【推荐2】Dogs can help first-year university students treat homesickness, according to a new UBC study. The study shows that animal-assisted therapy (动物辅助治疗) can help students treat homesickness and could be a useful tool in lowering post-secondary drop-out rates (辍学率).

“Transitioning (转变) from high school to university proves to be a challenge for many first-year students,” says Professor John Tyler Binfet of UBC. “Since students who experience homesickness are more likely than their non-homesick schoolmates to drop out of university, universities should support students during their first year.”

In the study, 44 first-year university students who were homesick were given a survey to measure levels of homesickness, satisfaction with life and connectedness (关联) with campus. Half of the students completed eight weeks of dog therapy, while the other half were told to take the therapy eight weeks later. Dog therapy included 45-minute weekly gatherings, like group activities with the dogs and their trainers, and meeting other first-year students participating (参与) in the study. After eight weeks, participants in both the treatment group and the non-treatment group completed the survey again.

Participants who completed the eight-week program were less homesick and more satisfied with school life. They reported that during the therapy they felt like they were at home talking with friends who brought their dogs. However, the non-treatment group reported an increase in their feelings of homesickness.

“Moving to a new city, I did not know anyone at the university and became very homesick,” said Varenka Kim, a student who took part in the eight-week therapy. “I stayed in my room and didn’t feel like I belonged here. Having dog therapy every Friday gave me a sense of purpose and I stayed positive about life.”

According to a 2009 study, 29 percent of students who dropped out of school believed that more communication and friendships with other students would have influenced their decision to stay longer.

“While further study is needed, a university’s ability to influence campus connections could be a useful tool in lowering drop-out rates in first-year students,” says Binfet. “Many first-year university students face the challenge of fitting into their new campus community,” he says. “Homesick students are three times more likely than those who manage their homesickness to drop out of university.”

【推荐1】In 1849, when John Muir was 11 years old, he and his family moved from Scotland to the United States. They lived in Wisconsin, and right away John fell in love with the prairies, wetlands, oak forests, and lakes. He called it the “beautiful Wisconsin wilderness”.

1 _______ The hard work like plowing fields and digging a well made him strong in both mind and body. In his free time, John caught turtles and frogs in the rivers and lakes. 2 _______ He enjoyed the lovely wildflowers that grew on the prairies. He loved learning, too, and at night he studied and read about many subjects.

3 _______   As a young man, John tried different kinds of work. He built clocks and designed machines that made farming easier.   4 _______   He took classes at the University of Wisconsin. He travelled through Canada and then Florida, studying nature. But at age 29, he had a serious eye problem. He almost lost his vision. He was afraid that he would never see again. So when his vision returned, John knew he needed to follow his dream of studying nature.

A year later, when John saw the Sierra Nevada mountains in California for the first time, he began to understand that he found his calling in life. “I came to life in the cool winds and the clear waters of the mountains,” he wrote. John spent the rest of his life protecting the wild places he loved so much. He was a gifted writer and wrote about the beauty of the land. In 1892, John Muir started the Sierra Club. This old organization still works to protect the environment.

【推荐3】For most of us, the Arctic (北极地区) and the Antarctic (南极地区) are very far places. The Arctic is the most northern part of the earth and it is the area around the North Pole. The Antarctic is the most southern part of the earth and it is the area around the South Pole. Both of the places have a lot in common, but they are also different in many ways.

Both places are very, very cold. Both of them are covered with ice. Much of the ice there never melts (融化). You may be surprised to know there are not many snowstorms in either place. Small pieces of ice blow around and look like falling snow.

On every big difference is what is under the ice. Water is under most of the ice in the Arctic. Land is under most of the ice in the Antarctic. The Antarctic is a large continent (大陆). It has plains (平原), valleys and mountains. They are covered with ice.

The Arctic is warmer than the Antarctic. Small plants grow on the Arctic in summer. The Antarctic has almost no plants, because it is too cold. A few small plants grow there each summer.

Animals live in both places. Polar bears live in the Artic. Same foxes and wolves live there, too. Most animals can’t live in the Antarctic because it is too cold. However penguins (企鹅) can live there. There are some animals that can live in both places, such as whales.

Many people live in the Arctic. There are towns and small cities on the land areas. The Antarctic is so cold that nobody lives there for long. Scientists who study the Antarctic stay there while they are working. They live in special buildings and don’t spend much time outside.

【推荐2】Calligraphy (书法) is an old and important art in China. But did you know that the handwriting of English letters also has n rich history?

People believe that handwriting can show your personality. In English schools now, there are certain styles of handwriting with different meanings. For every English child, learning how to do “joined up writing(写连笔字)” is one of the most important events in their education.

In the Victorian times, the police would sometimes look at people’s handwriting to decide if they were guilty(罪犯). People wrote letters every day, and handwriting was very important. Today, however, we live in a computer age, and handwriting is getting worse. A patient died in an English hospital recently because the doctor’s handwriting was impossible to read and the patient got the wrong medicine.

People around the world are now worried that handwriting itself will die out. South Korea for example, wants to replace all textbooks and paper with computers by 2023. Do you think it’s important to keep on handwriting?

【推荐3】Geoffrey is a 10-pound delivery robot developed by a Canadian company Tiny Mile. It is not autonomous. It is controlled remotely by a human using a small computer and a joystick , navigating with GPS and watching through cameras.

With Geoffrey, we do not need to keep delivery humans waiting for the food to be ready or restaurant humans watching their food get cold when the driver has not shown up—two big problems in food delivery industry. Tiny Mile now uses it to provide local food service in a small area. It can work for eight hours each time.

The manager Omar Elawi says, “Right now, the delivery robots are mostly controlled by young people with a history of gaming, who are comfortable navigating the streets on a screen with a joystick. But we are trying to push the idea of jobs for disabled people who could work from home.”

But some people doubt whether the delivery robots can work normally when they meet someone who tries to turn them over or bad weather. But Elawi says, “I here have been no real problems. A couple of kids were throwing snowballs. Many people would actually help when it got stuck in the snow.” Soon it will even have a speaker so that the driver can say thanks for the help.

Another different thing about the delivery robots is that Geoffrey drivers are paid a salary, unlike usual delivery robots which just take jobs away from delivery people. Founder Tartavull says, “Geoffrey is not here to take away jobs, but eventually creates more with higher pay.” It will also be more environmentally friendly. “A few years from now it is going to sound silly and unreasonable that we use a car to carry apple pie,” he adds.