It was my first year teaching in a special needs class, and I wasn't sure what to expect at our yearly Special Olympics sports meeting. My 1 had some challenges, from learning disabilities to cerebral palsy (大脑性麻痹).
Mark was one with the latter. Restricted to a 2, he had to fight his spasms (抽筋) just to control his movements. 3, he always had a positive attitude and greeted everyone with a huge smile.
His classmates 4 him and always took the time to make sure he was included in group activities, especially Mike, Andy and Lucas, three boys who were good at 5 Obviously, Mark wanted to be like them, unrestricted by the limitation of his 6 and watching them moving on the playing field seemed to fill him with 7
When the day came, Mike, Andy and Lucas 8 well in their sports events, and gave the normally calm audience something to cheer about. Mark sat in his wheelchair on the sidelines, 9 them on.
The final event of the day was the 400 meter race. 10 was invited to either walk or run, according to their ability, around the 11 length of the track.
When Mike, Andy and Lucas reached the finish line, they 12 and turned to look behind them. At the 13 of the crowd, determined not to be left behind, was Mark. All his classmates had 14 him. He was alone on the track with over half the distance left to 15
Mike, Andy and Lucas looked at each other, and a silent 16 passed between them. Slowly, they jogged 17 towards their friend, cheering him on 18 he had done for them moments before.
The progress was 19, but in the end the three star runners and Mark crossed the finish line together to the enthusiastic cries of their teachers and classmates. Seeing the look on Mark's face as he crossed the finish line, hands upraised and laughing, I came to understand what 20 the Special Olympics, and the determined athletes who compete, so extraordinary.
Years later, I'm still cheering them on.
Aava Whistler Hotel
Star Ratings: ★★★
Location: Whistler
Rooms: 192
Stay at the Aava Whistler Hotel and experience a great vacation. The Aava Whistler Hotel is within minutes from over a hundred shopping malls, and restaurants. It also has a great number of recreational facilities, including swimming, diving and even skiing. Hotel services include 24-hour reception, laundry and room service. Guests can stay in cozy rooms equipped with air conditioning, bathroom and television. From CN￥496 per night.
Best Western Cairn Croft Hotel
Star Ratings: ★★★
Location: East Lundy's Lane
Room: 166
Relax and unwind at the Best Western Cairn Croft Hotel. This resort-style hotel is located just minutes from the airport. At this hotel, guests can enjoy a large number of recreational facilities, including children's activities, sightseeing and a swimming pool. Business travelers can also take advantage of spacious meeting and banqueting facilities for hosting corporate events. All rooms come with basic amenities (便利设施). From CN￥439 per night.
Clarion Hotel& Suites Downtown Montreal
Star Ratings: ★★★
Location: Montreal.
Rooms: 266
Conveniently located just 20 minutes from the airport, the Clarion Hotel& Suites Downtown Montreal is a moderately-priced three-star hotel that provides services to both business and leisure travelers. The Clarion has spacious meeting facilities and modern business centers for business travelers. It has a sauna and a whirlpool where guests can relax. All rooms come with basic amenities, including cable TV and a kitchenette. From CN￥553 per night.
Delta-Bow: Valley Hotel
Star Ratings: ★★★
Location: Calgary
Rooms: 398
The Delta Bow-Valley Hotel is located a couple of blocks north of Olympic Plaza, east of James Short Park, and north-east of the Petro-Canada Centre. Apart from business and recreational services such as a business center, a fitness center and a restaurant, all rooms in the Delta come with a mini-bar and in-house movies. From CN￥1, 227 per night.
When people who are nature lovers worldwide wish all humans to realize the importance of their natural surroundings, many Australians are turning caring for the environment into a way of life.
Julie, an Australian housewife in Brisbane is one such example. Even though autumn is approaching Australia's Brisbane in April, one can still watch colorful blooming (盛开的) flowers in Julie's little garden, as she tells that in her community,"Each of us has a beautiful yard. The whole community, from children to elderly people, takes care of the environment as if they are taking care of their own garden. "
"Gardening is the most popular club in our community," she says. "A lot of retired people don't just regularly organize gardening lectures, but also personally visit families in the community to provide gardening training. So you can see that flowers continue to blossom(开花) in our gardens throughout the year. "
Talking about her people's sense of caring for the environment, Julie says when people in the community take along their dog, they always carry a garbage bag to deal with the dog's waste. "In our community, you will never experience the embarrassment of stepping on the dirty waste while you are walking on the grass," says Julie with a smile. "Taking care of the dog's waste can also help to develop children's sense of responsibility!"
As to protecting water resources, the Australian government has made strict rules for families. Julie says, "We certainly would not use tap water to water the flowers!" She says almost every family in her community has a huge tank used to store rainwater, which is later used as the resource of all outdoor water use, including car washing and watering the garden. This year, they also asked people to connect the water tank with their toilets.
For many men, the idea that they have a better sense of direction than women has been improved by a scientific study.
Researchers from Norway scanned the brains of volunteers as they completed navigation tasks to discover men are more skillful at finding their way because they use a separate part of their brain. According to lead researcher Dr. Carl Pintzka from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), men and women have different navigational strategies.
Men use basic directions-the use of north, south, east and west-during navigation to a greater degree. Men's sense of direction was more effective. They quite simply got to their destination faster. "If they're going to the Student Society building in Trondheim, for example, men usually go in the general direction where it's located. " Dr. Pintzka explained.
Women usually orient (标定方向) themselves along a route to get there, for example, go past the hairdresser and then up the street and turn right after the store.
The study shows that using basic directions is more efficient because it is a more flexible strategy. The destination can be reached faster because the strategy depends less on where you start.
Meanwhile, the study also shows both men and women use large areas of the brain when they navigate, but some areas are different. The men use the hippocampus more, whereas women use their frontal areas to a greater extent. That agrees with the fact that the hippocampus is necessary to make use of basic directions. Losing one's sense of direction is one of the first symptoms in Alzheimer's disease.
Understanding how men and women use different brain areas and strategies to navigate, researchers will be able to enhance the understanding of the disease's development, and develop coping strategies for those already affected.
High school in the United States starts too early. Given teenagers' sleep patterns, the ideal school start time could be as late as 11:30 a. m. -when many high school students have already finished half a school day and are eating lunch.
Researchers from Harvard and Oxford wrote about this new finding in a recent article in the journal Learning. Media, and Technology. In the article, Paul Kelley supposed that, given when kids and teenagers are biologically conditioned to wake up,10-year-olds should start school at 8 a. m. . 16-year-olds should start between 10 a. m. and 10:30 a. m. , and 18-year-olds should start between 1l a. m. and 11:30 a. m.
There's been lots of research done on sleep and performance in school-but this article thinks that school should start even later than most proposals for a later start time call for. Teens aren't lazy-adults need to adjust. This isn't laziness-sleep patterns are a biological necessity. Reviewing evidence from studies around the world, the researchers think that starting school later would help students learn more, perform better on tests, and even make teenagers less annoyed. When the Minneapolis Public Schools moved their start time from 7:15 a. m. to 8:40 a. m. , students liked the change and reported that "attendance, achievement, behavior, and mood improved. "
Parents were positive, too. 92 percent said they liked the change, and parents reported that their kids were easier to live with when they weren't getting up so early. At the US Air Force Academy, where students were randomly assigned to classes with earlier and later start times, students who started earlier performed worse all day long on those days.
The researchers consider that this is partly cultural, and that getting up early is still seen as a virtue. That's wrong, they write: "A common belief is that adolescents are tired because they choose to stay up too late, or are difficult to wake in the morning because they are lazy. Educators tend to think that adolescents learn best in the morning and if they simply went to sleep earlier, it would improve their concentration… The truth is that adults need to be educated. "
My name is Clara. I still remember that chilly December day, sitting in science class. I'd finished a worksheet early and picked up a Time for Kids magazine. A piece of news caught my eye. NASA was holding an essay contest to name its Mars rover (火星探测器). Before I even knew anything else about it, a single word flooded my 11-year-old mind: Curiosity.
I couldn't wait for the bell to ring so I could get started on my essay. That afternoon, I raced home, sat down at the computer, and typed until my fingers ached. "Curiosity is an everlasting flame that burns in everyone's mind…"
Five months later, my mom received a phone call, and immediately, a wide smile spread across her face.
On August 5, 2012, at 10:31 p. m. , the rover named Curiosity touched down safely on the surface of Mars, and I was honored to have a front-row seat in NASA.
Curiosity is such an important part of who I am. I have always been fascinated by the stars, the planets, the sky and the universe. I remember as a little girl, my grandmother and I would sit together in the backyard for hours. She'd tell me stories and point out the stars. Grandma lived in China, thousands of miles away from my home in Kansas, but the stars kept us together even when we were apart. They were always there, yet there was so much I didn't know about them. That's what I love so much about space.
People often ask me why we go to faraway places like Mars. My answer is simple because we're curious. We human beings do not just hole up in one place. We are constantly wondering and trying to find out what's over the hill and beyond the horizon.
