Price does not consider chatGPT to be a threat, and he is not alone. Some math professors believe AI, when used correctly, can help strengthen math learning. It is arriving at a time when math scores are at historic lows and educators are questioning if math should be taught differently. AI can serve as a tutor, giving a student who is struggling with a problem immediate feedback. It can help a teacher plan math lessons or write math problems for different levels of teaching. It can show new computer programmers sample code, permitting them to avoid learning how to write basic code. Math has always been evolving as technology evolves, said Price. He said that a hundred years ago, people could not solve problems using calculators. Price makes sure students have the ability to solve problems on their own. And he discusses the limitations of the technologies they might want to use when they get home. Computers are really good at doing tedious things, Price said. We don't have to do all the tedious stuff. And then we can interpret the answer and think about what it tells us about the decisions we need to make. Min Sun is a University of Washington education professor. She thinks students should use chat box like personal tutors. If students do not understand a math operation, they can ask ChatJPT to explain it and give examples. She wants teachers to use ChatJPT as their own assistant to plan math lessons, give students feedback, and communicate with parents. Teachers can also ask ChatJPT to recommend different levels of math problems for students with different skill levels, she said. This is particularly helpful for teachers who are new to the job or have students with different needs, Sun said. A year ago, if you asked Daniel Zingato how he tests his introductory computer science students, he would say, we ask them to write code. But if you ask him today, Zingato said his answer would be more complex. He teaches at the University of Toronto in Canada. Zingato wrote the book, Learn AI Assisted Python Programming with Github Copilot and ChatJPT with Leo Porter, a computer science professor at University of California, San Diego. They believe AI will permit introductory computer science classes to teach larger ideas. A lot of beginner students have problems writing simple code, Porter and Zingato said. They never move on to higher level questions. Many still cannot write simple code after they complete the class. Chatbots do not make those mistakes, and it permits computer science professors to spend more time teaching higher level abilities. The professors now ask their students to take a big problem and break it down to smaller questions the code needs to do. They also ask students to test and debug code once it is written. After said of students, we want them to write software that is meaningful to them. Magdalena Balazinska is director of the University of Washington's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. She welcomes AI. With the support of AI, human software engineers get to focus on the most interesting parts of computer science, answering big software design questions Balazinska said. Not all professors in the field think AI should be used, but Zingaro and Porter said that reading a lot of code created by artificial intelligence does not feel like cheating. Rather, it is a way for students to learn. I think a lot of programmers read a lot of code just like how I believe the best writers read a lot of writing, Zingaro said. I think that is a very powerful way to learn. I'm Dan Novak. And I'm Jill Robbins. Hi again Jill, thanks for helping me on today's education story. No problem Dan. There was one word you said in the story that I was hoping you could explain to our listeners, tedious. Yes, tedious means something that is boring, slow, or tiresome. Maybe you do the same thing again and again, like washing dishes. In fact, most housework is tedious. So people love those robots that clean the floor for you. Something tedious is not interesting or exciting. Jack Price is a math and computer science professor who was interviewed for the story. He said computers are good at doing tedious things. What do you think he meant by that? Well, I think he was saying that students can use chatbots like ChatGPT to help eliminate some tedious work. I've never taken an introductory computer science course before, but Price was saying a lot of it involves teaching how to write code. Writing code can be a tedious task and can be hard to learn for an introductory student. So if students used ChatGPT to write code, it permits professors like Price to teach more complex and interesting topics in computer science. Price compared ChatBox to Calculator. Technology and math and computer science is always changing and getting better. And teachers always worry it will make their students too lazy to really do the work they should be doing in math. Right. There has always been technology used for math. An abacus uses beads to count and it was invented in ancient times. Small electronic calculators have only been around since the 1970s and it makes it a lot easier to do complex math problems. So the technology is there to make our lives easier, but in my opinion it doesn't take away from students learning. And you know, I love using technology when it makes our lives easier, but sometimes it makes it harder. Thanks for having me on the show, Dan. VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children. It is called Let's Learn English with Anna. The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations. For more information, visit our website, learningenglish.voanews.com. In this next report, Brian Lin tells us about the findings of a recent study. The study explored minerals found in moondust. Pay careful attention to the word conclusive. We will talk more about it after the report. Scientists say a mineral found in moondust suggests Earth's moon is 40 million years older than scientists had believed. The finding was made by researchers who examined moon samples gathered by astronauts from the lunar surface in 1972, the last time humans walked on the moon. The samples were part of a collection of 110 kilograms of dust and rock returned to Earth for scientific study. The American Space Agency, NASA, says the leading theory on how the moon formed involves a huge crash. NASA says a Mars-sized object likely crashed into Earth and released material from both objects, which formed the moon. But the exact timing of when the moon was created has been difficult to identify. A new study based on the 1972 samples suggests the moon formed about 4.46 billion years ago. The research was led by a team from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. The findings were recently published in a study in geochemical perspective letters. The study examined small crystals found in the lunar dust. The team said the crystals contained a mineral called zircon. The zircon is believed to have formed when the lunar surface cooled after being in a melting state after the crash. The method used to estimate the age of the dust sample is called atom probe tomography. This method had not been developed when the sample was collected 51 years ago, said Philip Heck. He is the lead writer of the study and the senior director of research at the Field Museum of Natural History. NASA said the lunar sample was collected from an area known as the Taurus Litro Valley on the near side of the moon. The near side of the moon is the side that always faces Earth. The sample had been stored at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Heck noted that zircon is a very strong mineral that can survive the breakdown of rocks during weathering. The new study followed an earlier one carried out in 2021. In that study, researchers examined how many atoms of uranium and lead were contained in the zircon crystals. They then estimated the age of the mineral based on differences in the decay of the radioactive uranium to lead over time. But the purpose of the new study was to confirm the earlier study's results, which were not considered conclusive. The examinations of the sample material were carried out atom by atom with very sensitive instruments, the researchers said. Genica Greer is a researcher in the School of Geographical and Earth Sciences at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. She helped lead the study. Greer told Reuters news agency the finding is a great example of what the nanoscale or even atomic scale can tell us about big picture questions. Heck from the Field Museum said the huge crash that formed the moon was a major event that changed Earth's rotational speed. He added the formation date of the moon is important as only after that Earth became a habitable planet. Greer said she hopes the team's finding can be a basis for answering many remaining questions about the moon. It's amazing being able to have proof that the rock you're holding is the oldest bit of the moon we've found so far. She added when you know how old something is you can better understand what has happened to it in its history. I'm Brian Lin. Before the report we asked you to pay careful attention to the word conclusive. Can you remember when you heard it? You heard the term used to describe the findings of a previous study, not the new study. Let's listen again. And the purpose of the new study was to confirm the earlier study's results, which were not considered conclusive. Conclusive is an adjective. The online etymology dictionary tells us that the word dates to the 1610s and originally meant occurring at the end. By the 1640s conclusive took on the meaning of definitive or convincing. The word suggests a logical conclusion. You often hear the term conclusive used in a couple situations. The first is in relation to scientific studies. You often hear it in its negative form. For example, the study's results were not conclusive. Because science requires a high degree of doubt about evidence, measurements, and so on, it can be difficult to describe a study's results as conclusive. We also use conclusive in terms of legal cases. For example, you might hear a news report about a court case where conclusive evidence was presented to the jury. In fact, Google's Engram viewer tells us that the most commonly used word after the adjective conclusive is the noun evidence. And what about the most commonly used word before the adjective conclusive? It is the word not. So two common structures you are very likely to hear in regards to legal cases or scientific studies are conclusive evidence or not conclusive. And that's the lesson of the day. I'm John Russell. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak.