Pre-reading
1. Looking and saying
Work in pairs. Look at the photos on the screen. All these relics are quite beautiful. But some of them were lost and ruined in history，such as Yuan MingYuan and the Amber Room. Please guess:
A. What kinds of things can result in their disappearing?
B. Why do they come into being once again?
Keys for reference:
A. Maybe wars, natural disasters, and time have damaged or destroyed them, getting them lost and changed. Many of them were even stolen and hidden while nobody knows who, where and how.
B. People get to know these. If these relics could not be found again, they would be rebuilt by people.
2. Explaining and sharing
Work in groups of four. Tell your group mates:
A. What do you know about the substance of “amber”?
B. What do you know about the cultural relics “the Amber Room”?
Keys for reference:
I am from group 2. From the knowledge we got from biology and chemistry, we know “amber” is a semi-precious stone used in jewelry and art world. Amber is really the fossil form of resin from trees. It has got its shape after a process that has taken millions of years to complete. Trees in very ancient forests produced this resin, which slowly dropped from trees and was buried. Trees use resin to protect themselves from disease and harm caused by insects and fungi.
I am from group 6. From the information of history legends and news reports, we know the Amber Room is a room built by lots of ambers. It was a gift given to Peter the Great, the King of Russia, by the King of Prussia, Frederick William I. It was given the name because almost thousand tons of natural ambers were used to make it. But during the second world war in 1941, the Nazi German army secretly stole the Amber Room and sent boxes of the Amber Room on a train to a German city. After that, what really happened to the Amber Room remains a mystery.