【推荐2】Book Your Field Trip to Pacific Science Center

A field trip to Pacific Science Center is a time-honored tradition for students of all ages across Washington State. Our hands-on exhibits, shows, and creative programs inspire students’ curiosity for science in a day of exploration meant to strengthen your curriculum and fuel lifelong enthusiasm for science, math, engineering and technology.

To schedule your field trip, complete the registration request form available at the link www.pacificsciencecenter.org/field-tripsl/, or call (206) 443-2925 Monday — Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. not less than two weeks ahead of your visit date. We will contact you within two business days to set up your field trip.

Starting September 3, 2019 PacSci will be closed on Mondays and Tuesdays except for holidays and weeks during Seattle Public School breaks. We will no longer be booking field trips on those days, as well.

One free adult general admission is covered for every 10 paid students. Free adult admission doesn’t include IMAX documentary. These adults will be charged a $4 IMAX documentary admission. Additional adults outside of the ratio (比例) will be charged the student admission rate. Pacific Science Center Memberships cannot be applied to field trips. Payment is due one week before you visit.

■ Planetarium Shows

■ IMAX Documentaries

■ Science on a Sphere Shows

■ Laser Shows

【推荐1】The best festivals in August

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the largest arts festival in the world. Last year, the festival lasted 25 days, including 55,000 performances of 3,548 shows in 317 places. The festival started in 1947. Anyone can join in with the performance of their choice.

Wilderness Festival

Wilderness Festival takes place in one of the oldest woods in England. Taking place over four days in nature, people will experience music, comedy, theatre, and dance from Sadler's Wells. All the campsites are made-to-order for different needs, including family camping.

Notting Hill Carnival

Notting Hill Carnival takes place on the streets of Notting Hill in London, England in each August lasting three days. Attracting around one million people each year, it's one of the biggest street festivals in the world. Happening since 1966, Notting Hill Carnival is an essential cultural experience in London.

La Tomatina

Each year, the Valencian town of Bunol gets changed into a red mess as locals and tourists take to the streets and throw tomatoes at each other, creating the biggest food fight in the world, all for fun. This tomato festival has been happening since 1945 and is held on the last Wednesday of August each year.

【推荐2】Over Half of Young Chinese Block Parents on WeChat Moments

We all know the feeling-you want to check what someone you care about has been up to on social media, and suddenly you find you are denied access to their feeds. It’s an instant start of mixed emotions and speculations-when did this happen? Did do anything wrong? What are they attempting to hide from me?

And that’s what half of Chinese parents have to deal with when they try to browse their children’s WeChat Moments, also known as “Friends’ Circle”, as suggested by a recent survey released by Tencent, the Chinese Internet giant. According to the report, entitled Annual White Paper on Family Affection on WeChat Moments, about 52 percent of WeChat users aged 18 to 29 block their parents on Moments, a major feature on the platform that allows users to share everything they like with their WeChat contacts.

About 62 percent of the young interviewees said that parents “are neurotic about everything,” along with reasons such as fear of parents’ disapproval, rejection to parents’ nagging(唠叨), and seeking privacy. “My parents don’t know Moments very well, so I just told them I don’t use it anymore,” said Qin Jianping, a 28-year-old Xie Yun, a 26-year-old, said that while she didn’t block her parents entirely, they were in a specific group to which she only shares positive posts. “I don’t want my parents to see minor setbacks in my life, she said.

The report also found that more than 49 percent of Chinese parents use WeChat as a main channel to communicate with their children When asked how they would react to being blocked, some parents said they would initiate a conversation with their children to find out the reason, while others said they wouldn’t care. And some parents just outsmart their kids in this hide-and-seek game online. “I didn’t realize I was blocked until I compared what I could see on my phone to what my son’s aunt could see,” said Chen, a mother of a 27-year-old son. I chose to remain silent on this and now I’m following my son’s posts through his aunt.”

【推荐3】In the world of entertainment, TV talk shows have undoubtedly flooded every inch of space on daytime television. And anyone who watches them regularly knows that each one varies in style and format. But no two shows are more profoundly opposite in content, while at the same time standing out above the rest, than the Jerry Springer and the Oprah Winfrey shows.

Jerry Springer could easily be considered the king of “trash talk”. The topics on his show are as shocking as shocking can be. For example, the show takes the ever common talk show themes of love, sex, cheating, guilt, hate, conflict and morality to a different level. Clearly, the Jerry Springer show is a display and exploitation of society’s moral catastrophes, yet people are willing to eat up the intriguing predicaments of other people’s lives.

Like Jerry Springer, Oprah Winfrey takes TV talk show to its extreme, but Oprah goes in the opposite direction. The show focuses on the improvement of society and an individual’s quality of life. Topics range from teaching your children responsibility, managing your work week, to getting to know your neighbors.

Compared to Oprah, the Jerry Springer show looks like poisonous waste being dumped on society. Jerry ends every show with a “final word”. He makes a small speech that sums up the entire moral of the show. Hopefully, this is the part where most people will learn something very valuable.

Clean as it is, the Oprah show is not for everyone. The show’s main target audiences are middle-class Americans. Most of these people have the time，money, and stability to deal with life’s tougher problems. Jerry Springer, on the other hand, has more of an association with the young adults of society. These are 18 to 21 year olds whose main troubles in life involve love, relationship, sex，money and peers. They are the ones who see some value and lessons to be learned underneath the show’s exploitation.

While the two shows are as different as night and day, both have ruled the talk show circuit for many years now. Each one caters to a different audience while both have a strong following from large groups of fans. Ironically, both could also be considered pioneers in the talk show world.

【推荐1】Being a teenager can be hard, for you have to face a lot of difficult problems, but a new program called Nfusion is working hard to help teens with mental(精神的) health needs. Nfusion gives teenagers classes where they study or discuss some troubling subjects. Drugs and bullying(欺凌) are just a few of the topics discussed during the class on Saturday.

“I had a bad attitude,” said 17-year-old Titeana Davis. Davis went through the Nfusion Program last year. The teen, who once had trouble with her attitude towards others, says the program has changed her life. “They taught me a bad attitude is not going to get you anywhere,” said Davis.

Nfusion is a new program that meets teens mental health needs and provides help for their families. The program is designed to help teens aged 14-21 live through a difficult period.

“They’re still growing, still developing and still there are a lot of things they don’t know how to address. So this is a good program for them to be a part of,” said Lakicha Jemigan, who worked for the Nfusion Program.

Teens like Davis are just a few who have come through the program successfully. Now thanks to Nfusion, Davis says she’s looking forward to a bright future. “After I graduate from college, I want to work at a primary school and I want to be a second grade teacher,” added Davis.

【推荐2】It is becoming more and more important for researchers to closely observe our sea life, with climate change and overfishing damaging our oceans. However, this is almost impossible since human presence scares the animals.

Now, thanks to The Soft Robotic Fish, also called SoFi, researchers may not only be able to keep a close eye on the creatures, but also uncover undersea secrets that have been confusing us for centuries. Though not the first autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) created to observe the oceans, SoFi solves many of the problems that have hindered (妨碍) the usefulness of previous robots.

AUVs traditionally have had to be tied to a boat because radio communications do not work well underwater. To solve the problem, CSAIL director Daniela Rus and her team used sound waves which can travel greater distances, allowing drivers using a waterproofed Super Nintendo controller to pilot SoFi from up to 50 feet away. To ensure SoFi can freely move around the ocean, a pump moves water from one balloon-like structure to the other through its soft rubber tail, while a controller fitted with a battery powers the robot through the ocean.

During test dives, SoFi moved alongside the sea life at depths of 50 feet for up to 40 minutes at a time, taking high-quality photos and videos. Even more importantly, it was able to do so without causing any disturbance. The researchers say sometimes the fish would swim alongside the strange-looking robot-fish out of curiosity, while at other times they appeared completely unaware of its existence.

While SoFi currently only records videos, future versions will include sensors. “For us, this fish is magical,” says Rus. “We imagine someday it might help us uncover more mysteries from the amazing underwater world that we know so little about.”

【推荐3】“Anyone who offends China will be killed no matter how far the target is.” That is the tagline for Wolf Warriors 2, the Chinese box office hit. It sees a soldier entering into an African war-zone and saving hundreds of lives from Western bad guys. It’s basically the plot of your typical Hollywood action movie, but this time it’s a Chinese man upholding justice and keeping the world safe.

Following in the footsteps of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, martial arts expert Wu Jing is among a new generation of directors who were initially Chinese action stars. His first Wolf Warrior film came out in 2014, but it didn’t catch much attention. Mainstream movies, especially those promoting patriotism, usually don’t do very well in China. Wolf Warrior 2, however, has become a phenomenon. The massive response in China also made the film top the global box office worldwide last weekend, beating Hollywood blockbuster Dunkirk.

Many moviegoers said online that they were touched by the patriotic plot. “This movie is the best Chinese action movie,” one social media user wrote. “Shockingly good — hot blood and tough guys. I cried after watching it,” said another.

One reason for the enthusiastic response compared to the first Wolf Warrior film is its improved action scenes. Many in China have praised the film for its fighting scenes and special effects, saying they are of “Hollywood quality”. The movie, which is entirely privately funded, has also been lauded for its attention to details and features of close replicas of many of the latest weapons used by the Chinese army. Timing has also contributed to its success, with the Chinese nation in the times of a new wave of patriotism.

The film first came out just ahead of the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese army, a hugely symbolic event for the country. Over the weekend, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) held a grand military parade, which presented the latest weapons of China. In a serious speech, which in parts was not different from lines from the film, President Xi Jinping promised to fight anyone who tried to tear China apart.