【推荐1】The connection between music and language has been studied extensively, and teachers have used music successfully in their classrooms for decades. There are many studies from the experts below that prove the positive effects of music on learning.

Seeman found that a music education involvement increased receptive language and phonemic（音位）awareness in students at an at-risk early childhood program.

Wallace found that the cognitive（认知的）processing of music and language may also in-crease language achievement. Memory is an important aspect of language learning, and many studies have linked musical support with improved recall of vocabulary for example.

Fisher’s study compared language learning differences between classrooms that used large amounts of music while teaching and non-music classrooms. Overall, the students that had been assigned to the musical classrooms overcame those students from non-musical classrooms on all tests with regards to their language achievement. Fisher concluded that actively using music in class is an effective means of increasing student language performance.

Ludke, Ferreira and Overy found that the “listen-and-sing” learning method can improve word-for-word memory for phrases in the target language, even after only a brief 15-minute learning period. Use music to introduce or review new words and concepts. Use repeat of songs to help students recognize vocabulary and phrases in cloze activities.

Music does more than just assist students with speaking. It has a way of capturing every-thing about a culture and their language. Music inspires students’ interest in the people and places of the language they are studying. As teachers, we can use music to offer insights into a culture’s worldview and history.

Finally, use it to build community. Connect with your students by learning about their music tastes, and getting to know them on an emotional level. Music is a way for them to learn about you and for you to learn about them. And incorporating music helps use to create a sense of community.

【推荐1】Some primary schoolchildren have been raised in homes with more green space around. They are likely to come with larger volumes of white and grey matter in certain areas of the brain. These differences are associated (关联) with beneficial effects on cognitive function (认知功能). This is the main conclusion of a study led by the Bareclona Institute for Global Health.

The study was performed among 253 schoolchildren in Spain. Lifelong exposure (接触) to green space in the living places was recorded — using the information on the children’s addresses from birth up through to the time of the study. Brain structure was studied using 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Working memory and inattentiveness (注意力不集中) were graded with computers.

“This is the first study that shows the association between long-term exposure to green space and brain structure,” says Dr. Payam Dadvand, the leading researcher of the study. “Our findings suggest that exposure to green space early in life could result in beneficial structural changes in the brain.”

The findings show that long-term exposure to greenness is positively associated with white and grey matter volumes in several parts of the brain. Some of them are related to higher scores on cognitive tests. Moreover, larger volumes of white and grey matter in those parts might lead to better working memory and less inattentiveness.

Exposure to nature has been thought to be necessary for brain development in children. Another study of 2,593 children shows that children in schools with more green space have a greater increase in working memory and a greater decrease in inattentiveness.

Humans are believed to be tied to nature. Playing in greener areas offers children opportunities to search and learn. Accordingly, green space is thought to prompt important exercises in discovery, creativity and risk taking. These exercises in turn positively influence brain development.

Dr. Dadvand’s study suggests how such structural changes could bring about the beneficial effects of green space on cognitive development. It also adds to the proof that suggests the lasting effects of early life exposure to greenness on our health and the benefits of increasing greenness in cities.

Further studies are needed to prove the findings in other populations, settings and climates. And researchers need to examine differences according to the nature and quality of green space.

【推荐2】Whenever you read text, you don’t pay much attention to the way the information is presented — particularly the font (字体) choice. That’s because your main objective is reading comprehension.

Although printing design is overlooked by most of us, it’s crucial in making texts clear, readable and appealing for audiences. Beyond the visual aspect, research shows that fonts play a significant role in the cognitive (认知的) processes while we read. A font’s impact on the way you learn and keep information might be hard to notice consciously, but your brain is certainly tuned in. Perhaps surprisingly, hard-to-read fonts such as Bodoni or Comic Sansor are better for preserving information than fonts like Arial or Times New Roman. Participants recalled more information from the material they read when it was presented in a font that was difficult to read, according to a 2010 study.

“Difficulty can function as an alarm signal, giving the reader a sense that the task is challenging and will require mental effort,” says Daniel Oppenheimer, a professor of Social and Decision Science. “Additionally, slowing down the reading speed to deal with the dis-fluency may help readers spot errors in a text. Hard-to-read fonts, which make it harder to engage with a material but don’t actually draw away the reader, therefore generate “desirable difficulty”— and the resulting cognitive trouble may improve performance because they require more mental effort.”

Font characteristics such as style, size and color play a role in information retention or recall, as well, because font design is vital to our familiarity — or unfamiliarity — with a given word, says Stephen Banham, a typography lecturer. Experiments have demonstrated a relationship between font size and memory: large font items may predict higher recall regardless of style, but very small font sizes can also introduce a desirable difficulty.

A document’s specific method of formatting information also makes an impact. Using font styles like bold or italics to indicate significance can also improve information possession. That’s because people are better able to remember information they consider important. Researchers found that bolded text has a higher recall than text in italic or regular styles, regardless of the font size. However, if an entire document is bolded, the emphasis is lost, and readers can no longer spot vital passages.

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【推荐2】While you’re hiding away the Christmas presents, animals are storing food for the winter! Many animals “cache” (贮藏) or hide food for time to come, similar to how we stock our pantries with food. In the winter months, caching allows animals to survive when food is scarce.

Some animals, such as bobcats and mountain lions, leave dead animals’ bodies for short periods of time buried beneath surrounding vegetation. Other animals, such as rodents and birds, store seeds for long periods of time in places they’ll return to weeks or even months later.

Hiding food throughout an animal’s home range is known as scatter hoarding. This keeps the caches low and less enticing to any potential thieves. However, this technique requires a good memory, as the food is often in dozens, if not hundreds, of different locations.

Another caching technique involves animals collecting food in only a couple of places, referred to as larder hoarding. These caches are often found in cavities such as a hollow tree or a hole in the ground. They are easier to find but require lots of defensive measures.

Here are some of the animals that cache in the Peach State:

Birds such as chickadees, nuthatches, titmice and jays can store hundreds of seeds in a single day. Each seed is placed in a different location, and they usually remember where each is, even months later. Flying squirrels store a variety of seeds, nuts and acorns in their nests and in trees. These nocturnal squirrels will even bury seeds in the ground. It is believed that a single lying squirrel can store over 15,000 seeds in a year! Moles trap live earthworms underground. The mole bites the earthworm’s head off, and colder temperatures slow the earthworm down. If the weather warms up before the mole has a chance to consume its prey, however, earthworms can regrow their heads and tunnel their way to freedom.

【推荐3】If you travel to a new exhibit at the San Francisco greenhouse of Flowers, you will have a chance to see some meat---eating plants. Take bladderworts, a kind of such plant, for example. They appear so small and grow in a quiet pool. But these are the fastest---known killers of the plant kingdom , able to catch a small insect in 1／50 of a second using a trap(陷阱) door!

Once the trap door closes on the animal falling into it, the enzymes(酶)similar to those in the human stomach slowly digest the insect. When dinner is over, the plant opens the trap door and is ready to trap again.

Meat－eating plants grow mostly in wet areas with soil that doesn't offer much food value. In such conditions these amazing plants have developed insect traps to get their nutritional(营养的)needs over thousands of years. North America has more such plants than any other continent.

Generally speaking, the traps may have attractive appearance to fool the eye, like pitcher plants, which get their name because they look like beautiful pitchers ( a container like a bottle) full of honey.

The Asian pitcher plant, for example, has bright colors and an attractive half－closed cover. Curious insects are attracted to come close and take a drink, then fall down the slippery wall to their deaths.

Some of these pitchers are large enough to hold two gallons (7.5 liters). Meat－eating plants only eat people in science movies , but sometimes a bird or other small animals will discover that a pitcher plant isn't a good place to get a drink.