【推荐2】How do you feel when your teacher asks you to work with other students in groups? Do you like to work together with others or work alone?

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) did a survey of students’ ability to work together in groups. They found that top students who do well on tests by themselves are better at working with other people. The finding was true for many countries. Students in Japan, South Korea, Finland and Canada, where test scores are high, also do well in working together to solve problems.

But this was not sure for every country. The collaborative (合作的) skills of top students in China, who also have high scores, are not high. “One reason might be that Chinese parents and teachers pay too much attention to grades,” said Zhao Zhongxin, the president of the Chinese family Education Association (CFEA). “Students have a lot of exam pressure and they think school is a place for competition. However, collaborative skills are very important for preparing students for today’s society,” he added, “luckily, more Chinese parents and teachers are realizing the importance of this and are thinking of ways to help students improve them.”

Another interesting findings from PISA survey was that girls are better than boys at working together. They said girls are more willing to listen to others’ opinions.

PISA also found that the classroom environment may influence how well students work with others. In classes there are a lot of activities that require communication, such as class discussion, students like to work with others.

【推荐3】In recent history, there have been some amazing inventions which have changed our lives. The plane has made international travel faster and easier. The Internet has brought people closer.

And you must know the names of some famous inventors like Henry Ford and Steve Jobs. But there are many everyday objects which you probably don’t notice and you don’t know who invented them. Take for example Nils Bohlin, who invented the modern-day car seat belt (安全带).

Before 1959, only two-point seat belts were available, and the only people who often wore them were race car drivers. The two-point seat belt couldn’t protect passengers from internal injuries (内伤) during serious car accidents.

In 1958, Bohlin joined Volvo Car Corporation as a safety engineer. He came up with the three-point seat belt to keep passengers from flying out of their cars during collisions. The three-point seat belt used one strap (带子) across the chest (胸部) and another across the legs and then the two joined at the same place. Amazingly, this was a very simple idea which no one tried before.

The three-point seat belt was introduced on Volvo cars in 1959. For more people’s safety, Volvo made the new seat belt design (设计) available to other car makers for free. Since then, engineers have worked to improve the three-point seat belt, but the basic design remains Bohlin’s.

At the time of Bohlin’s death in September 2002, Volvo said that the seat belt had saved more than one million lives since it was introduced.

【推荐1】Many Different Kinds of Trash

Garbage sorting is a big issue worldwide. In recent years, some Chinese cities have been working hard on it.

Shanghai has worked with Alipay to create a “green account(账户)” service for its residents(居民). Account holders get points by correctly sorting their garbage. Through the Alipay app, they can exchange the points for milk, phone cards and other products. The city is asking all of its residents to sort their garbage into four groups: wet, recyclable, harmful and dry.

※Wet waste is also known as household waste. “They are things you don’t want but pigs can eat,” Guangzhou Daily explained.

※Paper, metal, glass and other things that can be reused are recyclable waste.

※Harmful waste includes things like medicine, batteries and fluorescent bulbs(荧光灯泡).

※Any waste that is not wet, recyclable or harmful will go in the “dry waste dustbin”.

China is improving its waste sorting efforts. There is still a long way to go. But it’s never too late to learn how to sort your trash properly and protect the environment.

Also, different countries are using different methods to sort their trash.

※UK: A smart bin

A UK company has invented a “smart bin” to help with garbage sorting. People just need to drop their garbage into the bin. A camera and sensors(感应器) in the bin can tell what type of garbage it is and correctly sort it. The bin also compresses the waste so it takes up less space.

※South Korea: food aside

South Korea is using a method called “Pay For Your Trash” to encourage its people to reduce food waste. When throwing away trash, people have to separate their food waste from their other waste and put it in a dustbin. The smart dustbin then weighs the food. People have to pay for their food waste by scanning a bar code on the bin. The more they throw away, the more they will pay.

※Japan: careful sorting

Japan is leading the world in garbage sorting. They sort garbage so carefully that even plastic bottles and their caps go into different bins. Different types of paper products—newspapers, magazines and cartons—also have their own bins. There are also factories that make bags, clothes and dolls out of recycled waste.

【推荐2】In China, each year we produce about 150 million tons of city waste according to a report. Where does the waste go? People usually burn or bury (埋) it. On the other hand, we receive waste from some developed countries. We get useful materials from it. What about the useless part? Still burned or buried. But is it a proper way?

Waste pollutes the environment, harms people’s health and causes animals to die. It also gets in the way of green and sustainable development. We can’t make money at the cost of the environment; we should leave clean water and green mountains to our next generation (一代).

China is getting really serious about waste now.

We are taking less waste from developed countries. From January 2018, China started to stop 24 kinds of waste coming into our country. And more laws and rules about dealing with waste have been made. Anyone who breaks the law will be punished.

China also tries to put waste into good use. One example is the waste electricity factories. They burn waste to make electricity in a green way. No harmful gases (气) or water will get into the environment.

The Chinese government is encouraging people to do waste sorting (分类). Cities like Shanghai, Chongqing and Beijing have their own sorting systems. More will join them soon. As President Xi Jinping said during a visit to Shanghai, waste sorting is a new fashion (时尚). More and more people are forming the habit of separating their waste.

Did you throw something away today? The answer for most people would be yes. But where does our rubbish go?

    1     Every day, workers come to take the rubbish from our rubbish bins. They put it into a big truck and carry it to landfills (垃圾填埋场), At the landfills people sort (分类) the rubbish. They recycle some, burn some and bury (埋) some of it underground. The more rubbish gets recycled, the better. It means that less rubbish ends up in landfills. Landfills can also be bad for the environment.

So many Chinese cities encourage everyone to sort out their rubbish before throwing it away. Put the food in one bag. Put the plastic bottles in another.     2     In this way, we can help save a lot of time, money and energy for all of society.

    3     So they have higher recycling rates (比率). In Sweden, only 4 percent of household waste ends up inland fills every year. In Japan, people recycle nearly 50 percent of all rubbish.

There is still a lot to do when it comes to rubbish sorting in China. People in the country make about 300 million tons of rubbish every year.     4     The rest of it ends up in landfills. Most of it is unsorted. The good news is that many cities are trying different ways to make things better.     5     If people sort out their rubbish, they’ll get We Chat bonus points. They can exchange the bonus points for shopping cards!