【推荐1】Although it has been 15 years since Katherine Quirk had an infant to feed, she remembers how it felt to struggle to find something you need for your baby.

Watching the news, the nurse manager and mom of three grew increasingly alarmed by the infant baby formula (婴儿奶粉)shortage happening across the United States. She noticed many moms putting out cries for help on the Internet, because they couldn’t find a particular brand of formula their child needs. She knew she had to do something to help.

Katherine has always been a helper. Back in 2021, she and her husband made a group web page to help senior citizens get appointments for their COVID-19 vaccine. She has seen firsthand how powerful social media can be to unite people towards a common goal, so she started a new web page for parents seeking baby formula.

The South Florida Baby Formula Info Group is a resource for parents to share pictures of the formula supply at local stores, swap and sell extra formula, and help each other get through the formula shortage. Katherine solved the discussions on the group to help parents find much needed formula.

The group now has over 900 members, all of whom are working in the Palm Beach, Florida area to support one another and keep their babies fed. “The overall vibe (氛围) is very positive,” Katherine said. “Moms help other moms. Caregivers lend a hand and offer up unused formula to a mom who has a need. Exchanges happen between parents if perhaps a sample was received that is not needed.”

Katherine displays true leadership qualities! She urges other people to start groups of their own if they see a need in their community. She acknowledges that it does take “time and effort” to run a social media web page, but says, “If it helps even one person then it’s worth it.”

【推荐3】I had heard about VR (虚拟现实) being used in the classroom but didn’t think I’d ever try it. I actually got a VR headset (耳机) as a New Year present from my friend and started searching for apps online to see whether it could be useful in my classroom. I soon found a free app through Google Cardboard and knew I had a lesson!

To use VR in the classroom, you need two things: a smartphone that can download the app or video, and a headset. To find the actual videos we’d be watching, I searched through free VR apps like Orbulus, Trench Experience VR and Cardboard. I also found hundreds of videos on YouTube. The key is to find videos made with the 360 cameras. While they don’t give the kids a 3-D experience like the apps, they are still amazingly immersive ( 沉浸式虚拟现实的) when viewed through the headsets.

So far we’ve had three lessons. I first used the headsets with my seventh grade U. S. History class. The Trench app allows students to “walk” through a trench (战壕) during World War I and learn about many of the tools used during that time. My second activity was working with the sixth grade Geography class. They used the headsets strictly as viewers to watch a 360 video taking them through a rocky landscape. My final activity was the most interesting one, according to the reactions (反应) of my eighth grade Civics students. I was able to find a White House 360 tour that was made a few years ago.

For the rest of this year, I plan to continue using apps and 360 videos in my classes. Next year I’m going to write to my boss asking for a 360 video camera so that I can begin to create my own VR field trips for the students.

【推荐3】If you have ever seen the art of Jonathan Green, it is not likely that you will soon forget it. His paintings are bold and colorful, lively and cheerful. Green depicts a way of life that is rapidly disappearing. It is a way of life that he remembers with fondness from his childhood in the South Carolina Sea Islands.

Jonathan Green was born in 1955 in Gardens Corner, South Carolina, a region of the state known as the Low Country. The second of seven children, Green was raised by his maternal grandmother, Eloise Stewart Johnson. As he grew up, he was immersed in Gullah culture-a culture that placed great value on tradition, family, and community. Although Green had to travel to other parts of the world before he could fully appreciate his rich heritage, the basic elements of his culture eventually found their way into his unique form of artistic expression.

After Green graduated from high school, he joined the military. It seemed like a good opportunity for him to see the world and to receive an education. When he completed his military service, Green attended the Art Institute of Chicago. While he was in school, he worked part-time as a security guard at an art museum. This allowed him to study the work of the masters. He imitated their work at first, learning what made them so well respected. Then, Green found his own style and direction and began painting South Carolina’s Gullah Islands, the world he knew best.

Jonathan Green’s artwork is filled with everyday images of Gullah life as he remembered it growing up. His paintings show people hanging laundry out to dry, picking oysters, telling stories, and attending weddings and funerals. Water is found in many of his paintings because it plays an important role in the lives of people who live along the coast and on the islands.

Human beings are also found in nearly all of Green’s work, indicating the importance of family and community to the culture. The faces of the people in his paintings are usually without features. This can be interpreted as Green’s way of showing how the everyday lives and experiences of people are universal.The Gullah way of life is changing as children grow up and move away to larger towns and cities. Jonathan Green knows that his artwork cannot change what is happening to the area where he grew up. But his paintings can raise awareness of what is in danger of being lost and preserve the memories of a rich and colorful way of life.