Drawing High Schoolers to Science

A group of educators and plant scientists at Michigan State University (MSU) are connecting to reshape science classes. And this particular partnership isn’t just helping students get a better understanding of biology; it’s turning them into young scientists, even if only during class.

It doesn’t take long to see that the curriculum born from this collaboration makes for a much different experience than the traditional high school biology classes. For starters, it has a comic book for a workbook. Secondly, students are getting their hands dirty growing plants. MSU researchers are also studying the plant. The high schoolers are asking some of the same questions professional plant scientists are trying to answer.

“We’re getting them engaged with science in science practices, not just having them learn about science,” says Hildah Makori, a researcher at MSU. “They learn to look at things differently. That’s a life-time impact.”

The main characters of the comic book are a pair of young field scientists. They invite the high school students to help with plant research inspired by a real project at MSU. By growing their own plants, the students learn about genetics, evolution and how these interact with the environment.

The team has seen how this practice could keep students in the driver’s seat of their learning. To help the characters out, students set up different experiments to test their ideas.

The program is working. “This comic personally gave me a click that sparked my curiosity,” reads one student’s survey response. “The comic book put a lot of creative atmosphere into the story instead of just looking at words, instead of just listening to the teacher talk,” says another.

Teachers also had positive reviews. In a survey, one remarked how helpful it was to have the comic to refer to. The students could see the comic’s characters doing something in the lab and realize, “I’m able to do this right here at my table and I can do the same thing,” the teacher says.

3 . How Young Americans Spend Their Money

Young people have always puzzled their elders. Today’s youngsters are no different; indeed, they are confusing. They have thin wallets and expensive tastes. They prize convenience and a social conscience. They want shopping to be personal.     1     As they start spending in earnest, brands are trying to understand what these walking paradoxes with conflicting features want and how they shop. The answers will define the next era of consumerism.

Their absolute numbers are impressive. The European Union is home to nearly 125m people between the ages of ten (the youngest will become consumers in the next few years) and 34. America has another 110m of these Gen-Zs and millennials, a third of the population. The annual spending of households headed by American Gen-Zs and millennials hit $2.7trn in 2021, around 30% of the total.

    2     Forrester, a market-research firm, found that most users of “buy now, pay later” apps are around 20. Megan Scott, a 20-year-old student from London, speaks for many of her peers by admitting that, when shopping, she has no self-control—until the bill arrives.

The light-speed online world also appears to have lowered tolerances for long delivery times. A study by Salesforce, a business-software giant, found that Gen-Z Americans, who prefer to use their phones to pay for shopping, are the likeliest of all age groups to want their groceries delivered within an hour.     3    

The Internet has also changed how the young discover brands. Print, billboard or TV advertising has given way to social media. Instagram, part of Meta’s empire, and TikTok, a Chinese-owned app, are where the young look for inspiration, particularly for goods where looks matter such as fashion, beauty and sportswear.     4     Such apps are increasingly adding features that allow users to shop without ever leaving the platform. According to McKinsey, six in ten Americans under the age of 25 had completed a purchase on a social-media site.

4 . In the roughly 250 years since the Industrial Revolution, the world’s population, like its wealth, has exploded. Before the end of this century, however, the number of people on the planet could shrink for the first time since the Black Death. The root cause is not an increase in deaths, but a drop in births. Across much of the world the fertility rate, the average number of births per woman, is collapsing. Although the trend may be familiar, its extent and its consequences are not. Even as artificial intelligence (AI) leads to optimism in some quarters, the baby bust (婴儿荒) hangs over the future of the world economy.

Whatever some environmentalists say, a shrinking population creates problems. The world is not close to full and the economic difficulties resulting from fewer young people are many. The obvious one is that it is getting harder to support the world’s pensioners. Retired folk draw on the output of the working-aged, either through the state, which requests taxes on workers to pay public pensions, or by cashing in savings to buy goods and services or because relatives provide care unpaid. But whereas the rich world currently has around three people between 20 and 64 years old for everyone over 65, by 2050 it will have less than two. The implications are higher taxes, later retirements, lower real returns for savers and, possibly, government budget crises.

Low proportion of workers to pensioners are only one problem resulting from collapsing fertility. Younger people have more of what psychologists call “fluid intelligence”, the ability to think creatively so as to solve problems in entirely new ways. This youthful energy adds to the accumulated knowledge of older workers. It also brings change. Patents filed by the youngest inventors are much more likely to cover breakthrough innovations. Older countries and their young people are less enterprising and less comfortable taking risks. Because the old benefit less than the young when economies grow, they have proved less keen on pro-growth policies, especially housebuilding. Creative destruction is likely to be rarer in ageing societies, restricting productivity growth in ways that compound into an enormous missed opportunity.

Eventually, therefore, the world will have to make do with fewer youngsters—and perhaps with a shrinking population. With that in mind, recent advances in AI could not have come at a better time. A productive AI economy might find it easy to support a greater number of retired people. Eventually AI may be able to generate ideas by itself, reducing the need for human intelligence. Combined with robotics, AI may also make caring for the elderly less labour-intensive. Such innovations will certainly be in high demand.

If technology does allow humanity to overcome the baby bust, it will fit the historical pattern. Unexpected productivity advances meant that demographic time-bombs (人口定时炸弹) failed to explode. Fewer babies mean less human genius. But that might be a problem human genius can fix.

5 . I’m pretty good at sticking with things even when they get hard. Bad relationships, unpleasant workplaces, ______ sports — I’ve hung on for months and even years longer than I should have, convinced the situation would ______ if I refused to give up.

After all, isn’t every success story littered with ______? Didn’t Beyoncé lose Star Search, and didn’t Oprah get fired from her first TV job? Quitting is a sign that you lack patience and strong will, or so I was raised to believe.

______, if I look back on all the things I eventually quit, my only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. I’ve wasted immeasurable time and energy dragging my heels, determined that I could ______ everyone if I just kept going.

All of us are constantly making tricky choices between going further into familiar territory and ______ to expand our horizons. This is known as the exploration-exploitation trade-off. When we are younger, it’s advantageous to go far on the side of exploration, trying lots of new things because we have plenty of time to ______ later. But as we age, it’s often smarter to double down.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t quit something just because you’ve put a lot of time into it. Economists call this the sunk cost fallacy (谬误): People are more likely to ______ something if they’ve invested a lot of money or effort into it, even when it’s clear that they should ______ their losses and jump ship. This practice is normal and ______, but it’s also unreasonable. If an activity or relationship is making you miserable, that’s important information you shouldn’t ignore.

If you don’t get energy out of doing something, it can be a(n) ______ that this is not for you or that there’s something better you could be doing. Or it could be a sign that you should ______ your goals. Maybe your yogurt startup might not win over investors, but you could still make and sell yogurt at the farmers’ market on weekends.

In fact, dogged persistence in the face of energy-sucking disappointment can ______ depression, and then make you suffer from diseases in the long run.

But the good news is that people can learn to pay better attention to these moments when they’re happening and make ______. The art of quitting isn’t about just letting go whenever there’s an obstacle. It’s about being able to let go when there’s no ______ to success anymore.

Native Tribes Celebrate Montana Land Ownership and Bison Range (野牛牧场) Restoration

Moiese, Mont. — A narrow road takes visitors zig-zagging up a mountain, and, if they’re lucky, they’ll see bison walking about freely. The bison range sits on more than 18,000 acres of undeveloped land in northwest Montana — land     1     (take) by the U.S. Government without the approval of Salish and Kootenai Tribes. In 2020, Congress passed a law     2     management of the land is transferred from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service back to Salish and Kootenai Tribes.

U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland,     3     signed off on the law last year, said with the loss of tribal homelands in the early 1900s and decrease of bison herds, tribes lost traditional connections with the mammal. “But     4       that tragedy and loss, we are still here. You are still here. And that’s     5     to celebrate,” She said the people then relied on bison for food and livelihood, believing future generations would do the same.

“We all know history took a cruel and tragic turn after that,” Haaland said, and the tribes didn’t believe that the history     6     (represent) accurately at the bison range’s visitor center. Whisper Camel-Means, the tribes division manager for the wildlife refuge, said under the Fish and Wildlife Service supervision, the exhibits there previously used a different tribes’ word for bison, which they     7     not accept.

The Salish and Kootenai Tribes have corrected inaccuracies at the visitor center located on the Flathead reservation near the museum. The visitor center is now open,     8     (feature) new exhibits that better reflect the tribes’ involvement in bison conservation. Stephanie Gillin, education program manager for the tribes’ natural resources program, said she worked with cultural committees to get the correct history for the new exhibits. “We listen to our elders about some stuff we have to protect     9     if we don’t put it out there, we lose what it gives to us — you know, we lost that power it gives us,” she said.

The generational emotional wound, Gillin said, is still felt today within tribal communities and correcting the information at the visitor center is about respecting and preserving the tribes’ history.

The tribes are working to build a     10     (big) museum that will be closer to U.S. Highway 93. It’s a push to share their history with more people.

8 . The inside story of how a “band of misfits” saved Lego

When executives at toymaker Lego first learned that adults were buying large quantities of their interlocking plastic bricks and getting together to build Lego creations of their own, “they thought it was very strange,” says Paal Smith-Meyer.

    1     “Leadership actually thought ‘adults’ were taking away from the brand.”

Thanks to a handful of employees who worked to change attitudes inside the company, Lego is no longer embarrassed by its adult fans.     2     The bygone slogans “Just Imagine... ” and “Play On” have been overshadowed by Lego’s newest marketing motto: “Adults Welcome”. Even superstar athletes and entertainers like Ed Sheeran, Dwight Howard, and David Beckham boast openly about their affection for Lego building sets.

Today Lego is the world’s largest and most profitable toymaker. The Lego brick was named “Toy of the Century” in 1999, and in 2014 Time magazine crowned it the “Most Influential Toy of All Time”, ahead of Barbie, G.I. Joe, and the Easy Bake Oven.

The enthusiasm and buying power of Adult Fans of Lego — or AFOLs, as they’re known in the industry — played a major role in the company’s rise to the top.     3    

Lego founder Ole Kirk Kristiansen always knew he wanted to market his products exclusively to kids. As the company grew over its first six decades, few imagined that its products could appeal as much to adults as to children.     4     Two decades ago, when Lego began making licensed sets inspired by hit movies like Star Wars and Harry Potter, it was adult fans who snatched up most of the merchandise.

Despite the benefits AFOLs brought to the brand, executives at the company’s corporate offices in Billund, Denmark had little interest in catering to adult customers. As fan mail and product ideas poured in from AFOLs around the world, the company posted its off-putting position: “We don’t accept unsolicited ideas.”

“Adult fans were often seen as a source of irritation,” says Jake McKee, a Lego executive from 2000 to 2006 who oversaw the company’s Global Community Development team.

Lost at sea

Two men from the Solomon Islands have been rescued after spending 29 days lost at sea.

The men     1     (travel) to another island when heavy rain and wind took them out to sea. The two men survived on oranges they had packed, coconuts they found in the sea and by gathering rainwater.

“I look forward to going back home     2     I guess it was a nice break from everything,” one of the men, Livae Nanjikana, told The Guardian.

Nanjikana and Junior Qoloni took off from Mono Island on Sept. 3 in a motorboat to travel 200 km to Noro on New Georgia Island. However, soon after they set out, their boat was hit by heavy winds and rain, which made unclear the coastline they were following     3     a guide. 

“When the bad weather came, it was bad, but it was     4     (bad) and became scary when the GPS died,” he said. “We couldn’t see where we were going and so we just decided to stop the engine and wait,     5     (save) fuel.”

When the rain had finally passed, Nanjikana and Qoloni had already drifted far out to sea. They spent the next 29 days     6     (live) off of limited supplies and by gathering rainwater with     7     they could make use of to keep themselves alive.

A fisherman found and rescued the two men on Oct. 2 off the coast of New Britain, Papua New Guinea, about 400 km from     8     they had started.

Nanjikana and Qoloni     9     (bring) to a local health clinic for treatment and are staying temporarily with a local man, Joe Kolealo, until they     10     return home.

10 . It is understandable that the plan to raise the retirement age has sparked debates, because the move involves individuals’ interests and delayed retirement has been on countries’ ________ for a long time.

The wider the debate is, the clearer the issues will be. The first misunderstanding is that the government is thinking over raising the retirement age to ________ the so-called shortfall in pension funds. The fact is, there is no such thing as a nationwide shortfall in the pension funds, because the situation varies from region to region. So we need a ________ pension system to ensure all regions have adequate pension funds.

Many countries with extra pension insurance are drawing up plans for raising the retirement age. Nowadays, people start working at a later age. So the retirement age should be extended ________ the structural changes of individuals’ life-cycle. For example, many born in the 1980s and 1990s started working at 25 or 30 due to their ________ of higher education. If such people retire at 60, they would have worked for only 35 or 30 years. And given their longer life expectancy, they’ll receive pensions for a longer period of time, putting extra ________ on the pension system.

But since delayed retirement ________ people’s interests, it must be planned carefully. First, the retirement age should be raised, once the leadership decides to do so, ________ across the country. Although rolling out pilot programs before ________ economic and social reforms made them more effective, the retirement age cannot be raised in different regions in a targeted manner, because that’ll not be helpful to ________ development in different regions.

Second, some people are against raising the retirement age because they feel they may be forced to work for a few “extra years”. As has been learned from other countries’ ________, some policies can be adopted to help accept the delayed retirement plan. ________, it should be made clear to employees that the longer they contribute to the pension funds, the higher pension they’ll draw after retirement—and early retirement will result in ________ pension.

Third, it is important to balance the interests of different groups. China’s current retirement system distinguishes between men and women, and the employees of State-owned enterprises and privately-owned companies have different opinions on delayed retirement. The new retirement policy needs to be ________ to all groups.

The debate on delayed retirement shows that reforms of social policies will face more challenges and the challenges need political wisdom and practical strategies to________.