2 . When the parcel arrives, the remote-controlled car inside is broken. That could easily result in an unhappy child — but not this time.

The package has come from a British start-up that hopes to equip the nation’s youngsters with an endangered skill: the ability to fix gadgets when they fail. The aim is to encourage 10 to 14-year-olds to try fixing electronic devices and learn how they work, by sending them faulty toys that they have to take apart and repair themselves. The company, Team Repair, has been founded by five engineering graduates from Imperial College London. Having begun as a university project, its ultimate goal is to steer children into careers in science and to nurture (培养) a new generation of engineers and inventors.

“Every month, we’ll send children an electronic gadget with a carefully planned fault,” said Patrick McGuckian, 22, the chief operating officer. “The idea is that they learn key repair skills, and that they also learn the science and technology behind how the components inside it work.”

It is estimated that two million tonnes of electrical and electronic items are thrown away in the UK each year. “Meanwhile, the UK has a Stem [science, technology, engineering and maths] skills shortage costing£1.5 billion a year,” McGuckian said. “We wanted to help solve those two problems.”   

The service — currently in a testing phase — will cost £28 a month, with each kit designed to keep a child occupied for several hours. Once a gadget has been mended, you post it back so it can be broken again for somebody else to fix. There is also an app to provide instructions on how to perform the repair, and also mini science lessons. “As a society we’ve been tuned to replace rather than repair,” McGuckian said. “We want to encourage a different mindset in the next generation — and on top of that, we want them to be creative, to be engineers, to be inventors that solve the biggest problems.”

With the     1     (economy) development, how to balance progress and the protection of cultural heritage can be a big challenge. Great solutions,     2    , tend to arise from the challenges.

In the 1950s, in order to control the flooding and to get electricity from the flow of the Nile River, the Egyptian government made a proposal     3     (build) a new dam across the Nile. It would cause the water levels to rise high enough to flood a number of ancient temples,     4     were among Egypt’s cultural heritage. Therefore, the government turned     5     the United Nations for help.

Later, an international committee     6     (establish) to help Egypt to find a solution. Finally, they made a decision that all cultural relics should be removed. With the international effort, the government     7     (successful) moved the temples and other cultural sites to a new     8     (locate) on higher ground.

The project was considered a greatly successful example by UNESCO to prevent world heritage from     9     (disappear). More importantly, its success shows that if a problem seems too challenging for a single nation, the global community can make     10     big difference.

5 . While some feel that bookstores are fading away, one Chinese bookstore has found new life by marching into rural areas in China to bring colorful cultural life and higher incomes lo local residents.

By absorbing local rural characteristics, the village branches of the Librairie Avantgarde Bookstore (LAB) chain have transformed into important platforms to display local history, culture and folk traditions. Not just bookstores, they are foundations helping to relieve spiritual poverty (贫困) and centers for gathering and displaying rural culture.

To better fit in the lives of local residents, earth village branch has its own characteristics, like the branch in Shaxi, southwest China’s Yunnan province. Many of nearly 20,000 books in the store are associated with the history, geography and folk customs of Yunnan and the Bai people.

“Turning in profits is not our only aim. Our bookstore has become a public gathering space for villagers. Not only young people, but many elderly residents come here. They do not buy books, but pass the time by reading or chatting with each other in our store.” Liu Xia, the bookstore owner explained.

She added that this is a cultural atmosphere that bookstores offer the area. Some residents have grown accustomed to turning to the books of the store to find answers to the troubles they face, such as operating a business or controlling tourists from urban areas. The biggest benefit of opening bookstores in villages is that it helps provide a healthy environment for children’s growth. “My kids often come to the store. They love reading books here. They gain knowledge and curiosity about outside world.” one villager said.

The arrival of the bookstore menus a lot to the village when young residents have been leaving for urban areas in recent years. During the 2020 May Day and National Day holidays, the daily number of tourists traveling to the village reached 5,000, a record high. Visitors were attracted by the bookstore. Surrounding it, several restaurants and holds have opened.