【推荐3】The undersea world is very beautiful. Now more and more people want to dive in the water to find the secrets there. Scuba diving is a new sport today. It can take you into a wonderful undersea world.

You will find many strange animals in the sea. Some are as large as a school bus. Many sea animals give out light in the dark and some have sharp teeth. During the day, there is enough light. Here, under the sea, everything is blue and green. When fish swim nearby, you can catch them with your hands. When you have bottles of air on your back, you can stay in deep water for a long time. However, you can’t dive too deep. And you must be very careful when you dive in deep water. The deep sea is not an easy place to live in. It’s cold, and it’s dark, too. The deeper it is, the less sunlight there is. At about 3,000 feet, there is no light at all. It is very dark in the sea. Many fishes have no eyes. Some have big eyes. A few have eyes on one side.

Besides the cold and the darkness, deep-sea animals face a third danger ― other animals. Animals eat! They must find food to eat. Many animals eat plants. However, some animals eat meat. This means these sea animals have two big jobs. They need to find animals as food, and they have to try not to become other animals’ meal.

【推荐1】Four Environmentalists You Should Know

George Washington Carver

George Washington Carver is one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century, not to mention a famous painter. He was an educator at the Tuskegee Institute and an inventor known for making plastics, fuel, and more out of peanut. He created a list of 300 uses for peanuts, and many more for soybeans and sweet potatoes, in an effort to increase financial gains for Southern farmers.

Julia Hill

After a serious auto accident in 1996, Julia Hill devoted her life to environmental causes. For two years, Hill lived in the branches of an ancient redwood tree which she named Luna in northern California to save it from being cut down. She eventually vacated (搬离) the 200-foot-tall tree after striking a deal with the Pacific Lumber Company. The tree was saved finally. Her tree-sit became an international cause.

Theodore Roosevelt

Though he was a known big-game hunter, Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most active champions of wilderness preservation in history. As governor of New York, he outlawed the use of feathers as clothing decorations in order to prevent the killing of some birds. While he was president (1901-1909), he set aside hundreds of millions of wilderness acres, which actively protected soil and water.

Chico Mendes

Chico Mendes is best known for his efforts to save the rainforests of his home Brazil from being cut down. Mendes came from a family of rubber harvesters who supplemented (补贴) their income by sustainably gathering nuts and other rainforest products. Alarmed at the damage of the Amazon, he helped to encourage international support for its protection. His activism drew the anger of powerful ranching (牧业) and timber interests, and he was murdered by cattle ranchers at age 44.

【推荐3】We all have one shirt in the closet that we don’t want to get rid of, yet keeping around because we can’t bear to just throw it in the garbage. We don’t wear it anymore. Being a little out of style, your old T-shirt needs a new home where it can be appreciated. One city in Toronto has started a project to give it one.

Earlier this year the Toronto suburbs of Markham introduced a new program encouraging its residents and residents of nearby suburbs to donate their old unwanted clothing. The program is exceptional because unlike most of those second-hand stores, they are accepting old clothing that isn’t quite in perfect condition. It is breathing new life into these typically-trashed items. Contrary to common belief, textiles（纺织品）are not only used for clothing, and these items are being re-purposed in a variety of interesting ways.

The city has set up many different donation centers around the suburbs and residents are encouraged to donate any unwanted textiles they happen to have lying around their house. It’s volunteers’ duty to divide the donations into different sorts. Those items in usable and good condition are donated to local homeless shelters and other aid centers. Those which are not are shipped off to be used for industrial purposes. Only when there is no more industrial need for fabric and textiles will they begin to use their last place — a landfill outside the city.

The program isn’t the city’s only green initiative (倡议). It has already had one of Canada and the world’s largest solar panels, and it is said that they are steadily working towards a shift to 100% renewable energy. The city also has subsidized (补助) farmers’ markets and over 125 miles of bike paths. As a result, Markham also has a much lower rate of obesity than other Canadian cities. Now, it’s working towards another goal — 100% recycling of unwanted textiles.

【推荐1】Kindergarten represents a crucial environment in which children develop school-related skills and patterns of engagement. They form the basis for the development of later competence which is important for academic success. As for later academic skills, kindergarten achievements have been found to have great predictive value.

Given the long-lasting effects that kindergarten experiences have on later schooling, it is important to understand the factors associated with children’s learning and motivation during this time. The quality of teacher-student interaction has been found to be important in terms of many different academic and socio-emotional outcomes. However, much of the previous work in the field has focused on children in later grades in elementary school and has been conducted in the United States. Fewer studies have been conducted in other educational environments and in kindergarten specifically.

Some researchers investigated bidirectional links between the quality of teacher-child relationships and children’s interest and pre-academic skills in literacy and math in Finland. Participants were 461 Finnish kindergarteners (6-year-olds) and 48 teachers.

The results suggested that teacher-perceived (教师感知的) conflicts predicted children’s lower pre-academic skills in both literacy and math. It is possible that when children experience conflicts with teachers, the negative emotions attached to these conflicts are harmful to children’s engagement in learning and reduce their interest in academic tasks. It’s also possible that children experiencing conflicts are missing out on time for learning literacy and math, either because they become separated from instructional activities or because teachers have to spend more instructional time on behavioral management.

The findings emphasize the importance of kindergarten teachers being aware of how their relationships with children can influence children’s later schooling. Therefore, it would be important to develop pre-service and in-service programs and interventions to help teachers. Teacher education programs may also benefit teachers not only in academic content and education practices but also in strategies used to build supportive relationships with children.

【推荐3】Writing Contests

FIL Prize

A nine-month fellowship at the Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience at Washington Chestertown, Maryland, is given annually to the winner working on an essay that addresses the history or legacies of the American Revolution and the nation's founding ideas The winner will get a scholarship of $45,000.Submit an essay sample (样本) of any length. FIL., Prize, C.V. Starr Center, Custom House, 101 South Water Street. Chesertown. (740) 765-3442

Vassar Miller Prize

A prize of $1.500 and the publication is available annually to a poetry collection, The famous poet Rosanna Waren will judge. Using the online submission system, you submit a manuscript (手稿) of 50 to 80 pages with a $25 entry fee.

University of North Texas Press, 1155 Union Circle#311336, Denton, TX76203. (940) 565-2142.

Pulitzer Prizes

Four prizes of $15, 000 each are given annually to the U.S. writers for books of fiction general non-fiction, and biography or autobiography published in the United States during the current year. For books published between January 1 and June 14, submit four copies of the book, an author’s biography and a photograph, and a $50 entry fee by June 15.The deadline for books published during the second half of the year is October 1.

Pulitzer Prizes, Prizes in Letters, Columbia University, Pulitzer Prize Office, 2950 Broadway, New York. NY 10027. (212) 854-3841.

Spokane Prize

The total prize money is $30, 000 and half of it is given annually to the winner. Other three participants in the top four will each receive $5, 000.The winner and other finalists will also be invited to read at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. Writers Andrea Barrett and Alex Espinoza will judge. All pieces of works taking part in competition must be books of fiction published during the current year. Submit four copies of a short story collection, and the novel will be published by October 31.

Faulkner Foundation, 201 East Capitol Street SE, Washington, D.C.20003.(202)898-9063.