【推荐1】Conversation around sustainability (可持续发展) has been growing in recent years, with a whole wave of new words entering the dictionary to describe its influence across many topics. To honour Earth Day, we’re exploring the developing language of sustainability in our day-to-day lives.

The climate emergency took on new meanings in 2018 thanks to climate activist Greta Thunberg. Her speeches and strikes lighted a global conversation and since then, we’ve seen many climate-related words entering the Collins Word of the Year shortlists including “rewilding” and “climate anxiety”. We also saw two climate words win CollinsWOTY: single use (2018) and climate strike (2019).

This increased everyday conversation around our planet also means we’re seeing new words enter the dictionary on an ongoing basis. Recent entries include climate justice (正义), the formulation of policies (政策的制定) to fight climate change that do not place an unfair pressure on poorer and local communities, and zero waste, a situation in which people’s activities produce nothing that cannot be reused, re-purposed, or recycled.

The more we talk about the climate crisis, the more forced we are to find solutions. This means we’re seeing new language around energy production. One example is solar park, which is an area of land that has been set aside for the generation of solar energy. Solar parks are a renewable energy source that can reduce carbon emissions (碳排放). Other energy-related words include blue hydrogen (氢) and green hydrogen, new entries to the Collins Dictionary, both described as a commercially produced hydrogen that creates little to no emissions of CO_2.

Fighting the climate crisis depends on big businesses and governments using greener practices. But there are lots of ways we can protect our planet as individuals and these little changes have led to developing words around nature, diet, and lifestyle.

【推荐1】Software expert James Curran helped rewrite Australia’s new curriculum(全部课程)for information technology subjects. He said the changes to the current curriculum could stop teenagers avoiding computing and maths subjects in high school.“Kids are naturally curious, but we don’t set up the curriculum in a way that awakens their curiosity so that they can learn the things they want to, and the things they have to,”Curran said.“Teaching maths and computing in a new way makes a very big difference.“

As more and more high school students drop out of advanced maths subjects, Dr Curran warned that computing subjects were in an even more difficult position than them. Only 1,748 year-12 students enrolled(登记)in software design and development in New South Wales last year—about half the 3,300 who studied the subject 10 years ago. Enrolments in information technology have declined sharply,from 10,000 in 2001 to just 1,939 students in 2021.

“Students are not taking computing subjects at the senior level because the subject is a bit out of date,”Curran said.“Computing is a subject that changes all the time and needs to be changed every few years, so I would like to see a continuous process of smaller changes and updates to it.”

As schools struggle to make students stick with the subjects of information technology, engineering and maths,1,000 primary schools across Australia have signed up for a new pro-gram to get young kids interested in high-tech jobs. The program uses online lessons to show children as young as six the process of designing the Olympics logo, and how Netflix collects information to decide which movies to make.

11-year-old student Mia Lucas had fun completing a model on UX design.   It is the“user experience”process that design teams use to create products.“I’ve always been interested in creating a website or an app but didn’t know the first step in doing that,“ she said.“The pro-gram helps me a lot.”

【推荐3】Huang Yang is a native(本地人)of Zibo city in Shandong Province who works outside his hometown. He recently returned home for a visit and wanted to have some barbecue(烧烤). But he failed to find seats in four different restaurants.

“A barbecue restaurant owner told me to come back on Monday, so as to leave the weekends to out-of-town visitors. Another restaurant owner told me that they had run out of meat. I’ve been eating barbecue for over 20 years and this is the first time I’ve heard something like that,”Huang said.

Thanks to social media recommendations, Zibo barbecue has become popular overnight. The small city was crowded with visitors on weekends for a taste of the mouth-watering dishes. Most visitors are young people, who share online their experience of traveling to Zibo to experience the city’s barbecue culture, drawing even more visitors.

Behind Zibo’s sudden fame(名声)are the efforts and services of the local government. To promote Zibo-style barbecue, Zibo has provided two dozen “special barbecue trains,” where local officials would serve tourists themselves. Zibo’s tourism officials have been promoting the city’s food and attractions and sending gifts to tourists on the barbecue-themed trains.

At the city’s train station, volunteers have been working at train stations to offer help. Buses are ready to take visitors from train stations straight to barbecue restaurants.

Another key to the success, according to Peng Han, director of the Center for Strategic Studies at the Ctrip Research Institute, is that before Zibo became popular on the internet, the city had developed mature(成熟的)tourism products and service standards. For example, the barbecue-themed train services, bus services, barbecue map, the youth hostels that offer discounts for college students and the strict requirements for local tourism businesses were not achieved overnight, Peng noted.

Although Zibo is still enjoying the great fame, the local government has begun to make longer-term plans.

As the home of the Shandong businessmen and having origins(源头)in the Silk Road, Zibo will work to develop its historical and cultural resources into cultural brands, noted Wang Shenghua, a senior tourism official in Zibo.

【推荐2】A satellite is an object in space that orbits around another. It has two kinds — natural satellites and artificial satellites. The moon is a natural satellite that moves around the earth while artificial satellites are those made by man.

Despite their widespread impact on daily life, artificial satellites mainly depend on different complicated makeups. On the outside, they may look like a wheel, equipped with solar panels or sails. Inside, the satellites contain mission-specific scientific instruments, which include whatever tools the satellites need to perform their work. Among them, high-resolution cameras and communication electronics are typical ones. Besides, the part that carries the load and holds all the parts together is called the bus.

Artificial satellites operate in a systematic way just like humans. Computers function as the satellite’s brain, which receive information, interpret it, and send messages back to the earth. Advanced digital cameras serve as the satellite’s eyes. Sensors are other important parts that not only recognize light, heat, and gases, but also record changes in what is being observed. Radios on the satellite send information back to the earth. Solar panels provide electrical power for the computers and other equipment, as well as the power to move the satellite forward.

Artificial satellites use gravity to stay in their orbits. Earth’s gravity pulls everything toward the center of the planet. To stay in the earth’s orbit, the speed of a satellite must adjust to the tiniest changes in the pull of gravity. The satellite’s speed works against earth’s gravity just enough so that it doesn’t go speeding into space or falling back to the earth.

Rockets carry satellites to different types and heights of orbits, based on the tasks they need to perform. Satellites closer to the earth are in low-earth orbit, which can be 200-500 miles high. The closer to the earth, the stronger the gravity is. Therefore, these satellites must travel at about 17,000 miles per hour to keep from falling back to the earth, while higher-orbiting satellites can travel more slowly.

【推荐3】On Dec 9, 2021, astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu held their first open class aboard the Tianhe core module of the Chinese space station for pupils.

In the 50-minute online class, the three astronauts explained daily life in space, how to walk in a microgravity environment and showed the children how to recycle water, oxygen and carbon dioxide in their environment. Applause broke out among the 1,420-strong audience at the CSTM when one of the three astronauts poured out water, which formed into a perfect ball. Applause broke out again when they put an effervescent tablet (泡腾片) into the water, which sparked into bubbles (气泡). But the bubbles did not burst and instead stayed complete.

The open science lesson was broadcast live to the nation. On domestic video-sharing website Bilibili alone, the open course was watched at least 6 million times, with more views on other platforms and TV channels.

For Shi Hao, a space specialist at China Acrospace Science and Technology Corporation, the growing desire of school pupils to pursue knowledge about space reflects the growing potential of China in exploring the universe in the future.

“I still remember how impressed I was by the launch of Shenzhou VI in September 2005. From then on, I have carved out the dream of pursuing my career in astronautics from the bottom of my heart.” Shi said. “For many people like me, this is not only a job, but a lifelong addiction and commitment. It is of vital importance to let Chinese youths touch astronautics during their childhood so as to sustain the building of talents.”

He was echoed (回应) by Zhou, who places high hopes on the future of China’s space industry. “We have a population of 1.4 billion, of which more than 200 million are pupils at school. By inspiring their enthusiasm, China will get an abundant supply of talents for the national space research team.” “Chinese people will step further in the universe and the hope lies in our children,” he added.