Biography · Level 2 · 177 words

Wangari Maathai and the Trees

Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.

Wangari Maathai grew up in a village in Kenya. As a girl she carried water from a clean stream near her home. Trees stood along the banks and held the soil in place.

She was a strong student. She won a place at a college in the United States and studied biology there. When she came home, she saw that many trees were gone. The streams ran brown with mud, and women walked far to find firewood.

In 1977 she started a simple plan. She asked rural women to plant seedlings and to care for them. For each tree that lived, the women earned a small payment. The plan grew into the Green Belt Movement, and over the years the women planted tens of millions of trees.

Some officials did not like her. She was arrested more than once, and the police beat her. She kept working. In 2004 she won the Nobel Peace Prize, the first African woman to receive it. The prize honored a plain idea: caring for the land is also caring for peace.

Comprehension questions

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4 questions
1. What is the main idea of the passage?

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B. Maathai turned tree planting by rural women into a movement that also stood for peace.
The passage follows one line: she saw the land damaged, organized women to plant trees, and the Nobel Prize connected that work to peace. The other choices are small details or things the text never says.

2. According to the passage, what did the women receive for their work?

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C. A small payment for each tree that lived
The text says, 'For each tree that lived, the women earned a small payment.' Payment depended on the tree surviving, not on planting alone.

3. What does the passage suggest about how Maathai answered danger?

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A. She kept working even though it was dangerous.
The text places 'She kept working' right after the arrests and the beating. That order tells you the danger did not stop her. Nothing says she left or paused.

4. In the passage, what are 'seedlings'?

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D. Very young plants
The women 'plant seedlings and care for them,' and later 'the women planted tens of millions of trees.' So a seedling is a young tree before it grows.

Source: Written for Fluency. Original passage © Studio AM, written for Fluency.