【推荐2】Children’s Climate Prize Finalists

The Children’s Climate Prize (CCP) was started by the Swedish company Telge Energi. It’s been given every year since 2016 to a person between the ages of 12 and 17 who has made “extraordinary efforts” to improve life on the planet for children now and in the future. This year, the prize organizers report that a record number of young people from 32 different countries were nominated (提名) for the prize.

Yash Narayan

Yash Narayan is 17 and lives in San Carlos, California. He also used AI for his project. He created a smartphone app called DeepWaste. Yash realized that a lot of waste could be avoided if people had a simple system for deciding what could be recycled, what could be composted (堆肥), and what was truly garbage. Users who download the app can use their phone’s camera to quickly find out the best way to get rid of something.

Fernanda Barros

Sixteen-year-old Fernanda Barros is from Para, Brazil, where she helped start the group Fridays For Future Amazonia (FFFA). Brazil’s Amazon rainforest is seriously threatened. FFFA, based on the Fridays For Future movement started by Greta Thunberg, is working to protect the rainforest. Fernanda says, “We have the facts, we have the science, we have team effort, and we won’t stop!”

Lesein Mutunkei

Lesein Mutunkei, a 17-year-old from Nairobi, Kenya was named a finalist for his work in fighting deforestation. His project is called Trees For Goals (T4G). It encourages soccer teams to plant 11 trees for every goal scored (one for each player). Already, over 1,500 trees have been planted, and Lesein is working to spread the idea further. He would really like to get the soccer group FIFA to back the idea.

【推荐3】After at least five years of transporting you around the country, car batteries will now spend their retirement making you tea and toast and running your washing machine.

Used electric car batteries are being changed into home energy storage units which can be linked to rooftop solar panels to keep lights on and devices running when the sun goes down. The plan between Honda and Snam, an Italian energy infrastructure company, will reuse or recycle thousands of batteries from electric and hybrid cars and trucks across Europe, with single batteries installed（安装）in homes and lines of them linked to wind farms to store electricity.

They will also be used by homes and businesses on "time of use" electricity rates—to be charged up when electricity is cheap and used when the rate increases at times of peak demand. The plan will help solve one of the biggest challenges for the rapidly growing electric car industry —how to deal with large batteries which contain valuable metals such as lithium and cobalt but are expensive to break down and recycle.

Most have a warranty（保证）lasting five to eight years depending on how well they are managed and how often recharged. Used batteries have 50 to 90 per cent of their original capacity, according to Aceleron, which makes batteries that are easier to reuse and recycle.

Amrit Chandan, its founder, said："Transport is the largest source of carbon emissions in the UK, and in order to reduce carbon emissions, million electric vehicles are sold each year. But we are currently solving one environmentally friendly issue while ignoring another. Waste is the elephant in the room. By designing batteries for the circular economy from the start, we can prevent mountains of battery waste from being created worldwide. "

【推荐2】Should We Fear Maths?

How good are you at maths? Some people love the challenge of algebra (代数) or enjoy working out number puzzles. But many dread the moment when they have to deal with numbers and figures and feel a real sense of worry and confusion. It can seem depressing(令人沮丧的), but this maths anxiety is perfectly normal, and you’re definitely not alone. And anyway, our worries and fears don’t necessarily reflect our ability.

Research has found that maths teachers who are nervous about teaching the subject can pass on their anxiety to the pupils, and girls maybe more likely to be affected. The Programme for International Student Assessment found around 31% of 15-and 16-year-olds across 34 countries said they got very nervous while doing maths problems, 33% said they got tense while doing maths homework, and nearly 60% said they worried maths classes would be difficult.

Psychologists (心理学家) have been trying to work out why mental arithmetic (心算) can bring us out in a sweat. That seed of fear may come from many sources, but some suggest that expressing your fears can loosen their hold on you, and encourage children to see a maths test as a challenge, not a threat. In fact, we need to think positively about maths and give it a second chance.

【推荐3】Many years ago, dogs and wolves were the same. But about 14,000 years ago, some wolves began to change. They were no longer as wild. No one knows exactly how this happened. Angus Phillips of National Geographic Magazine thinks it may have happened like this: “Some wolves moved close to human cooking fires after smelling something good to eat. Then they worked to get closer to groups of humans. They did this by being helpful or proving they would not hurt people. The humans might have used the wolves’ better hunting skills to help them hunt animals. The wolves could warn humans of danger at night. Over thousands of years, humans kept the large, rough wolves out of the human camps. This led to the development of different kinds of dogs that were more friendly to people. They began to look different than wolves. They were generally smaller than wolves, with a shorter nose.”

Through the late 19th century, humans would raise dogs for special skills they wanted, such as hunting, helping with the work on farms or protecting animals. Today, the most common use of a dog is for friendship. Some people even consider their dog to be a part of their family. Scientists are finding that dogs can even understand human emotions. Around the world today there are more than 400 million dogs. But their relationship with people is not always close. Some of these dogs become strays. They live on the streets and often eat garbage. Diana Bharucha, from Bangalore,

Diana, started a program called ‘Stray Dogs Free Bangalore.’ She says that dogs should have a home with a human master. Diana told the news-magazine Citizens Matters: “If the dog population continues to increase, they will go back to living in a group and turn wild. They will start hunting like wild animals which will be a danger for human life.” Humans are still learning how to live together with dogs. This relationship can be wonderful but difficult. But people will continue to share their lives with man’s best friend: the dog.