Young Heroes for the Planet

Nowadays, people around the world are working to help our planet. Check out how the three young adults made a difference.

Saving Pandas When Jack was 11, he started a group to teach kids about pandas. He also sold toy pandas to raise money to protect (保护) pandas in danger. “I hope to encourage more people to care about pandas,” Jack says.

Growing Right Kathy, 14, set up a group to educate people about growing right plants in right places. She also wrote a book to help people learn what plants are native (本土的) to their area.

Cleaning Up Patrick, 13, joined the Ocean Heroes Camp last year. He started a program and picked up plastic (塑料的) rubbish around nearby lakes with his friends. People in the program worked together to fight plastic pollution (染).

We celebrated the China Hanfu Day from April 28th to May 13th, 2022 in Xi’an. There were catwalk shows and traditional music concerts during the first day. That day people wore traditional Chinese clothing. Hanfu fans from all over the country gathered there to take photos and put them online for a Hanfu photo competition.

China Hanfu Day is on the third day of the third month of the Chinese lunar calendar. In old China, this day was also known as Shangsi Festival. Its purpose is to encourage young Chinese to be proud of traditional clothing, as well as Chinese culture.

Han people lived in China before the Qing dynasty. Hanfu is their traditional clothing. It has a history of about 3,000 years and it also changes. However, some of its main characteristics (特点) remain. For example, there are two parts that overlap (交叠) on the front. People call it “Jiao Ling”. On the other hand, people usually use ribbons (系带) instead of buttons (扣子). It is the main characteristic of Hanfu, too.

Now, more and more young Chinese people are wearing Hangfu. Our country is becoming a leading country in the world, and we Chinese feel more confident about its traditional culture than ever before. Wearing traditional clothing might be an interesting way of showing how we feel about this.

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Today, by carefully choosing dog parents, humans have created many different kinds of dogs. Each kind has its own look and talents, and its own role within human society. Here are three examples of “a dog’s life” in the human world.

Today, many hospitals let specially trained dogs in to bring love and cheer to patients. Shaynee is a therapy（治疗）dog. She visits children who are in hospital. Dogs like Shaynee help patients feel calm and at peace, which can be hard in a busy hospital. They help both children and adults stay strong during long hospital stays, and, some suggest, even help them get better.

Today, some beagles（小猎犬）work in airports for the government. They are part of the program called the Beagle Brigade. A beagle is good for the work because of its powerful nose, and ability to follow smells. The Beagle Brigade’s job is to smell everything that comes into the country. They make officers notice illegal（非法的）fruits, vegetables, and other foods in luggage or in mail. The beagles do the job far better than human could.

While some dogs are working hard, others are free to spend their days resting and playing. Across the world, many pet dogs are treated like children. Many have their own rooms and all the things a dog could want. Some even have their own clothes. Many of these pets spend their days playing, learning to follow, or even going to classes. Their owners give them the best, and enjoy doing so.

Whether as workers or objects of affection（钟情）, dogs have become helpful to humans in many ways. There are plenty of advantages for the dog, too. Many kinds of wild dogs have nearly disappeared from the Earth. However, the domestic dog’s special place as “man’s best friend” has allowed it to survive（存活）in a human world.

Close friends, think alike?

“What! You, too? I believed I was the only one.” Have you ever said something like this to someone?     16    

It seems that similarity often helps to form friendship. The Greek thinker Aristotle once said,   “People regard friendship as a matter of similarity; they say that we love those who are like ourselves.”     17     Scientists from University of California said friends have similar behaviors, Scientific American reported.

The scientists invited 42 university students to take part in a test. Each student watched the same set of videos, which included a comedy, a discussion and a soccer match.     18     According to their scans, friends who watched the same video reacted in similar ways. Similar parts of their brains lit up while watching the videos, especially parts that are connected with motivation（动机）, learning and memory.     19    

“Seeing one’s friends have similar behaviors will reinforce（强化）one’s own values, opinions, and interest” lead scientist Carolyn Parkinson told Business Insider.     20    

Scientists from the University of Leipzig, Germany, found that friendship is also based on how physically close you are to someone. The scientists did a test with first-year college students the first time they met in class. In this test, students who sat in neighboring seats were more likely to become friends.