1 . I teach digital technology. Although this class is high-tech; we try to make it high-touch. In other words, we keep screen-time to a ______

One day, I helped my Grade 8 students build robotic arms. They’re ______ their robots to perform tasks from the ______ —dipping a tea bag into a mug—to the complex, like cleaning up radioactive (放射性的) waste. Like most days, things often don’t ______ as expected. Sometimes it’s the wiring that’s not working. Sometimes, it’s a ______ problem, like the glue holding the parts together ______ because of continuous movement. I do my best to encourage students to continue through ______, though, truly, their peers are the best cheerleaders. When things aren’t working, they make ______: “That happened to me, and here’s how I fixed it.” They ______ each other up: “Try again! You can do it!” They also do a lot of playful ______. But when things finally work, they celebrate together. ______, this is a classroom of teammates, not ______.

Educators and parents have done a lot of thinking lately about the future of ______. We don’t learn best on the ______. More and more, I’ve come to believe that the future of school lies in classrooms like the one we’ve built, where students ______ technology with human creativity and connection.

2 . Why do we talk the way we do? It might date back to when our ancestors left the jungle for the open plain. Between 5.3 million and 16 million years ago, Africa’s landscapes changed from thick, leafy forests to wide-open grasslands. This environmental change pushed our ancestors out of the trees and onto the ground. Along with all of the physical and behavioral changes this may have caused, researchers also believe it may have changed the way we speak.

“Open landscapes provide us with fewer objects to affect signal communication, meaning our voices can travel further compared with that in thick forests,” Charlotte Gannon, a researcher who studies language development, told Newsweek. “The move to these open spaces may have increased the effectiveness of our communication.”

By comparing the vocal calls of the orangutan (大猩猩) , Gannon and her team were able to establish how different calls could travel across different landscapes. In their study, the team played 487 calls from orangutans and measured their audibility (可听度) at set length over an overall distance of over 1,300 feet in the South African plain.

“Our results were surprising,” Gannon said, “The rule of sound spread suggests that lower-frequency (低频率) sounds (the grumphs) would have traveled further than higher-frequency sounds (the kiss squeaks). Our results actually found the opposite to this.” In these environmental settings, consonant (辅音)-like calls traveled a lot further than vowel (元音) -like calls. Actually, around 80 percent of consonant-based calls were audible at 1,300 feet, compared to only 20 percent of vowel-based calls.

Gannon said these results highlight the importance of studying living orangutan to learn about our species’ history. “We can view them as time machines that allow us to recreate key moments of our history so we can learn more about the development of our language,” Gannon said. “Despite their popularity in modern languages, consonants have often been forgotten when discussing speech development. Our research highlights not only their presence in ancient times but their importance to the development of language.”

3 . The Music Educator Award, this year, went to Annie Ray, an orchestra(管弦乐队)director at Annandale High School.She was recognized for her efforts to make music accessible to all students, particularly those with disabilities.Ray got to attend the awards ceremony in Los Angeles and bring home a $10,000 prize.

Ray created the Crescendo Orchestra for students with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as a parent orchestra that teaches nearly 200 caregivers a year to play the same instrument as their child.Ray also works with a local charity to give damaged instruments a second life in her classroom.

The orchestra is about much more than just making music.The most important is to give students a chance to develop their cooperation skills, make mistakes and learn the art of refining something.Ray pushes her students to be brave, go outside their comfort zone and realize they have to learn how to make bad sounds before learning how to make good sounds.And they teach her a lot in return.” They changed my educational philosophy.I understand what it truly means to meet a student where they’re at and apply that elsewhere,” she said.

The warm reception on the ceremony was meaningful.Actually, not many people understand what exactly music educators do or how much their work matters.While her administration is supportive, that lack of understanding is a problem facing the profession in general.Another is resources.She says her school “desperately” needs new instruments.She will use some of her prize money to buy more.

Ray also plans to put some of the money towards an ongoing scholarship for students who want to pursue music when they graduate.She knows of several, those particularly interested in music, and aims to offer financial support needed to realize their musical dreams” It is hard but truly satisfying,” Ray said.“And there’s nothing else like it for them.”

7 . Ms. McIntyre, 38, worked as a publisher. She suffered brain cancer and her health got worse despite some medical treatment. But she realized that in a way, she was luckier than some other people. She had insurance to help pay for her medical care. But Ms. McIntyre and her husband, Mr. Gregory, knew that many people with cancer face tough decisions because of the costs of medical care and wind up owing far more than they can pay.

Though her health was failing, Ms. McIntyre decided to help pay off the medical debts of as many people as she possibly could. The couple began donating money to a group called RIP Medical Debt, which is committed to working to pay off the unpaid medical debts of others. The group can pay off medical bills for about 100 times less money than they cost. In other words, for every 100 donated, the group can pay off 10,000 in unpaid medical bills.

Unfortunately, Ms. McIntyre passed away before long. Mr. Gregory posted a message for Ms. McIntyre on her social media accounts. “If you’re reading this, I have passed away,” the post began. Then the post explained, “To celebrate my life, I’ve arranged to buy up others’ medical debts and then destroy the debts.”

The couple had set up a page on a website to raise money for this purpose. They had hoped to raise about $20,000. Nevertheless, Ms. McIntyre’s last post attracted a lot of attention. The donations on her web page quickly passed the total goal. In less than a week, the site had raised 10 times more than expected and the donations are still coming in. By November 22, 2023, Ms. McIntyre’s web page had raised over $627,000, or enough money to pay off about $60 million in medical debts.

Mr. Gregory planned a special event in December to celebrate Ms. McIntyre’s life and to announce how many millions of dollars of medical debts her efforts had paid for.

Anji, a small county in East China’s Zhejiang Province,     1     (receive) over 28 million tourists every year. There are more than 300 coffee shops there,     2     in terms of population density has surpassed that of Shanghai. “A cup of coffee bridges the gap between the big city and the small county,” said Han Jie, a Shanghai tourist who     3     (temporary) escaped the large city and came to Anji over the weekend. In Zhejiang,     4     increasing number of coffeehouse owners are venturing into rural areas to meet the demands of a growing population of young and adventurous coffee enthusiasts.

    5     (locate) in the bamboo forests of Penghu Village in Anji , a café called Waterfall Coffee has gained popularity     6     social media influencers. Visitors can not only taste coffee on the cliff halfway up the mountain, admiring waterfalls in the distance,     7     enjoy boating on the lake with an excellent view.

The outdoor café, the Deep Blue Coffeehouse, has received 350,000 tourists in less than a year, with the highest daily number of visitors     8     (reach) 8,000 people. By far, the small coffee shop has fueled the rural economy of Hongmiao Village in some way, causing university students     9     (cooperate) with the local government in organizing a start-up fair, with the aim of attracting more university     10     (graduate) to start business in the village.