In a school garden in Ningxia, the roles of students are not the same as before. Here, students do the teaching.

“This is our vegetable area,” a student from Grade 8 tells a visitor, “we have grown many kinds of vegetables.”

“Look! These are tomatoes” another student adds, “and those are carrots. . .”

The two students have been working in the garden since 2021. They are part of their school’s gardening program. Actually（事实上）, most schools in Ningxia have their own gardens, where students harvest（收获）their special “schoolwork”.

In the gardens, students work in teams with the help of their teachers. They finish all the important steps by themselves. For example, team members study what to grow. Then they discuss and plan their gardens. They plant seeds（种子）, pull grass and water their plants. Some students also grow oranges and apples by themselves. In autumn, they harvest their “schoolwork”—all kinds of fruits and vegetables!

School gardens provide ideas for classes, too. For example, students study the plants they grow in science classes. Math becomes a tool for planning the garden. Studies have shown that schools gardening programs help students do better in school.

Schools’ gardening programs offer learning experiences as well as fun. Young gardeners can practice skills that are useful for all their lives. They’ve had fun working together as a team and learned how to work together.

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Instruments Brought Back to Life!

Richard Blackson, the director of an US art gallery, visited 23 schools in Philadelphia. He found a room full of broken musical instruments (乐器) at each school. The schools said the instruments had been there for a long time. But Blackson also found that 1,000 of the broken instruments could be repaired.

In fact, many public schools in the United States don’t have enough musical instruments because of budget cuts (预算削减). Several students often have to share one instrument. Blackson started a project called “Symphony (交响乐) for a Broken Orchestra (管弦乐团)”, aiming to repair broken instruments for students.

To raise money, he reached out to David Lang, a Pulitzer Prize-winning US musician. The musician Lang came up with the idea of writing a symphony for the broken instruments. On November 23,400 students and professional musicians held a concert. They performed Lang’s Symphony for a Broken Orchestra, which shares its name with the repair project.

People can now go online to see profiles (简介) of all of the broken instruments and donate money to “adopt (领养)” one or more instruments. The project has raised over $237,000 (1.5 million yuan) so far, The New York Times reported. In the fall semester of this year, Philadelphia students will receive the repaired instruments.

High school student Evelyn Mitka, 16, played a violin that was missing a string (弦) during the concert. She told Dogo News that the performance taught her a lesson. “You can learn music in an untraditional way.”

The winter solstice is an important solar term in the traditional Chinese calendar, and means the coming of winter. It generally occurs between December 21st and 23rd. According to the traditional Chinese calendar, one year is divided into twenty-four solar terms. On this day, in the northern hemisphere (半球) the period of daytime is the shortest of the year and the period of night is the longest.

In northern China there is a custom of eating dumplings during the winter solstice. It is said that dumplings were invented by Zhang Zhongjing, a well-known doctor in the Eastern Han Dynasty.

One winter, he noticed that many people’s ears were frostbitten (冻伤的), which made him sad. In order to prevent and cure the freezing injury caused by cold, he asked his followers to boil mutton, chilies and other ingredients in a pot for fending off cold. After these were boiled, they cut them into pieces and then wrapped them in dough skins in the shape of ears. Afterwards, they put these into the pot to boil again.

On the day of the winter solstice, people whose ears were frostbitten were sent to eat the dumplings. People who ate dumplings felt warm from head to toe and had their cold injury healed. Thereafter, people ate dumplings every winter solstice.

Afterwards, Zhang Zhongjing died on the day of the winter solstice. In order to honour him every year on the day of the winter solstice every household makes dumplings.

Long long ago, a man went to his neighbor’s house and tried to steal something. As soon as he came in, he saw there     44     (hang) a big bell. The bell was beautiful. The thief was very glad, and decided to carry this beautiful bell back home. But no     45     how hard he tried, he could not move the bell, because the bell was both big and heavy. He thought and thought and had     46     idea. The thief found a big iron hammer. He used the hammer     47     (hit) the bell with all his strength. He wanted to break the bell into pieces before he could carry them back to his home. The striking produced a big crashing sound. It made the thief     48     (terrible) frightened. He had to cover his ears hard with his hands.

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