【推荐2】There are many ways to deal with the plastic pollution. Tom Szaky’s way may be one of the bravest. He has gone back to an old way-using reusable containers. The idea was used in the last century. It was introduced to the world by Coca-Cola in the early 1920s, when Coke was sold in expensive glass bottles that needed returning. They asked for two cents, about 40 percent of the full cost of the soft drink，and got about 98 percent of their bottles back, to be reused 40 or 50 times. Bottle deposit programs remain one of the most effective methods.

Ten months ago, Szaky started Loop, an online delivery service that uses strong reusable containers. The biggest part of his risk is that Loop pushes far beyond the common reusable bottles. From food packaging to washing powder packaging, the containers are in different sizes and made from different materials. One of his products is Haagen-Dazs ice cream that is packed inside a special box to keep the ice cream from melting.

17 years ago, Szaky founded TerraCycle, a small waste management company. He thought up a way to deal with plastics, cigarette wastes, and a long list of other wastes. Gradually, he became more interested in thinking of how to recycle different kinds of waste in the best way.

Loop is part of the reappearance of the reusable packaging as a best choice to plastic waste. The food and drink companies are more likely to use reusable bottles. A company said they have started the United States’ first state-wide reusable beer system. More obviously, Szaky’s idea of reusable packaging for products has attracted more and more companies to pay attention to the reusable packaging.

【推荐2】More than a billion people around the world have smart phones,almost all of which come with navigation(导航)apps such as Google or Apple Maps.This raises the questions we meet with any technology:What skills are we losing?What abilities are we gaining?

Talking with people who’re good at finding their way around or using paper maps,I often hear lots of frustration with digital maps.North/South direction gets messed up,and you can see only a small section at a time.

But consider what digital navigation aids have meant for someone like me.Despite being a frequent traveler,I’m so terrible at finding my way that I still use Google Maps every day in the small town where I have lived for many years.What looks like an imperfect product to some has been a significant expansion of my own abilities.

Part of the problem is that reading paper maps requires specific skills.There is nothing natural about them.In many developed nations,including the U.S.,one expects street names and house numbers to be meaningful references,and instructions such as“go north for three blocks and then west”make sense.In Istanbul,in contrast,where I grew up,none of those hold true.For one thing,the locals rarely use street names.Why bother when a government or a military group might change them again?Besides,the city is full of winding,ancient alleys that meet newer avenues at many angles.Instructions as simple as“go north”would require a helicopter or a bulldozer(推土机).

Let’s come back to my original questions.While we often lose some skills after leaving the work to technology,it may also allow us to expand our abilities.Consider the calculator:I don’t doubt that our arithmetic skills might have dropped a bit as the little machines became common,but calculations that were once boring and tricky are now much more straightforward and one can certainly do more complex calculations more confidently.

【推荐3】What will you do if you can’t eat everything bought in the canteen?     1    According to a survey, what students waste every year could feed over 10 million people.

    2     According to Xinhua News Agency, the food wasted by Chinese people is about 50 million tons of grain every year, which could feed 200 million people.

Food waste, which has become a global issue, serves as a mirror that reflects various cultural and social issues in different countries. In the West, for instance, consumerism, the belief that it’s a good thing to use a lot of goods and services, is often to blame for food waste.     3    Chinese people are well known for being hospitable and generous. Many even feel that they lose face if their guests have eaten all the food. On campus, a generation of single children is less aware of the food waste issue. Students nowadays are well protected by their families and hardly have any concept of how much toil (辛劳) others go through in order to provide them with the food they eat.

    4     There are over 925 million hungry people in the world, most of whom live in underdeveloped countries and areas. They don’t have enough food to eat. Many children die for lack of nutrition each year in some African countries. And farmers work very hard to grow the crops.    5    It’s also important that everyone should think about how they can do their bit to reduce food waste.

【推荐1】As an internet influencer, there seems to be nothing special about Miquela Sousa. The 19-year-old lives in Los Angeles, US, posts pictures of herself sporting fashionable looks, and has just made her way into the March edition of Vogue magazine. But Miquela isn’t real – she is an electronic character.

Her fans don’t seem to mind – she has 855,000 followers on US social networking platform Instagram. And her first single Not Mine – yes, she “sings” too – also reached No 8 on music streaming (流媒体) platform Spotify last August.

It’s kind of curious that in a time when authenticity (真实性) and “being real” are valued more than ever, “fake” celebrities like Miquela are appreciated and seen as icons (偶像).

Perhaps the reason for Miquela’s popularity lies behind the fame of a similar star, Hatsune Miku. This 16-year-old animated(动画的) singer from Japan has held singing concerts not only in her home country but also in the US and China.

Even though Hatsune’s no more than a 3-D figure projected (投射) onto the stage, her fans are more than willing to pay to actually see her “in person”, because to them, she’s better than human singers. “She’s rather more like a goddess: She has human parts, but she transcends human limitations. She’s the great post-human pop star,” wrote reporter James Verini on Wired magazine.

Critics may say that 3-D stars could never replace humans, but when it comes to being authentic, are humans really the best example of how to do it?

Most of us edit our photos before posting them online, and we tend to create a fantasy that we’re living a perfect life by letting people only see the brighter side of it.

“Miquela is no less real to me than any other internet stranger with whom I’ve interacted,” wrote reporter Leora Yashari on the website Nylon. “Her existence in itself represents a new breed (种类) of influencer – someone who is breaking the boundaries of what is real and what is fake.”

【推荐2】The cheerful smiles and legendary strength of the Sherpas(夏尔巴人) have been an essential part of Mount Everest climbing expeditions(探险) from the very beginning. Indeed, very few significant successes have been achieved without them.

When Western mountaineers first set their sights on the world’s highest peak, they found in the Sherpas a people ideally suited to the hardship of high-altitude climbing, unfailingly positive, stout at altitude, and seemingly resistant to cold.

Sherpas did not venture into the high peaks until European mountaineers began arriving to climb in the world’s greatest mountain range. Mount Everest, known as Chomolungma or “Goddess Mother of the Land” to the Sherpas, was long considered as a living place of the gods where humans were not allowed to go.

Although Everest now sees many a human footprint, the Sherpas still regard the mountain as a holy place. All modern expeditions begin with a Puja ceremony in which Sherpas and other team members leave offerings and pay respect to the gods of the mountain, hoping to remain in their good graces throughout the climb.

Sherpas were first employed as porters, tasked with carrying large amounts of equipment to supply the military-style expeditions of the day. The early climbers were amazed at the strength of these people, from the fittest of mature men to the young and elderly. In addition to their heavy loads, some of the women even carried along their babies. The whole troop of Sherpas slept outside, using only rocks for shelter, as temperatures dropped well below freezing.

Stronger Sherpas soon graduated from porter status and began to undertake challenging climbing. Those who distinguished themselves were awarded the Tiger Medal, and many desired this honor and the higher pay rate it afforded. Despite the potential dangers, the Sherpa people remained enthusiastic about taking part in Everest expeditions, which even then were becoming an important source of income for a poor mountain folk.

【推荐3】As students return to school this fall, many of them— perhaps especially those from historically disadvantaged student groups will be starting the academic year with achievement levels lower than where they were at the beginning of summer break. This phenomenon is sometimes referred to as summer learning loss. We review what is known about summer loss and offer suggestions for schools looking to solve the problem.

The recent studies on summer loss have been rather comprehensive. One study found that students, on average, lost between 25-30 percent of their school-year learning over the summer; additionally, black and Latino students tended to gain less over the school year and lose more over the summer compared to white students.

However, an analysis of the national study found little evidence of overall loss over the summers after grades K and 1, and the summer loss gaps widened in some subjects and grades but not others. Von Hippel and Hamrock re-analyzed two earlier data sets and concluded that gaps “do not necessarily. . . grow fastest over the summer”. Thus, it seems summer loss occurs, though not universally across geography, grade level or subject.

Schools want to address the issue of summer learning loss not only because it may widen achievement gaps, but also because it “wastes” so much of the knowledge students have gained during the school year. Summer loss also undoubtedly increases the amount of time teachers have to spend “re-teaching” last year’s content.

Traditionally, educators and policy makers have relied on conventional summer school programs to solve summer learning loss. Not surprisingly, research suggests that programs are more effective when students attend consistently and spend more time on task academically. Regardless of the design, these policies should offer engaging options for students over the summer so that summer learning programs do not feel like punishment for students who would rather be enjoying summer vacation. Doing so would set more students up for success as the school year gets underway.