Are you aged between 14 and 19 years old? Do you care about your local environment? Would you like to help make the area you live in better, cleaner, safer and friendlier? If your answers are ‘yes’, ‘yes’ and ‘yes’, then read on! A local organization is carrying out a project, giving money to groups of teenagers who want to become active citizens. Here are a few easy things you could do to get started.

Meeting the neighbors. Everybody needs good neighbors. Knock on people’s doors and find out what they would like to improve in your area. Set a date for a meeting and then make some plans together. If you don’t want to go round to their houses, then you could always put a note through their doors.

Neighborhood watch. It is very popular in the UK. If you go away on holiday and leave your house, it’s very nice to know that a neighbor is keeping an eye on it. It’s a good way to make the area you live in safer.

Lending a hand. There are often elderly people living in the neighborhood who may not be able to do the things that you can. Offer to do their shopping once a week, look after their gardens for them or maybe walk their dogs!

No littering. Nobody likes picking up other people’s rubbish, but a clean street can make all the difference. Go out once or twice a week and see what you can find. You never know, one day you might find something valuable!

Just tell us what you want to do. Then we’ll send you more information.

5 . Using too much water or throwing rubbish into our rivers are clear ways that humans can put our water supply in danger, but we also affect our water supply in less obvious ways. You may wonder how paving(铺砌) a road can lead to less usable fresh water. A major part of the water we use every day is groundwater. Groundwater does not come from lakes or rivers. It comes from underground. The more roads and parking lots we pave, the less water can flow into the ground to become groundwater.

Human activity is not responsible for all water shortages(缺乏). Drier climates are of course more likely to have droughts(干旱) than areas with more rainfall, but in any case, good management can help to make sure there is enough water to meet our basic needs .

Thinking about the way we use water every day can make a big difference, too. In the United States, a family of four can use 1.5 tons of water a day! This shows how much we depend on water to live, but there’s a lot we can do to lower the number.

You can take steps to save water in your home. To start with, use the same glass for your drinking water all day. Wash it only once a day. Run your dishwasher only when it is full. Help your parents fix any leaks(滴水) in your home. You can even help to keep our water supply clean by recycling batteries instead of throwing them away.

6 . It is important to learn how to protect our environment. Here is a 5R rule for us:

Reduce: If you want to reduce the waste, you should use things wisely. A large number of trees are being cut down to make paper. If everyone uses paper wastefully, soon we would not have any trees left. Other things are also being wasted, and people don’t know what to do with the waste in big cities. So it is necessary to reduce the waste.

Reuse: You should always think of reusing the usable things before throwing them away. Give your clothes you do not use or the ones which are too small to the poor. In a family, you may pass on such clothes to younger brothers or sisters.

Recycle: Bottles, cans and paper cups can be easily recycled. By doing so, we can save lots of money. For example, coke cans are sent to a factory, where they are smashed (粉碎) and melted and the metal things are made for new coke cans.

Recover: When you buy a box of apples, there may be a few rotten ones, you have two choices: one is to throw the whole apple away, or you could cut off the rotten parts and eat the good parts.

Repair: If one of the legs of your table is broken, you can repair it. If you want to change for better ones, it is better for you to sell the old things or give them to other people who can use them after repairing them. It is true that North America is a “throw away” society, but the time has come to change our way of life so that we can protect our environment. Every one of us should try our best.

10 . During the annual political meetings, environmental protection was definitely among the biggest concerns. Actually, it was also an issue that ancient Chinese paid great attention to. In fact, the world’s earliest environmental protection concept, ministry and laws were all born in China. So, what did the ancient Chinese do to protect the environment?

In early ancient China, environmental protection was promoted to the political level. Xunzi, a famous thinker in Warring States Period, brought up the concept of managing state affairs through environmental protection. He stated in his book that vegetation (植被) should not be damaged at will. Guan Zhong, an official 400 years ahead of Xunzi, was also an environmental protection expert. During his term of office, he claimed that “a King who cannot protect his vegetation is not qualified to be a king”.

According to a record in Qing dynasty, the environmental protection ministry in early ancient China was called “Yu”, standing both for the institution and the official title. Although most functions were similar to such ministries today, the administration range of it was much larger, including the mountains, forests, rivers, lakes and so on.

The nine ministries established by Shun, an ancient Chinese king, already included “Yu”, the environmental protection ministry. The first “Yu” official was a man called Boyi, who was indeed an environmental protection expert. He was a capable assistant to Dayu, an ancient Chinese water-control expert. He invented wells, protecting people’s drinking water from pollution. He knew a lot about animals and also called for animal protection.

Environmental protection laws dated back to the ruling period of Dayu, which was more than 4,000 years ago. During his rule, he issued a ban, forbidding people to cut down wood in March or catch fish in June, the time when they were supposed to boom.

In Spring and Autumn and Warring States Period almost 3,000 years ago, “environmental protection laws” appeared in its true sense in Qin, which was recorded in Law of Fields and regarded as China’s earliest environmental protection laws.