3 . Physical education, or PE, isn’t required for all high school students. In some schools, it isn’t offered for some different reasons. But should high school students have physical education? The answer is certainly “yes”.

Today many people don’t do sports. But as is known to all. doing sports is very important for an adult. Teaching teens the importance of a healthy lifestyle and making fitness plans now can help teens put exercise in the first place as an adult.

High school isn’t that easy. Many students are under a lot of stress. Stress can be harmful to a student’s studies and life. Doing sports can help them deal with stress better, helping them live a happier life at school.

The American Heart Association says that 10 million kids and teens suffer from obesity (肥胖). Teens should get 60 minutes of physical activity per day to control their weight and to help their bones get stronger. The increase in activities that don’t get teens to move around, such as computer games, means many teens don’t get their required exercise. PE classes act as a public health measure (措施) to encourage physical activities and help teens have healthy weights.

Not doing sports increases teens’ hazard of developing many diseases. An active lifestyle offers a good way of protection from these health problems. As much as 75 percent of health-care spending goes toward treating medical conditions that can be prevented by lifestyle changes, according to the American College of Sports Medicine.

According to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition (PCFSN), students who performed five hours of physical activities each week improved their academic (学业的) performance. Students from programs with no physical activity, who used the extra time for classroom study, did not perform better on tests than those who gave up some study time in support of physical education.

4 .     1    . The legendary volleyball coach Lang Ping gave the answer in the recent documentary (纪录片) The Iron Hammer.

The documentary displays Lang’s inspiring journey from her gold medal victory as a volleyball player in the 1984 Olympics to her amazing career as a successful coach for both Team USA from 2005 to 2008 and China since 2013. She was the first person to win Olympic volleyball gold as a player and coach. Lang Ping revealed the secret to such remarkable achievements in the documentary. As she said, “    2    ”.

    3    . Troubled by severe injuries to her cervical vertebra, back, waist and knees, caused by intense exercise and hard work, the 60-year-old has undergone more than 10 surgeries. “No parts of my body function well,” she joked.

But illness is certainly not the only difficulty Lang has faced. In 2005, she struggled with balancing raising her daughter Lydia Bai Lang, who lived in the US, and her coaching career. She eventually decided to work for USA Volleyball that year.     4    “I’m proud of being Chinese”   Lang responded in an interview. Later she returned to head the Chinese women ’s volleyball team in 2013, leading the team successfully defending its World Cup crown with a perfect record of 11 straight wins last year.

There is no doubt that Lang is one of the greatest players and coaches in history. As an American athlete commented in the documentary,     5    .

5 . Welcome to the Painting Competition for Woodlands Students

The International Anti-Drug Day this year is coming soon. In order to raise teenagers’ awareness to fight against drug taking, the City Art Council is going to hold a painting competition for the students in our city. Students who want to take part in the competition can hand in their own 2D paintings in either of the following two ways:

Each school will be provided with a box for students to put in their paintings. Boxes will be picked by the City Art Council on Thursday, June 23rd, 2016, before the end of the school day.

Paintings can be also handed in on Friday, June 24th, from 8:00 am to 10:00 am at the Woodlands Art Hall (175 Riverside Street).

All paintings are required to be 60 cm wide by 80 cm long or smaller. Larger sizes will not be accepted. Each student can only hand in one painting. The final decision on the competition results will be made on June 26th, the Anti-Drug Day. The name list of the winners will be made known on the website of the City Art Council on the same day. All winning paintings will be shown to the public at the City Youth Park from June 27th till the end of July.

Prizes:

1st Prize (10 students) ＝$ 300 Gift Card each

2nd Prize (20 students) ＝ $ 200 Gift Card each

3rd Prize (30 students)＝ $ 100 Gift Card each

For further information:

Visit http://www. woodlandsartcouncil. org or call 2569-8632.

7 . I can’t remember if I was nine or ten years old. I do remember that it was the last day of the Boy’s Camp.     1     It hurt a lot. The day before for some silly reason I had gotten into a fight with another boy.

It didn’t take long for the bigger boys to pull us apart and call it a draw, but in truth I had lost.     2     We hadn’t talked since the fight either but only looked coldly at each other from across the room.

    3     I knew my Mom was bringing some of her homemade pizzas as a treat for my brother, me, and our friends. Soon I saw her walking up the sidewalk towards the steps of our cabin. She had been bringing these pizzas to us every Boy’s Camp for years now. I saw her smile as my brother and his friends all took the big pieces.     4     I thanked her with a smile and started to eat when I saw my fight opponent standing off to the side by himself. In that moment something moved in my heart.     5     We talked and laughed and ate. And for some reason unknown to me at the time, the pizza tasted better than ever before.

8 . A child plays many roles, such as friend, neighbor, son or daughter. Simply reminding children of that fact can lead to better problem-solving and more flexible (灵活的) thinking, finds a new research from Duke University.

“This is some of the first research on reminding kids about their many roles said lead author Sarah Gaither, a professor at Duke. “Such reminders improve their problem-solving skills and how flexibly they see their social worlds.”

In one experiment, Gaither and her workmates looked at 196 children, aged 6 and 7. All were native English speakers. The first group of children was reminded of their various identities, such as son, daughter, reader or helper. A second group of children was reminded of their many physical features. The rest of the children were reminded of other children’s many roles, not their own.

All the children solved many tasks. The first group of children showed stronger problem-solving and creative thinking skills. For example, when shown pictures of a bear looking at a honey-filled beehive (蜂巢) high up in a tree, these children had more creative ideas for how the bear might get the honey, such as turning over a bowl as a seat.

The second group of children also showed more flexible thinking about social groupings. When asked to group different photos of faces, they suggested many ways to do so. For example, they identified smiling faces VS unsmiling ones, and old VS young faces. The other children mainly grouped people’s faces by race and gender.

“We often only think about ourselves in connection with one important group at a time,” said Christopher Marlowe, a schoolmaster in Durham, North Carolina. “When we remind kids that they have various identities, they think more and remember that there are many other groups. They are more open-minded.”

9 . In the UK, there is a popular route for cyclists: the road from Land’s End in England to John O’Groats in Scotland, about 874 miles long. It covers almost the full length of Great Britain. The 12-year-old boy named Laurence Chandler became the youngest cyclist to finish the route.

Chandler took 20 days to finish the challenge. Each day, he cycled between 40 to 60 miles. He spent six hours on his mountain bike daily. Chandler had to push through rainy and windy days. Cycling uphill was also hard. “It was much harder than I thought. I wasn’t expecting so many hills and how busy the roads were,” Chandler said. “But if you put your mind to anything, then no matter how big, you can do it.”

Chandler first thought of trying the route when he read an article about it two years ago. Later, as his father’s 50th birthday came around, he decided to go for it. He was already used to cycling around his village and to school before starting his journey.

During his ride, Chandler raised 600 pounds for Smile Train, a children’s organization that pays for treatment for children in developing countries who have deft lips (兔唇).