According to a research more than 130 billion pounds of on uneaten food go to waste in Laura's country each year. That is about 30% of the yearly food supply ( 供 应 ). It is a sad fact, especially when you consider how many families and homeless people are in hunger.
When Laura saw her school dining hall throw away food that was not eaten at all every day, she came up with an idea. She started a project to help her school dining hall to give away on uneaten food to homeless shelters (庇护所) in her community. In the past three years, the same project has spread to other schools and some fast food restaurants throughout the city. The project is called Feet & find, and has already fed thousands of people in her city.
How does it work? Through an app, Feed & Find matches local homeless shelters with school dining halls and restaurants that have uneaten food to provide. When dining halls or restaurants have uneaten food left, they can use the app to share the Information about the food. A truck driver working for the project is then sent to pick it up and take it to a shelter.
Pretty cool, right? It's not surprising that people in other cities have got in touch with Laura, hoping that she could have develop similar projects for their communities.
Some people, however, have concerns about the safety of the uneaten food. They think such food may not be clean enough. Still, this project is a clever way to help solve the problem of food waste and it helps those in need.
Welcome to the Painting Competition for Woodlands Students
The International Anti-Drug(禁毒) Day this year is coming soon. In order to raise teenagers' awareness(意识) to fight against drug taking, the City Art Council is going to hold a painting competition for the students in our city.
Students who want to take part in the competition can hand in their own 2D paintings in either of the following two ways:
★Each school will be provided with a box for students to put in their paintings. Boxes will be picked up by the City Art Council on Thursday, June 23rd, 2016, before the end of the school day.
★Paintings can be also handed in on Friday, June 24th, from 8：00 am to 10：00 am at the Woodlands Art Hall (175 Riverside Street)．
All paintings are required to be 60cm wide by 80cm long or smaller. Larger sizes will not be accepted. Each student can only hand in one painting.
The final decision on the competition results will be made on June 26th, the AntiDrug Day. The name list of the winners will be made known on the website of the City Art Council on the same day. All winning paintings will be shown to the public at the City Youth Park from June 27th till the end of July.
Prizes: 1st Prize(10 students)＝$300 Gift Card each
2nd Prize(20 students)＝$200 Gift Card each
3rd Prize(30 students)＝$100 Gift Card each
For further information：Visit // www. Woodlands Art Council.org or call 25698632.
For his eleventh birthday, Lin was given a gift that would shape his life. On that day his father took him to the Children's Activity Centre and said he could choose any course that interested him. There was just one requirement: Lin would have to promise to study it for at least one year.
To that point Lin had had many hobbies, but none kept his interest for more than a week or two. His mum once gave him a bag of stamps to encourage stamp collecting. That hobby lasted a week. Then his father got him some paints hoping that Lin's artistic side would shine through. Those paints were now under his bed, still unopened. This time Lin's parents would let him decide.
Lin's eyes moved down the noticeboard that listed all the courses on offer. He stopped at "Photography". He liked the idea of taking beautiful pictures but the notice said that each student needed their own camera. Although Lin's family weren't poor, they weren't rich either, and a camera cost a lot of money. He continued looking.
The next course to catch his eye was "Language Art". He didn't even know what that meant. His father explained that it taught people how to make public speeches. Lin, a shy boy, could think of nothing worse.
Then he saw it. "Cooking" sounded like something he'd like to do. It was inexpensive and convenient, it could be done alone and it was also creative.
Based on Lin's hobby history, his dad had doubts, but he agreed. Much to his parents' surprise, Lin kept his promise. He studied cooking at the Centre every Saturday, and practised at home, making delicious meals for his family. Everyone looked forward to birthdays, when they could eat his cakes. Lin got great satisfaction from the pleasure his food brought to others.
The months turned to years but his hobby never changed again.
Now Lin is an adult and runs a successful restaurant. When customers say they enjoy his meal, he still gets the same pleasure he did as a child, and remembers the special gift he received all those years ago.
Many people know that rubbish is a big problem on planet Earth. What many people don't know is that junk(垃圾)has become a problem in outer space too.
According to BBC News, there are more than 22, 000 pieces of space junk floating around the earth. And these are just the things that we can see from the surface of the earth by telescopes (望远镜). There are also millions of smaller pieces of junk that we can't see.
Objects, like bits of old space rockets or satellites, move around the planet at very high speeds fast that even a very small piece can break important satellites or become dangerous to astronauts. If the tiniest piece of junk crashed into a spaceship, it could damage the vehicle.
To make things worse, when two objects in space crash, they break into many smaller pieces. For example, when a U.S. satellite hit an old Russian rocket in 2009, it broke into more than 2,000 pieces, increasing the amount of space junk.
To reduce additional space junk, countries have agreed that all new space tools can only stay in space for 25 years at most. Each tool must be built to fall safely into the earth's atmosphere after that time. In the upper parts of the atmosphere, it will burn up.
Many scientists also suggesting different ways to clean up space junk. In England scientists are testing a metal net that can be fired into space junk. The net catches the junk and then pulls it into the earth's atmosphere to burn up. The Germans are building robots that can collect pieces of space junk and bring them back to Earth to be safely destroyed.
The problem is becoming more challenging because we're sending more objects into space to help people use their mobile phones and computers,” says Marco Castronuovo, an Italian space Researcher.
“The time to act is now. The longer we leave the problem, the bigger it will become,” he says.
The journey to and from school is a major reason for stress throughout the world. And the journey can even make you sick. Yet one city has found a way to make its train journeys more comfortable while offering enjoyable reading at the same time, just like in a library.
On two train lines in Beijing, the underground cars (车厢) have been turned into libraries, but they're not traditional libraries . Instead of real copies of books, the underground cars provide e-books.
When passengers get into the cars, they can see pictures of different book covers on the walls and even doors. Passengers can browse(浏览) the books just like in any other library. Once they've made their choice, they can use a mobile phone to scan the QR code(扫二维码)on the cover of their chosen book. The QR code leads to an e-book app on which the passengers can read the e-book for free. And they can still enjoy the book on the app even after leaving the train.
Thanks to the underground's idea, passengers can discover new stories every time they take a ride. In this way, the journey will not be boring any longer, and passengers will not complain about the journey either. Instead, they can benefit(受益）a lot from it.
Reading e-books can really make the journey more enjoyable—it's one of the things that successful passengers usually do. ln fact, in this kind of special library, the books can go on forever!
When Justin Tong was a child, other kids felt sorry for him. His parents always had him doing lots of housework such as carrying out the rubbish and sending newspapers. But when he grew up, he was better off than his childhood friends and lived a happier and healthier life.
This is the finding of a 40-year study that followed the lives of 456 children in London. It showed that the children who had worked hard in childhood had a richer and a happier future. "Children who worked in the home or community gained competence(能力) and came to feel they were worthwhile members of society," said Daniel Brown, the psychologist(心理学家) who made the discovery. "And because they felt good about themselves, others felt good about them."
Brown's study followed these children in great detail. Interviews were repeated at ages 25, 31 and 47. Under Brown, the researchers compared the children's mental-health scores with their childhood-activity scores. Points were awarded for part-time jobs, housework, effort in school, and ability to deal with problems.
Working at any age is important. Childhood activities help a child develop responsibility, independence, confidence and competence — the underpinnings (基础) of emotional health. They also help him understand that people must cooperate and work toward common goals. The most competent adults are those who know how to do this.
Yet work isn't everything. As Tolstoy once said, "One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to work and how to love, to work for the person one loves and to love one's work."
