3 . We all make mistakes. Then why is it so hard sometimes to ________ it when we do?What does making mistakes say about you? Making mistakes means you are ________. My youngest son ________ making mistakes. This often causes him not even to try. No matter how much I tell him that it’s his trying his best that ________, he often listens to his inner voice which tells him not to fail.

As a parent, I try hard to persuade him to be ________ . I try to make him ________ that it’s the fact that he is giving his best that puts him on the bus towards his intended destination. ________, we don’t always have that person trying to ________ us with a reassuring (令人放心的) voice. Sometimes we have to go out and ________ our own voice, either our inner voice or a(n) ________ voice taken from a podcast, a book, or a blog.

Mistakes are not the ________ of the line. I am on the road often and rely on my GPS to direct me when there is traffic. It can happen that I take a different route ________ an accident or traffic. When I ________ my designated (指定的) turn, my navigation system does not end the ________. It redirects me towards a(n) ________ route. Therefore, think of mistakes as our GPS redirecting us. There is more than one road that can take us where we want to go.

4 . The whimsy (奇想) and inventiveness that helped Frank Lloyd Wright’s works stand out a century ago continue to attract new generations of architecture fans. Here’s why experiencing Wright sites can get your kids to look at the world with an architect’s eye.

Fallingwater in Southwestern Pennsylvania is Wright’s most famous building. “Kids are quick to notice they could climb on it,” says director of education Ashley Andrykovitch. She discourages anyone from treating the masterpiece like a jungle gym (攀爬架), but loves using the house as a jumping-off point for teaching children about the art of designing buildings. “A tour of Fallingwater makes them look at the built environment differently,” she says.

In the suburb of Oak Park, Chicago, there are 25 of Wright’s buildings. This is the best spot to see the architect’s creative world. On guided tours, visitors see the inventive spaces Wright designed for his own children. You can also take children on hunts for Wright buildings here, either on guided bike tours or using a brochure sold at the Home and Studio bookstore. “Tell them what to look out for and then see if they can discover all the properties created by the early 20th century legend, which is the most difficult but enjoyable part of the tour,” Kate Coogan, manager for education at the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust says.

To help kids appreciate what makes Wright’s creations so special, consider a sleepover (在外过夜) in a property he designed. Middle-school math teacher Shari Kagan and her two teenage sons spent a weekend at one of Wright’s buildings. After check-in, her kids eagerly explored every angle. “It was like they were searching for gifts on Christmas morning,” she says. After an exciting day, the Kagans sat on the floor in the TV-free family room to examine copies of the house’s blueprints (蓝图). Now the kids are noticing architecture wherever they go. “They’ll say, ‘Look at the lines on that house. I wonder what inspired it,’” Kagan says.

5 . More than one billion pounds of pumpkins are grown in the U.S. every year, and after they’ve been used on Halloween, millions of them will end up in a landfill (垃圾填埋地) and become methane, which is a greenhouse gas. “Compared to carbon dioxide, methane warms the atmosphere in a shorter amount of time, which means it’s a particularly strong cause of climate change,” says Kay McKeen, the executive director at SCARCE, an environmental education organization based in Illinois.

That’s why, in 2014, McKeen and her SCARCE co-workers began Pumpkin Smash, a collection event where local Illinois residents can bring their rotting (正在腐烂的) pumpkins to 69 different locations to send them off to compost bins (堆肥箱), and smash (粉碎) them to pieces. “It puts nutrients back in our soil, it saves water, and it doesn’t make methane gas — it’s just a win-win,” says McKeen. By their own calculations, the group has saved 538 tons of pumpkins from the landfill.

But not everyone has access to pumpkin-smashing events. Since pumpkins are a great source of human nutrition, some people turn to home cooking. “Not one pumpkin goes to the landfill from our kitchen. It is a common ingredient in baked food like muffins, bread, and pies,” says Una Hagen. Pumpkin flesh can also be fermented (发酵), notes Elizabeth Flournoy: “I have been making wine from pumpkins!”

Some people throw pumpkins outside for deer, or raccoons to eat. While pumpkins are generally safe for wildlife to eat, experts say it’s best to let them hunt for their own food. Feeding wild animals can spread disease when animals gather. Some states, like Colorado, fine residents who intentionally feed wildlife. And trying to feed animals like deer can unintentionally attract animals like bears and lead to human-wildlife conflict. Instead, see if any local farms are collecting pumpkins as treats for their pigs, goats, and other animals — or for any other purposes. The website Pumpkins for Pigs shows animal farms around the country that take uncarved and unpainted pumpkins.

8 . On his day off, Vernon Jackson still goes to work, opening up his Cincinnati barber shop, Noble Barber and Beauty, for VIP clients: children with special needs.

It’s something he’s done since 2021. “I had heard so many horror ______ that parents were going through in other barber shops and just the barbers or stylists having no ______ with their child,” Jackson said. “Therefore, I ______ I would compromise by coming in on my day off, so I could give them the full ______ that they need.”

Jackson said having an empty shop helps some children who are ______ to new environments and sounds. His ______ is to help the children get accustomed to the barber shop so they can feel ______ coming in when other employees and clients are there.

And not only does he work on his day off, but he does it ______. “When I first started ______ that I was going to come in on my day off to do haircuts for children with special needs, a friend of mine just randomly e-mailed me and said, ‘Hey Vern, can I ______ a haircut?’” he said. More and more people asked to donate money and Jackson started a GoFundMe page. Many parents wanted to pay for the haircut but Jackson would tell them “It’s ______.”

Jackson already has ______ that come to him from other cities in Ohio for haircuts, and he hopes to put the money donated towards travel, so he can ______ free haircuts to children with special needs across the country.

“It’s ______ been a beautiful experience,” he said. “I’m ______ to love to my fullest capacity and see what happens when I do.”

9 . Most animals can quickly transition from walking to jumping to crawling to swimming if needed without making major adjustments. Most robots cannot. But researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created soft robots that can seamlessly shift from walking to swimming or crawling to rolling.

“We were inspired by nature to develop a robot that can perform different tasks and adapt to its environment without adding actuators (执行器) or complexity,” said Carmel Majdi, a professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department in CMU’s College of Engineering. “Our bistable (双稳态) actuator is simple, stable and durable, and lays the foundation for future work on dynamic, reconfigurable soft robotics.”

Matching how animals transition from walking to swimming to crawling to jumping is a big challenge for bio-inspired and soft robotics. For example, one robot the team created has four curved actuators attached to the corners of a cellphone-sized body made of two bistable actuators.

On land, the curved actuators act as legs, allowing the robot to walk. In the water, the bistable actuators change the robot’s shape, putting the curved actuators in an ideal position to act as propellers so it can swim.

“You need to have legs to walk on land, and you need to have a propeller to swim in the water. Building a robot with separate systems designed for each environment adds complexity and weight,” said Majidi. “We use the same system for both environments to create an efficient robot.”

The team created two other robots: one that can crawl and jump, and one inspired by caterpillars and pill bugs that can crawl and roll. The actuators require only a hundred millisecond of electrical charge to change their shape, and they are durable.

In the future, the robots could be used in rescue situations or to interact with sea animals or coral. Using heat-activated springs in the actuators could open up applications in environmental monitoring, haptics (触觉) and reconfigurable electronics and communication.

10 . Music lovers are overjoyed! In order to save the live music industry in the UK, the Music Venue Trust (MVT) has been raising money to buy nine properties of grassroots music venues across the country and protect their future.

In the last 20 years, 35% of grassroots music venues have had to close, and in 2023, one music venue is having to shut down every week. While a giant £3. 6 million was put into the grassroots music industry during lockdown as part of the Cultural Recovery Fund, 67% of that was paid directly to landlords.

With rents rising, and landlords getting bigger and better offers from developers, music venues are in an incredibly sensitive position. MVT reports that around 93% currently only have 18 months left on their tenancies.

“The people who own the buildings in which music is played and enjoyed are committed more to profitability than supporting the business,” says Mark Davyd, CEO and founder of MVT. “Unfair rent rises can make previously practicable venues suddenly unsustainable, while venues in property hotspots find themselves driven out to make way for building flats. Short leases (租约) prevent those venues which want to raise funds to improve facilities and make the possibility of government support less likely.

MVT has a solution: Put the properties in the hands of the people who truly love them. Their campaign, “Own Our Venues”, seeks to buy up venue properties, offering shares to musicians and music lovers who want to see these venues thrive(繁荣). Davyd believes this is the most important contribution they can make to the industry. “The best people to own our venues are the people who love them, need them and use them.”

MVT hopes to remind people how important grassroots music venues are to the community. With the UK music industry worth over £5.8 billion, these venues are vital to the development of new and upcoming musicians, and music lovers alike.