Pottery Classes for Children

Join in our pottery (陶器) classes! Blocks of clay (黏土) are fun to turn into shapes. Learn to work with clay on a potter’s wheel to make a bowl. Paint your bowl, and then put it in a special oven to make it dry and hard. See how shiny and colorful it looks!

What: Pottery Classes

Where: Oak Park Art Center

When: Every Saturday in May

Noon to 2:00 p.m.

Cost: $25. 00

To LEARN MORE, CALL 555—6780.

Li Wenyong, 53, is a forest officer at the National Park in Hainan Province. His job is to find and study Hainan gibbons (长臂猿), and record their latest situation with a camera and a pen.

Hainan gibbons live in rainforest trees over 10 meters high, seldom on the ground. In the 1950s, the Hainan gibbon population was over 2,000. However, local villagers began to open up land in the mountains. Gibbons lost their home. In the 1980s, the number of Hainan gibbons was just about seven.

In order to protect Hainan gibbons, Hainan government set out a series of measures. Local government planted more than 300,000 trees as food for the gibbons. Local people moved out of the mountains to give living space to the gibbons. Volunteers went into the rainforest to protect them. Thanks to these protection efforts, the number of the gibbons has risen.

Li loves his job. As Li sat down under a tree and adjusted (调整) his camera, several Hainan gibbons hung their bodies upside down and touched Li’s head and equipment (设备) with their hands.

“Without protection, this species (物种) would be never seen again,” Li said. “I will guard them forever, until my legs can no longer run.”

Doing sports is good for our body and mind. Today, exercising through online videos is becoming popular. With the Internet, people can do it anytime, anywhere.

One of my friends, Lin Fei, followed short videos to do daily exercise. “With live programs, I feel like I am working out with my friends, which encourages me to hold on to the last minute,” she said. Another friend of mine, Michael, told me that working out through video made him feel comfortable. “I have a fear of working out at the gym (体育馆), because I don’t like being watched by people around me. But working out at home doesn’t make me feel embarrassed,” he said.

Hearing about their experiences, I decided to give it a try. When I told my plan to my elder sister, a P.E. teacher, she said that workout videos could be helpful but might still carry some problems.

“Without being with someone in person, you will be less willing to work out to your best. Working out at the gym allows you to have advice in real time and get pushed harder,” my sister said to me. “Well, if you really want to have a try, first, choose proper programs or videos. That’s very important. And then ask your friends for advice. Their experiences can give you a better understanding of what you can expect. Anyway, don’t depend too much on it. You should try some different ways too.”

At her suggestions, I followed an online program for three months, which also offered advice to meet my personal needs. After the first period of training, I felt it very practical and helpful when I put in the right amount of work with a strong will. Compared with going to the gym, using online videos is a much cheaper and time-saving choice. But it can be difficult sometimes when I’m too lazy or too busy to stick with it.

Plants are rooted (扎根) in one place. They can’t run away from danger or walk over the sunny side of the garden. So they have to develop some special ways to protect themselves and grow in the nature.

Some scientists found that plants can sense their surroundings (环境). You’ve all seen plants grow towards light which is called phototropism. Even if the top of them are cut off, the plants don’t change the direction. They sense the light and tell the rest of the plants how to grow then.

Some plants “talk” with each other by using “airmail” to warn each other of danger. Researchers in England cut the leaves of cabbages. The cabbages then produce a tiny number of chemicals (化学物质) that protect themselves from some insects. Strangely, the cabbages which aren’t cut nearby also begin to give off their own different chemicals. That means they seem to receive a warning from their cabbage neighbors.

Most amazingly, plants have a great system of communication that can connect nearly every plant in a forest by fungi (真菌). It connects the roots of different plants to each other. Scientists call the system the “wood wide web”, similar to the Internet we use. Using the network, plants can communicate and share information and even food with each other.

Whatever the case, plants are stranger and more wonderful than we can imagine.

A．

B．

C．

D．