2 . Great Panda Center

Join GoEco on a 7-day volunteer program in China to help wildlife at a giant panda center!

Your schedule

Day 1: Arrive at Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport. The local team will be waiting to pick you up and transfer you to the hotel in Chengdu.

Day 2: Walk around Chengdu, visit Panda Breeding Center and enjoy delicious hot pot dinner.

Day 3-6: Transfer to Panda Base in the mountains and take part in rewarding volunteer work! Each day, volunteers will work for 4-6 hours and in the evenings, volunteers will take part in cultural activities ranging from dumpling making to Chinese language lessons.

Day 7: Take a bus to either the airport or Chengdu City Center if extending stay.

Some of your tasks include

• Preparing food for the pandas

• Cutting down and carrying bamboos

• Cleaning panda enclosures

• Occasionally participating in observation and research

Requirements

• Ages 18-50 (This project may accept volunteers who are under 18 with a letter of consent（同意）from a parent)

• Basic English and/or Chinese

• Motivation to work with animals

Total project cost: $1200

• What’s included

Room: Shared hotel room

Food: Three meals a day

Airport transfers: Airport transfers upon arrival and departure

• What’s not included

Flights, travel health insurance, personal expenses

Important note: Please apply for this program 1-2 months in advance. Families upgrading to private accommodations must pay an additional charge.

3 . Europe is the perfect place for a holiday. Every corner of the continent is bursting with history, culture and sights. The countries are so very close to one another, and yet so completely different.

Sweden

Sweden is a brilliant destination for a campervan (露营车) holiday, with hundreds of well-appointed camping sites suitable for vehicles. Head north to Lapland in the Arctic Circle and you’ll find true wildernesses where you can truly get close to nature. Head here between June and mid-July and you’ll be able to take in the midnight sunshine. If you’re looking for great nightlife, head to Gothenburg, Stockholm or Malmo.

Germany

There are massive industrial cities, rolling plains, towering mountains, deep forests and long, sparkling rivers. It’s not just what’s to see that makes Germany so great, but the ease of seeing everything. All these wonderful locations are all linked by one of the world’s best road systems.

Scotland

Scotland has something for everyone: cities with rich nightlife, incredible scenery, wonderful lochs and medieval (中世纪的) castles. If you want to get away from it all, then the Highlands are one of the least populated areas in the whole of Europe. Hikers will love the Cairngorms – the largest national park in the UK.

Spain

Spain’s famous for its beach holidays, but it offers so much more than that. With a lovely climate, rich history, excellent architecture, delicious cuisine and friendly locals, Spain has long been a favoured destination for holiday.

4 . For many, Labor Day weekend signals the end of summer and an opportunity to host a socially-distanced barbecue (an outdoor meal). But this national holiday—celebrated every year in the United States and Canada on the first Monday in September—has revolutionary (革命性的) origins.

By the late 19th century, the Industrial Revolution had made working life miserable for people around the world. In many places, workers toiled for at least 12 hours a day six days a week in mines, factories, railroads, and mills. This holiday actually originated in the US on May 1, 1866, in what came to be known as the Haymarket Riot, workers flooded Chicago streets to demand an eight-hour workday.

It would take another conflict in the American Midwest to make Labor Day a national holiday. On May 11, 1894, workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company, a railroad car manufacturer near Chicago, went on strike to protest their low wages and 16-hour workdays. In August 1893, James Kyle introduced federal legislation (立法) to make Labor Day a public holiday, but for ten months the legislation was put on hold. To quiet the strikers and their supporters, the Senate quickly passed the bill on June 22. The bill passed the House four days later and President Grover Cleveland signed it into law on June 28, 1894.

The holiday is more information May Day labor celebrations. Many observers relax at home or head to outdoor recreational activities, such as boating, barbecues, and camping. It may also be marked with fireworks shows and other events. Labor Day has also become associated with retail sales, as many shop owners try to take advantage of the customers’ day off. It is one of the largest sales events of the year. meaning retail employees actually have to work more on this day. Parades are the most common model of celebration, which often feature processions of labor groups.

5 . Types of Maps

Different types of maps have different uses. Tourist maps, for example, have signs to show places of interest in an area. When tourists read these maps, it is easy for them to find where to go and what to see in a place and it is easy for them to go and find their ways to these places.

Road maps show large areas so that people can plan long journeys. Different types of roads are given different numbers. For example, if you want to go to Wood Green, you just follow No. 621 Road and keep looking at the road signs.

Distribution maps use colors or signs to show facts about an area. For example, where different languages are spoken, how many people live in an area, how cold and hot some places are, or whether a place is short of water.

Some maps, such as railway maps, use straight lines to show everything. This is easy for people to read. Trains are fast. People don’t have to think about small places they go past. They just need to know the two ends of their trips.

6 . My grandfather was a rigid perfectionist. Everything had to be orderly, precise and punctual. I was frightened of him until the day he died. Growing up, my mother desperately wanted to please him. She probably thought he might leave if she didn’t.

In fact, I now think the fear of being left alone, abandoned, was a current throughout much of her life. A few years into my father suffering from Alzheimer, my mother’s voice on the phone sounded so upset that I had to tell her, “Just be with yourself for a little while.”

“No, I can’t do that. I don’t want to do that,” she said abruptly, closing the door on the subject. A while after my father died, she told me that she kept the television on all the time because it made her feel less lonely. “It makes the house seem more lived in,” she said. I had given in to my annoyance and either turned the volume down or turned it off. But after she told me that it filled in some of the loneliness, I never reached for the remote again.

We have had a long journey together, she and I. Over a half-century of memories, now that the journey has ended, I have a choice which ones to study which ones to turn over in my hands and dust off.

I choose to look at the ones that ache with a sweet truth not told often enough: there was love between us. It was just hard to find sometimes. I choose to remember her face on that winter day in Manhattan, when I came to her with a broken heart. I choose to remember walking on the shore with her in summers when we rented a beach house; somehow the sea always transformed us. And how she looked on my wedding day when she handed me a bracelet that had belonged to my grandmother. “Something old,” she said.

9 . Are you looking for some informative magazines? The following ones can surely meet your needs.

Mental Foss is a magazine full of bite-sized（small bits） trivia（琐事）and mostly short articles with really interesting facts that you'll want to share with others. The writing is fun and friendly, so it’s easy to understand the answers to the more difficult questions, like: What does outer space smell like? Why isn't cat food mouse-flavored? While the print edition of the magazine stopped publishing in 2016, you can still read Mental Floss online.

Reader's Digest is not actually about books reading. Instead, it is about people. Inside you'll find anecdotes—short, personal articles about things that have happened to people. There are stories in simple writing about everything from funny celebrity moments and inspiring personal store to funny jokes and articles.

Cricket and Cicada are easy-to-read literary magazines aimed at teenagers. Each issue is full of wonderful short stories and poems, and beautiful illustrations. Even though these are technically children's magazines, they are perfect for learning English because they have high quality writing.

Time is one of the most well-known magazines in the world. Inside you'll find news, beautiful photographs and everything you need to get a" deeper understanding of the world in which we live. "Since Time is very high quality and provides deep insight on many serious topics, it can also be difficult for English learners to read. If you have trouble understanding Time, try Time For Kids, which has similarly great content but is written in a simpler way.

10 . Are you relatively skinny but growing a “beer belly”?

Then don’t be surprised at your next checkup if the nurse measures your waistline to determine your healthy weight. That’s because research is showing that a protruding (鼓出的) belly may be a sign of VAT — a dangerous form of fat around organs deep inside your body. “Studies confirm that visceral (内脏的) fat is a clear health risk,” said Dr. Tiffany Wiley, a senior expert at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Unlike the fat just under your skin, visceral fat raises your risk for heart disease. Experts think that’s because visceral fat raises blood pressure and inflames (使发炎) tissues and organs.

However, you can’t assume you’re safe from visceral fat if your overall weight is healthy, experts stress. That’s because you can have dangerous visceral fat even if you’re not considered overweight — and not have any visceral fat even if you are overweight.

How do you know if your stomach is protruding into dangerous size? Do a check. Non-pregnant women with a waist size greater than 88 cm and men with a waist larger than 102 cm, are at higher risk according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If you’re Asian, it drops to 80 cm for women and 90 cm for men. But it is only a rough measure. “The only sure way to know is to check your visceral fat levels on a CT scan or MRI,” say experts.

According to the AHA committee, the most salutary physical activity to “shrink” belly is aerobic exercise. Aerobic means “with oxygen”, so aerobic exercise increases your breathing rate and promotes the circulation of oxygen through the blood. This type of exercise makes the heart work more effectively and improves its ability to move oxygen-carrying blood with every beat. Speed walking, jogging, stair climbing, cycling and swimming are all examples of aerobic exercise.

“However, more studies are needed to determine the best physical activity, food and other lifestyle changes to reduce heart disease risk,” Dr. Tiffany Wiley added.