Spectacular Wonders: NCERT Class 8 English Lesson (Poorvi)

etmantra3 Nov 20267 min read

Can a hill pull cars uphill? Can water glow at night, or the sea vanish and come back? This chapter takes students on a journey across India to seven places where nature seems to do magic, and explains the science behind each one. It is full of rich describing words that students can borrow for their own writing.

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From NCERT’s new English book Poorvi for Class 8, unit “Mystery and Magic”. Unit 3.

What your child learns

Describing words for places: mystifying, spectacular, colossal, serene, enigmatic, exotic
Participles and gerunds: 'the living root bridges', 'Crossing the waterways was difficult'
Binomials, pairs of fixed words like hide-and-seek, flora and fauna, sooner or later
Writing a descriptive essay with a title, introduction, body and conclusion

What the lesson is about

The lesson describes seven natural wonders of India. The Valley of Flowers in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, has around 600 kinds of flowers and rare animals like the snow leopard, and blooms between May and October. In Meghalaya, the indigenous people have grown bridges from twisted living roots, because bamboo and wooden bridges did not last in the heavy monsoon rains; some last for hundreds of years. The Lonar Crater Lake in Buldhana, Maharashtra, was made when a huge meteorite hit the Earth, and now holds a salty lake. Near Leh in Ladakh, the Magnetic Hill seems to make parked vehicles roll uphill, but it is really an optical illusion caused by the slopes around it.

In Kumbalangi village near Kochi, Kerala, the backwaters glow at night because of tiny living things called micro-planktons; this is bioluminescence. The Sundarbans in West Bengal is a mangrove forest in the delta of the Ganga, the Brahmaputra and the Meghna, home to the Bengal tiger, and named after the sundari tree. At Chandipur Beach in Balasore, Odisha, the sea goes back by 2 to 5 km at ebb tide and returns at high tide, so it seems to disappear and reappear every day. The writer ends by saying these wonders remind us of the great forces that shape our environment, mixing science with the magic of folklore.

New words, with Hindi meanings

mystifying: strange and hard to explain (हिंदी: रहस्यमय, हैरान करने वाला)
spectacle: an unusual sight that catches everyone's attention (हिंदी: अद्भुत दृश्य)
indigenous: belonging to a place from the start; native (हिंदी: स्थानीय, देसी, मूल निवासी)
futile: useless; not giving any result (हिंदी: व्यर्थ, बेकार)
intertwined: twisted together (हिंदी: आपस में गुँथे हुए)
colossal: extremely large (हिंदी: विशाल, बहुत बड़ा)
serene: calm and peaceful (हिंदी: शांत)
bioluminescence: light made inside the body of a living thing (हिंदी: जैव-दीप्ति, जीवों की चमक)
retreats: goes backwards, moves away (हिंदी: पीछे हटता है)
enigmatic: puzzling and mysterious (हिंदी: रहस्यमय, पहेली जैसा)

Talk about it

Ask these aloud after reading or watching. Let your child answer in English if they can, or mix in their home language. Both help.

Why did the people of Meghalaya grow bridges from living roots?
How was the Lonar Crater Lake formed?
Why do vehicles seem to roll uphill at the Magnetic Hill near Leh?
Why does the sea seem to disappear at Chandipur Beach?
Which natural place near your home or from a trip has amazed you, and why?

Answers for parents

Crossing the many streams and rivers in the monsoon was hard, and bamboo or wooden bridges did not last in the heavy rain and strong water. Bridges of living roots grow stronger with time and can last for hundreds of years.
Thousands of years ago, a huge meteorite moving at very high speed crashed into the Earth and left a giant round hole. A salty lake now lies in the middle of this crater.
It is an optical illusion. The way the slopes around it line up with the horizon tricks the eyes, so a road that goes down looks as if it goes up.
At ebb tide the sea water moves back by 2 to 5 km, and at high tide it comes back to the shore. This happens every day, so visitors can watch the sea vanish and return.
For example: Last winter I saw the sunrise over the Ganga at Varanasi. The mist was lifting, the water turned gold, and the boats looked like shadows. I felt calm and wanted to stay there for hours.

Grammar corner: Participles and gerunds

Some verb forms can do the work of other words. A participle works like an adjective and describes a noun: present participles end in -ing (a glowing lake), and past participles often end in -ed, -d, -t, -en or -n (a carved wheel). A gerund is an -ing form that works like a noun, so it can be the subject or object of a sentence (Trekking is fun).

The shining water of the backwaters surprised the tourists. (participle)
We saw a broken signboard near the Magnetic Hill. (participle)
Watching the sea return at high tide was the best part of our trip. (gerund)

Practice at home

Is the -ing word a gerund (G) or a participle (P)? 'We heard the roaring waterfall.'
Choose the right synonym: A calm, peaceful lake is ___ (colossal / serene / exotic).
Make a sentence with the binomial 'sooner or later'.

Answers: 1. P: 'roaring' describes the waterfall. · 2. serene · 3. For example: Sooner or later, I will visit the Valley of Flowers with my family.

Try this

Play 'Guess the wonder'. One person describes a wonder from the chapter in three clues without saying its name, for example 'It is in Kerala. It happens at night. Tiny living things make it.' The others guess. Then each person describes a real place they have visited, using one -ing describing word, such as 'a rushing river' or 'a shining lake'.

Tip for parents

Ask your child to tell you about one wonder in Hindi first, for example: मेघालय में लोग पेड़ों की जड़ों से पुल बनाते हैं. Then ask them to say the same thing in English, and let them mix in Hindi words when they get stuck. Talk about a beautiful place your family has seen together, and praise every sentence they try.

Questions parents ask

What is the lesson Spectacular Wonders about?

It describes seven natural wonders of India: the Valley of Flowers, the living root bridges of Meghalaya, the Lonar Crater Lake, the Magnetic Hill near Leh, the glowing waters of Kumbalangi in Kerala, the Sundarbans, and Chandipur Beach in Odisha, where the sea seems to disappear.

Which natural wonders are named in Spectacular Wonders?

The Valley of Flowers (Uttarakhand), the Living Root Bridges (Meghalaya), the Lonar Crater Lake (Maharashtra), the Magnetic Hill (Leh, Ladakh), the Glowing Waters of Kumbalangi (Kerala), the Sundarbans (West Bengal) and Chandipur Beach (Odisha).

Is Spectacular Wonders in the new NCERT book?

Yes. It is Chapter 9 of Poorvi, NCERT's new English book for Class 8, in Unit 3 (Mystery and Magic).

Learn every Class 8 chapter with CALP

Every chapter of Poorvi, NCERT’s new Class 8 book, with notes in English and Hindi, say-it-aloud practice with a score, listening, grammar, speaking and writing with feedback. ₹1,599 for the whole year.

See the free lessons and enrol →