3 . Emily Meyer was just 5 years old when she was admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital in West Islip, New York, on Christmas night. While she was recovering, someone from Child Life stopped by her room to give her a present. She and her mom said that they had already received some, after all— but they insisted that every child would get a gift!

“The Child Life team explained that no child should be in hospital during the holiday season, but if they are, they should feel the joy of the holidays,” Emily said.

That moment made a lasting impact on her. She decided she wanted to help the charity provide gifts for kids who are stuck in the hospital over the holidays, so she started her own toy drive in 2010.

Emily’s Awesome Toy Drive set out to collect new, unwrapped gifts that would be delivered to sick kids, and it’s still going today! “We collected about 20 toys the first year,” Emily said. “Every year from then on, it just grew and grew. It just became this whole big thing.” Even the COVID -19 couldn’t keep her from her mission! She is celebrating her 10th year of helping sick children by matching last year’s donations of $2,500, despite the challenges of isolation(隔离).

In order to hit that goal, she started collecting toys way back in the summer months and created an Amazon wish list to give people a contact-free delivery. Many kids in hospital will receive a present this Christmas, and it’s all thanks to Emily’s efforts! Even better, Emily’s parents help her deal with the toys, and they love it just as much as Emily does.

“When kids are able to play and use toys to distract themselves, it makes a stay at the hospital so much easier,” her mom, Tara Decola, said. “It’s been amazing how it’s grown over the years and knowing that she is able to provide comfort and care for anyone ill just gives us a lot of joy as a family.”

4 . Walking through an airport is never easy. Now imagine doing it if you were blind. That’s the challenge faced by Chieko Asakawa, a computer scientist. Asakawa often flies between the US and Japan. If traveling alone, she has to be helped at both ends of the flight, which sometimes includes endless waiting. In order to search for a better way, Asakawa has invented a high-tech suitcase that helps get her to the destination with no risk and without difficulty.

Packed with cameras and sensors, the suitcase uses artificial intelligence to map the environment around it. A mobile phone app is used to design a computer program of a destination into the suitcase, which plans a route and directs the user through vibrations(震动) in its handle. The suitcase also features facial recognition technology, which can inform the user if a friend is nearby. It can also flag shops and other places of interest nearby and direct the user to them if necessary.

As a keen runner, Asakawa had Olympic dreams as a child, but a swimming accident at age 11 caused her to gradually lose her sight. As an adult she is already thinking about developing accessibility technology. “I never relax when I travel alone,” she says. “I always think about what technology will help me travel more easily, quicker and more comfortably.” It was this restlessness that led to the AI suitcase.

The suitcase has other applications and could be used to help visually impaired people navigate(导航) cities, while its object-recognition technology can be used to identify colors—useful when buying clothes. Perhaps its best benefit is that it allows users to devote mental energy to other things. With AI providing space awareness, a blind person can do many other things: take a call or listen to the birds. Public spaces become places to be enjoyed, not just navigated. “It will open up many doors for blind people, because we’d be able to go anywhere by ourselves,” says Asakawa. The technology will naturally develop, she predicts, as components(组件) become smaller, lighter and more powerful.

Without new technology, we wouldn’t change our society. A smart suitcase is a great showcase for how AI and technology can change the lives of people with visual disabilities.

Why do young people like The Age of Awakening?

What is the most popular television drama of the year? Four    1    (five) of people will tell you: The Age of Awakening.

So far, this drama    2    (reach) 9.3 on Douban(豆瓣). It wins    3    much praise that even people like my sister, who    4    (like) historical ones, can’t help watching it from beginning to end. Some have even suggested that it should    5    (include) in the list of must-see TV series for the nine-year education. In addition, it has also hit almost all of the college entrance exam essay    6    (topic).

The Age of Awakening turns the names in history textbooks    7    vivid young people: the head of the family Chen Duxiu, the rebellious(反叛) but polite Chen Yannian, the brave Li Dazhao,    8    heart is for the poor, and Lu Xun, one who writes A Madman’s Diary. The show bridges    9    gap between the historical figures and the youth of today,    10    (awake) empathy(同情共鸣) in the young. We really see the young people of that time willingly throwing their blood into the air for their ideals.

If we have to say that The Age of Awakening did something right, it would be because it really made the audience realize “The page you turn quickly in the history book is their whole life.”

6 . Figure skating(花样滑冰)

Figure skating got its name from the designs, or “figures” that are made on the ice by skating.

Special figures were a part of figure skating in the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Very complicated(复杂的) and beautiful patterns invented by the skater were drawn on the ice with the skaters blades (冰刀).Some designs that were created included rosettes (花结), stars and crosses.    1    The only year special figures took place in the Olympics was in 1908. Nikolai Panin of Russia won the event and was Russia’s first Olympic Champion.

Figures were the most important part of the original Olympic figure skating events.    2    . For that reason, the general public was not all that excited about watching figure skating at the first Olympics.

In the mid-1930s, Olympic Champion Sonja Henie, increased the popularity of figure skating.    3    . Her beauty and athletic ballet style increased figure skating's popularity worldwide.

How has figure skating changed since it first started thousands of years ago, and why?

Ice skating began about 4,000 years ago in Finland. The first skates were made of flattened bone that was tied to the bottom of the feet. In the 13th century, the Dutch invented steel blades with edges(刃). In the Netherlands, all classes of people skated.    4    .James II introduced ice skating to the British noblemen in the late 1600s.Queen Victoria also enjoyed ice skating .

Today, ice skating can actually be done year-round since there are indoor ice arenas all over the world.    5    , even though the majority of ice skaters are children and teens.

8 . Jonas loved to play video games. He liked all kinds of games, but he especially enjoyed games that let him pretend he was a race car diver. He loved to watch all the scenery fly by while he turned the wheel to get by the other players.

More than anything, Jonas wanted the newest driving video game. It was called Race to the Top of Speed Mountain. It looked like so much fun in the commercials. But when Jonas asked for the game, his mother only sighed. “Your birthday isn’t until July,” she said. “If you want the game sooner than that, you will have to buy it yourself.”

Jonas thought hard. He was too young to drive to work like Dad, and he couldn’t turn his bedroom into an office to work at home like Mom. He went to his favorite thinking spot to look at the bird feeder in his back yard.

As Jonas was thinking about getting a job, it began to snow. At first there were only a few flakes, but soon the ground turned white.

“I know!” cried Jonas. “I’ll shovel (铲) the sidewalks on snow days. If I’m fast, I can do a lot of houses and make a lot of money.”

So Jonas put on his warmest sweater and bundled up in his winter coat. He added gloves and a hat. Then he went into the garage to grab a shovel.

Jonas started next door. He rang the bell and asked Mr. Travers if he would like his sidewalks shoveled. “Yes,” said Mr. Travers. “But you should wait until it stops snowing before you start or you will have to do it twice.”

“I’ll be back!” said Jonas. He went around the block to see who would like their walks shoveled after the storm. He had eight customers by the time he got back to his own house.

When it stopped snowing, Jonas grabbed his shovel and got to work. He started at Mr. Travers’ house and shoveled the sidewalks in the same order he talked to his neighbors. When he was finished, he was very, very tired. Jonas was also happy. He had earned forty dollars for his work, and now he would be able to buy his video game.

And he did — right after a warm cup of cocoa.

9 . It was Jennifer Williams’s mother who got her hooked on books. When Williams, now 54, became an elementary school teacher in Danville, Virginia, she wanted her ________ to fall in love with ________ just as she had. But early on, she realized that some kids had ________ access to books.

“At the end of the first day of school, it’s very ________ to teachers which kids are read to and which kids are not,” she said. To Williams, the ________ was simple: Give kids books. In 2017, as part of a charity event called Engage Danville, she ________ 900 used children’s books over three days. “I just ________ to do something that’s going to stretch my faith.” she said.

So she set a new ________ for herself: Donate one million books. It sounds like an ________ number, but as Williams posted on Facebook: “Don’t complain in the bleachers (露天看台) if you aren’t ________ to work hard out on the field.”

So she got to work, first by ________ friends to donate books or money to buy books. Before long, as news of Williams’s project ________, strangers started ________ bundles of books on her front porch. As ________ as the books come in, Williams ________ them to local schools and little free libraries around the city.       By 2021, in the four ________ she’s been doing all this, the Book Lady, as Williams has come to be known, has given away more than 78,000 books—only 922,000 more to ________ her goal! And she’s not ________. It’s too important for kids with few ________.

“Reading can take you anywhere,” she told CNN. “You can travel in time and space. If you can read, there’s nothing you can’t ________.”

10 . IQ is set at around 20 years old and later effort will not improve it much, recent research finds. The complexity of people’s jobs, higher education, socializing and reading all probably have little effect on cognitive (认知的) ability.

Naturally, these activities have many other benefits, but little influence on IQ. However, education is particularly important at an early age when the brain is still developing. By early adulthood, though, most people’s IQ has settled down.

While some studies have suggested that cognitive activities in later life can improve IQ, Professor William Kremen, the study’s first author, thinks otherwise, “The findings suggest that the impact of education, occupational complexity and participation in cognitive activities on later life cognitive function likely reflects the opposite. In other words, they are largely the results of young adult intellectual (智力的) capacity.”

The study included 1,009 men now in their 50s and 60s whose IQ was assessed when they were around 20-years-old. They were given tests of abstract reasoning, verbal fluency and memory, along with other cognitive measures.

The results showed that most of the difference between the men’s IQs in mid-life was explained by the difference between them at around 20-years-old. In comparison, the complexity of the job they had, the intellectual activities they engaged in, and their education in the meantime hardly had any effect on their IQ. Brain scans also showed that IQ at age 20 was associated with the surface area of the cerebral cortex, which is the brain’s gray matter, the part that performs the higher functions of thinking, perceiving and language.

Most of the benefits of education for IQ likely happen before young adulthood, said Professor Kremen. “Our findings suggest we should look at this from a lifetime perspective. Improving cognitive reserve and reducing later life cognitive decline may really need to begin with more access to quality childhood and adolescent education.”