【推荐1】Naismith was born on November 6, 1861, in Ontario, Canada. After earning a bachelor's (学士) degree in physical education at McGill University, he moved to the US to pursue a career. He took up a job at the YMCA International Training College in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was there that he made a plan for an entertaining game that could be played indoors, especially during the cruelly cold winters.

When creating the rules of basketball, Naismith took inspiration from several of the then-popular sports such as rugby (橄榄球), soccer, baseball, and football. The idea of passing the ball was drawn from American rugby, and the shape of the ball was influenced by soccer balls. And in 1891, the well-loved sport of basketball came to life, and Naismith named it "Basket Ball".

In December 1891, the first-ever basketball game was played. The game followed a set of thirteen instructions written by Naismith himself, and players played for two fifteen-minute rounds with a five-minute break in between.

Interestingly, the hoop was a simple fruit basket nailed to the wall, and it was several years later, that an opening was cut at the bottom of the basket! Initially, the game involved tackling until Naismith realized that the players were knocking each other and getting violent. So, he introduced the idea of dribbling (运球) and passing. However, familiar basketball positions, such as forwards, centers, and guards were present since the first game.

Throughout the years, the original list of thirteen rules written by Naismith was printed all across the country. High schools and colleges introduced basketball into their athletics program, and by 1905, basketball was officially recognized as a winter sport. Basketball was adopted in other countries. In 1936, basketball was added to the Olympics Games in Berlin, Germany. According to the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), there are 44 million people around the world who play basketball, making this sport the second most popular in the world!

【推荐2】How to Maintain a Healthy Body Weight

Our life is too much involved in work, earning money and eating junk food. Keeping the body in good shape should be the first priority in our daily schedule. Nutrition is a key factor, but our health depends not only on what nutrients we eat, but how much of those nutrients we absorb, and how well and how regularly the body’s waste products are eliminated.     1     Once these are in place, you can achieve your ideal shape.

    2     Eating lots of pizzas, burgers, and so on not only makes you feel lazy and increases your body fat, but it can also cause heart problems.

When you see these words on the menu, skip these items altogether or share them so that you can eat a smaller part: “fried”, “cream sauce”, “cheese” and “dipped”. Don’t give up on going out to eat. Simply learn how to do it the right way and get a sense of how many calories there are in what you are ordering.

Find an exercise that you like. Don’t simply start exercising. Experiment with different activities in different settings with different people until you find the one that you love doing.

    4     You won’t do it often enough to maintain a healthy body weight unless you love it.

Make friends with people who you notice exercising in the neighborhood or walking at lunchtime. Take your lunch breaks with people who take a packed lunch to work. Your aim is to find like-minded people that share the goal of maintaining a healthy body weight. They can work out with you, give you tips and encourage you to keep going whenever you want to quit.

【推荐3】Indoor Skydiving

Have you ever dreamt of flying? Have you ever wanted to experience the excitement of skydiving, but didn’t want to jump out of a plane? Indoor skydiving has opened up a whole new world for you to try flying.

Indoor skydiving is an activity, simulating（模拟）the free fall of a skydive. That means you learn to fly in a column of air produced by a wind tunnel （风道） inside a limited area. Before flying, you need to wear certain equipment to protect you. And each of you is equipped with an instructor that helps you learn to control your body while flying. But you aren’t trained to be more aware in the sky as a normal skydiver.

To be an indoor flyer, you can be at all ages. Fear of height or lack (缺少) of experience won’t stop you from trying. The only real limitation preventing people from flying is weight limit. Countless physically challenged flyers have safely flown with the help of experienced instructors.

Although indoor skydiving gets its name from skydiving, the similarities between the two are actually very few. The one they are in common is in the sense that they both share the freedom of flying.

However, in traditional dives, skydivers usually step out of a plane from more than 10,000 feet high, while indoor skydiving just needs flyers to lean forward and lie on the air. Also, being an outdoor activity, skydiving depends on the weather. The wind, rain, or snow can cancel your plans to jump. Indoor skydiving removes this effect from the picture. Normally, a skydive lasts just between 45-60 seconds, but tunnels allow skydivers to fly longer and as much as they like.

While most people put skydiving in the must-do list, indoor skydiving is much more than that! What used to take skydivers tens of thousands of jumps and years of experience can be learned in a relatively shorter period of time. Skydivers could be trained at lower cost compared to being trained in the sky. Because people of all ages can fly, children are quickly becoming some of the most talented skydivers. Thus, all these will certainly benefit the development of skydiving.

【推荐3】I recently spoke with 15-year-old Gitanjali Rao, an inventor, scientist and author. The Colorado teenager told me about her determination to make a positive difference in the world. She has already been recognized for doing just that.

In 2020, Gitanjali was named “Kid of the Year” by Time magazine for inventing a mobile device that can test the amount of lead in drinking water. What’s more, she has made other inventions, for which she has received several honors, such as Kindly, an app designed to detect cyberbullying (网络欺凌).

Nowadays there’re still many people who refuse to enjoy STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education, but at the same time, the world needs more people pursuing STEM careers. For this, Gitanjali has recently written a book, called A Young Innovator’s & Guide to STEM. “My hope,” Gitanjali wits, “is that this book will help somebody starting out to imagine their journey, challenge themselves, get out of their comfort zone, and prepare for a future that is unknown to us.”

Growing up, Gitanjali went to seven different schools. “Every new place is a new set of people who will maybe not accept you for who you are,” she said. “But I learned to deflect that and realized that nobody can create an overall opinion about me except for myself.”

Gitanjali now attends STEM School Highlands Ranch in Lone Tree. She also is conducting research at the University of Colorado. Still, the teenager considers herself to be an ordinary student who is supported by her friends Gitanjali has a particular interest in genetics and epidemiology, which is the study of diseases. When asked what inspired her to become a scientist, she said, “If no one else was solving problems, then I needed to do something. Innovation (创新) doesn’t need you to be the smartest person in the world. All it needs is your motivation to make a difference.”