On Sept. 19 the Westchase Elementary PTA （ Parent-Teacher Association） will hold its Wizard Walk. The Wizard Walk is a locally organized, healthy alternative to traditional product sales that will raise money to support all PTA programs and events for the year. Remaining money will be applied to an on-going capital campaign to build a new playground.

The Wizard Walk will take place on Wednesday, Sept. 28, from 8 a. m. to noon at the Westchase Recreation Center Field.   Volunteers will be needed throughout the event.   Look for more Wizard Walk information and volunteer sign-up links in your student’s folder, or contact（联系）Laura Kohler at president＠ westchasepta. org.

The PTA is also holding a year-long Spirit Stick fundraiser（资金筹集活动）. Spirit Sticks are small and students can display them on a key ring on their backpacks, which represent a variety of interests and accomplishments. There will be many ways to earn a Spirit Stick （good grades, great behavior, exceptional attendance, etc. ） and opportunities to purchase the limited edition sticks for just   $1 every Friday in the courtyard. For more information, contact Nikki Pivnichny at fundraising@ westchasepta. org.

In addition to new fundraising programs, the PTA is partnering with our Guidance Counselor, Mrs. Kiersten Rivenburg, on a new campaign called Kindness Counts. Look for new recognitions and rewards as we continue to promote kindness from our children, staff and parents throughout the year. For more information, contact Laura Smith at kindnesscounts@ westchasepta. org.

Now in its eighth year, the After-School Enrichment Program （ASE） is bringing back some favorite programs and offering some new ones. Students will have the opportunity to explore and develop a variety of new interests. Class schedules will be available soon. Registration starts on Sept. 7. Fall session begins Sept. 21 -22. For more information, contact Jennifer Newman at ase@ westchasepta. org.

I waited half an hour, set the board, and sat in the studio, reviewing my questions until the telephone lines flashed.

“Hello ?”

“This is Connie Chung. I’m so sorry I’m late.”

Connie Chung was one of the only four women anchors （主播） to make it into the club of major evening network television news. For almost an hour we talked about the industry. When I asked if she ever had an instructor throughout her trials, she turned around and offered to instruct me. When I asked why she decided to do it, she simply replied, “Because you’re good.”

That afternoon I rushed home and told my mother what had happened. Without looking up, she just said “Good for you.” Hearing this, I felt a sense of loss.   Her consistent response always made me feel under-appreciated.

Until then I had been searching for something that I would never get—that sense of love and acceptance in a house full of negativity （消极）.

I knew I needed to get rid of all the negativity in my life first, so I packed my bags and walked out of the house, thinking a risk would allow me to open myself to the world again and receive all the positive energy that I needed.

Then radio became my way of connecting with others. My ability to book high-level guests and celebrities（名人）was gradually recognized and eventually all the words of encouragement from past guests and colleagues helped me to re-build my confidence levels. “I can do this,” I kept telling myself, and pushed even harder to find my next aim.

People had faith in me, so I developed faith in myself. Their positive attitudes towards themselves and towards me helped me develop my own positive attitude, leading to productive interactions with celebrities and adding to my list of instructors.

I may not have started life surrounded by positivity but I surely feel that I am surrounded by it now. It’ s amazing how positivity builds on itself.

Some of the world’s biggest companies — Apple, Amazon, Facebook — didn’t exist 30 years ago. So what firms are we working for in 2050? That’ s a question put forward by historian Yuval Noah Harari in his new book “21 Lessons for the 21st Century”.

He argues that because technology is changing so fast, it’ s one of the first times in human history when we don’t know what jobs will look like in the coming three decades. “So the best bet is to focus on emotional intelligence (EQ),” he said. “Information is the last thing the kids need. They have too much of it.”

In this book, he focuses on the various challenges facing us today. As he writes in the book’ s introduction: “What are today’s greatest challenges? What should we pay attention to? What should we teach our kids?” One area where these questions crop up is artificial intelligence (AI). Harari believes that AI will completely affect the job market for the next generation of workers.

His first two books — “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus” — became international bestsellers, selling more than 12 million copies worldwide. They were praised by the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama and Bill Gates. Harari’ s books, about the past and future of humanity, attract a great number of fans. Fellow Israeli, actress Natalie Portman, is a fan. So is American R&B star Janelle Monae.

As for Bill Gates, he might be Harari’s biggest fan. So when the New York Times asked him to review Harari’ s latest books, he jumped at the opportunity. “All the three books wrestle with some version of the same question: What will give our lives meaning in the decades and centuries ahead?” Gates wrote in his review. “So far, human history has been driven by a desire to live longer, healthier, happier lives. If science is eventually able to give that dream to most people, and large numbers of people no longer need to work, what reason will we have to get up in the morning?”

Wolves strike fear into the hearts of many species, humans included. Our fear of them has brought them to the edge of dying out, as we have cruelly killed them as competitors and trouble-makers. But researchers are discovering that the very fear they put into prey（被捕食者）species is exactly what helps make ecosystems（生态）healthy.

Yellowstone National Park is a typical example of just how wolves can help repair an ecosystem. An October 2018 study analyzed 40 years of research on large animals inside the park.

“Yellowstone has benefited from the reintroduction of wolves in ways that we did not anticipate, especially the complexity of biological interactions（互动） in the park,” explained Mark Boyce, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences.   “We were really surprised at that and we’ d never have seen these responses if the park hadn’t adopted ecological-process management—allowing natural ecological processes to take place with least human intervention.”

After the wolves were re-introduced at Yellowstone, willow and cottonwood trees increased in number. The population of bears and bison also rose and what was once a ruling deer-wolf interaction is now more diverse.

To learn more about just how wolves are beneficial, a short documentary from Quest explains how the presence of wolves influences the behavior of deer, which eventually makes entire ecosystems more biologically diverse and healthy. In this documentary, biologist Aaron Wirsing explored why wolves and other top predators （捕食者） were needed for diverse ecosystems to develop. Using a simple video camera, Wirsing is gaining a unique view point on predator-prey relationships and changing the way we think about wolves.

The research is one more piece of evidence for why protecting these top predators is important not just for wolves as a species, but for hundreds of species at every level of an ecosystem. The fear they bring along may be the very angle that helps save them from dying out.