With travel and the environment in the news so much lately, you’ve probably heard the word ecotourism. As travelers become more aware of their effect on the planet and want to do their part to make a difference, ecotourism has really taken off.
What is ecotourism? The definition isn’t as hard to determine as you might think. According to the International Ecotourism Society, it is defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that protects the environment and sustains the well-being of the local people”. To be simple, it’s travel that has a positive effect on a destination’s ecology and economy.
Ecotourism lets travelers participate in activities that benefit the environment. For example, travelers can act as citizen scientists in places around the world, including national parks and dive sites, to help do research and collect data. Meanwhile, ecotourism helps local communities to do well and become successful and strong. That can happen in a number of ways, involving some type of financial aspect, from providing jobs to supporting local businesses.
Being a responsible traveler, you’ll have a much more satisfying and rewarding experience. Instead of simply visiting tourist attractions and eating at chain restaurants, you can get completely involved in a local culture and really get to know the people who live there. It enriches your own life and opens your mind to new ideas.
Ecotourism is an amazing way to discover the world. Nature is full of wonders everywhere. Being able to get out in a natural area that is protected and largely undeveloped offers a chance to connect with plants and animals you may never see anywhere else. Just be sure to leave it as you found it for future explorers to discover. Get your sneakers ready, pack your bags and head for nature. A big and beautiful world is waiting for you out there.
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71. Click to download teacher
“Books will soon disappear in schools,” Thomas Edison announced in 1913: they would, he believed, soon be replaced by silent films. Each new wave of information technology - radio, television, computers - has led to similar predictions.
Like teachers, digital educational technology comes in many forms, from wonderful to awful. But, used properly, it now deserves more prominence (重要性) in schools - especially in poor countries where human teachers are often ignorant, absent or both.
According to a recent World Bank study of seven sub - Saharan African countries, half of nine - year - olds cannot read a simple word and three - quarters cannot read a simple sentence. The reason is terrible. The same study found that only 7% of teachers had the minimum knowledge needed to teach reading and writing effectively. When classrooms were inspected to see whether a teacher was present, half the time the answer was no. As for the absence of teachers, if expensive teachers do not turn up to class, government would, surely, fire them? Easier said than done. Poor governments often lack the money to check on teachers in distant villages.
Several recent studies suggested - tech can help. It seems to bring about bigger improvements in poor countries than in rich ones. Some of the scarce resources being spent on teachers could therefore be better spent on ed - tech. That does not mean dumping computers on schools in the hope that children will understand how to use them. Instead, it means providing schools with software that children can use with minimal help from an adult, that sends teachers prompts about what they are supposed to be teaching and that allows the authorities to check on whether the teacher is in the classroom.
Technology is no cure - all. Good traditional teachers are not outdated, and are never likely to be. And authorities need to hold teachers to account. But ed - tech can help greatly - by monitoring pupils and teachers alike, assisting the best teachers and, most important, making up for the failings of the worst.
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What Causes Déja Vu?
It’s a frightening feeling: You walk into a place you know you’ve never been before but are overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity-a memory you can’t quite reach. Has this all happened before? Most people experience ‘this sensation, known as déjà vu, at some point in their lives. It’s a hard feeling to study, though, because it tends to arise spontaneously and be shaken off easily.
Déjà vu means “already seen” in French, a term possibly coined by French philosopher Émile Boirac. In a 2009 study, Cognitive psychologist Anne Cleary of Colorado State University and her colleagues found that viewing these sneakily similar scenes was more likely to cause feelings of déjà vu than viewing dissimilar scenes-suggesting that perhaps there is some environmental trigger for the brain to call out, “Hey, I recognize that!” even when it’s never seen the scene before.
While Cleary’s research shows that a slight familiarity can result in déjà vu, Akira Robert O’Connor, a cognitive psychologist at the University of St. Andrews says, in spontaneous déjà vu cases, it’s quite possible that the familiarity feeling is random. Supporting this random-misfire hypothesis is the fact that young people actually experience more déjà vu than older people. Younger brains are a little more excitable, more likely to fire more quickly rather than holding back, O’Connor says.
Older people may also be less adept (擅长的)fact-checkers when false feelings of familiarity arise, says Chris Moulin, a cognitive neuropsychologist at the Grenoble Alpes University. Older adults still recognize such false familiarity. “It’s not perhaps that older adults are not generating false familiarity, ” Moulin says. “It’s just that they don’t have, anymore, that certainty that what they’re experiencing is false. ”
This is a normal part of aging, not the conflation (合并)of déjà vu with reality that people with dementia (老年痴呆症)may experience. So enjoy the feeling of having felt it all before while it lasts, Generation Z.
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Nowadays, the ownership of cars is no longer being recognized as a symbol of one’s wealth and social position. Tracking back to the past when only the rich were qualified to possess private cars, we couldn’t help marveling at the historic change such a convenient invention brought to people’s daily lives. Nevertheless, the increase in the number of car owners is spelling many negative effects. These rising problems also cause some people to predict that the use of cars might be reduced in two decades.
Above all, the use of cars remarkably threatens our environment, if such a tendency is not brought under control in time, the Earth will no longer be a suitable place for humans to survive in the future. People have to face the consequence. It is a reality from which no one is able to escape. Every day, thousands of private cars are emitting tons of exhausted gas that seriously pollutes the air. The carbon dioxide leads to the worldwide greenhouse effect, which causes the sea level to rise and produces negative impacts on weather. In addition, more energy is being wasted because of the production of private cars. In order to build a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society, people ought to reduce the use of cars.
In fact, diversified measures are being taken by the government to limit the use of cars. If such a tendency continues, the effect will be shown in the near future. For example, to reach the goal of building a safe and harmonious society, Beijing Traffic Management Bureau has restricted regional traffic in rush hours on working days. A number of private cars are prohibited on no-driving-days.
Last, the advancement of public transportation systems also helps change car owners’ way of travelling. Efforts are being made to construct more agreeable networks of buses, subways, trains and airplanes. In the meanwhile, advances in technology might help cut down the cost of travelling in public vehicles.
