Our mission is to let all students have access to real scientific research. That’s why we have articles available in written, non-English translation. Our team of translators collaborates directly with the authors to produce accurate texts, vocabulary words, comprehension questions, graphs, and images. These adaptations allow students to focus on the core scientific concepts written in a language they understand. This allows more students to access real scientific research!
Each title in this collection of adapted research articles comes with a complete article in Vietnamese. Engage students in their native language with standards-matched adaptations, comprehension questions, and vocabulary to further your lesson outcomes. Each adapted article also comes with additional suggestions for English-language videos and activities to enhance the readers’ understanding and make class more exciting.
Thanks to our interpreter, Vicky Vuu, for making this possible!
Find the full collection of Vietnamese-translated articles using the Article Translations drop-down menu on the home ribbon, illustrated in the image below:
Or click this button to access the full collection of articles translated in Vietnamese:
To find the Vietnamese version of an article, click on the article’s picture and scroll down to the “Additional Languages” section as illustrated in the image below:
1. Why don’t whales get cancer?
Abstract: Every day, the cells in your body are super busy growing and dividing. When something goes wrong, mutations appear. Our immune system usually detects cells with mistakes and kills them before they become a problem. But sometimes they go undetected and the rogue cell multiplies, turning into cancer. So, if an animal has more cells and a longer life, it should get more cancer. Whales have up to 1,000 times more cells than humans and some live for over 200 years. But their cancer rates are no higher than ours! To figure out why this is, we compared the humpback whale and other whale genomes to other mammal genomes. Our DNA analysis showed that in whales there was duplication of cancer-suppressing genes. We also found that whales have the slowest rate of genetic changes. Our findings help us understand the role of DNA in preventing cancer. It could also help us fight cancer in humans!
This article is suitable for middle school and lower high school students. A written translation of this article is available in Vietnamese, and an audio version is available in English. This article includes two Lesson Idea videos summarizing the article content and demonstrating a classroom lab using gumdrops to model DNA structures.
- Vietnamese article: PDF
- Key terms: cancer, genetics, veterinary medicine, whales
- Scientific figures: bar graph
- Scientific method: DNA sequencing, experiment
2. How can we reduce our environmental footprint one food at a time?
Abstract: Have you ever wondered what you can do to help the environment and slow climate change? What about eating certain foods because they are better for the environment? Producing the food you eat uses a lot of water and releases gases that warm the planet. If you ate foods that had a smaller impact on the environment, you could help fight climate change. But it’s hard for most people to change their entire diet! So we wondered if replacing just one food could reduce a person’s impact on the environment. We collected diet data from a national survey in the USA. We figured out which foods produced the most carbon emissions. Then we created new potential diets where we substituted foods that had a smaller impact. We found that replacing beef products reduced carbon emissions and water use the most. That means not eating beef can lower the impact of your diet on the environment.
This article is suitable for middle school and lower high school students. A written translation of this article is available in Vietnamese and Bulgarian, and an audio version is available in English.
- Vietnamese article: PDF
- Key terms: carbon footprint, climate change, dietary choices, greenhouse gas emissions
- Scientific figures: bar graph, data table
- Scientific method: data reconstruction, survey research, systematic review
3. How can a community protect everyone from disease?
Abstract: Did you know that you protect yourself and those around you by getting vaccinated? Diseases can’t spread easily when enough people in a population get vaccinated. This effect is called herd immunity. Cholera is a big threat in countries that don’t have safe water and toilets for everyone. These countries sometimes vaccinate large numbers of people (mass vaccination). This creates herd immunity and prevents disease outbreaks. But it is hard to know how long herd immunity will last. In one camp in South Sudan, people who had fled their homes during a war received mass vaccination. However, there was a cholera outbreak the following year. We developed a mathematical model to find out what affects how long herd immunity lasts. We found that (a) it lasts for a shorter time when a lot of people move into and out of an area, and (b) the vaccine gets less effective for each person over time. Our results suggest that herd immunity lasts longer if authorities do two things: 1. vaccinate everyone and 2. always give vaccines to new arrivals to the camp and to those who were vaccinated a long time ago.
This article is suitable for middle school and lower high school students. A written translation of this article is available in Vietnamese.
- Vietnamese article: PDF
- Key terms: disease control, immunity, infectious diseases, microbiology, vaccine
- Scientific figures: pictograph, time series graph
- Scientific method: case study, scientific modeling
4. How can we protect wildlife through ecotourism?
Abstract: Many countries try to use ecotourism as a tool for wildlife conservation, hoping that the increased income for local people will make them value wildlife more. But this strategy is not always as successful as conservationists have hoped. This is why we wanted to test a new model: what if the amount of money local people receive depends on how many and what type of animals tourists will see? We tested this approach for four years in a protected area in Laos in Southeast Asia. Our preliminary results were promising: the illegal hunting of animals declined near the ecotourism site, and wildlife sightings by tourists increased.
This article is suitable for middle school and lower high school students. A written translation of this article is available in Vietnamese and Lao.
- Vietnamese article: PDF
- Key terms: human-wildlife conflict, law enforcement, recreation, tourism, wildlife
- Scientific figures: histogram, map
- Scientific method: case study, data validation, experiment
5. How can we help extremely poor people earn more money?
Abstract: How much money do you think you’d need to cover the essentials for one day? It is difficult to imagine how a family lives on less than $1.25 a day, but one-fifth of the world’s population does exactly that. How does your daily living cost compare? It’s likely to be a lot more than $1.25! We conducted a study in six different countries to find out if providing extremely poor people with livelihoods (sources of income), training and food support could enable them to escape extreme poverty. We tested if such an intervention had made sustainable (long-lasting) improvements in the lives of these people by collecting results after the support had ended and comparing their results to others who did not receive the intervention. We found that on average households had indeed improved. This shows that giving the poorest of the poor a way to make a living, as well as the support to keep that going, is an effective way to reduce extreme poverty.
This article is suitable for high school students. A written translation of this article is available in Vietnamese.
- Vietnamese article: PDF
- Key terms: food security, poverty, sustainability
- Scientific figures: map, pie chart
- Scientific method: experiment, survey research
6. What causes lizards’ brains to change size?
Abstract: Imagine you owned a patch of land, but couldn’t put up any fences. How would you remember what was yours and what belonged to your neighbor? Many animal species protect areas of land, which we call their territories. By keeping competitors off their land, a territorial male is able to mate with any females that live there. As well as being strong enough to defend his territory, he has to be able to remember what belongs to him and what doesn’t! Otherwise, he will risk getting into lots of fights with other territorial male neighbors. A special part of the brain processes the memory of spaces and locations. We ran an experiment on lizards to see what caused this part of the brain to change size, and the results were not what we expected!
This article is suitable for high school students. A written translation of this article is available in Vietnamese and Spanish.
- Vietnamese article: PDF
- Key terms: animal behavior, hormones, neuroscience, reptiles
- Scientific figures: bar graph, pictograph
- Scientific method: experiment
That’s Not All!
Read our interview with Vietnamese-born scientist Tiffany Luong about her work with phage therapy.
Check out our map, showing our articles pinned onto their research locations – including research conducted across Asia. Or browse our collection of articles whose research was conducted in Asia.
