Diving& Marine Conservation in Thailand for Teens

Placement location: Ao Nang

Accommodation: Guesthouse

Age requirements: 15-18 years old

Price: 2 weeks: $28,200; 4 weeks: $37,450

If you' re interested in marine (海洋的) life and want to try living on the beach, this project is perfect for you!

All volunteers on our conservation project in Thailand will be met by one of our staff members. You will complete a three-day Open Water course to qualify you to dive. You will also become familiar with the underwater sign language.

Once you have your diving certification, your efforts will be rewarded by going down into a beautiful underwater world. By observing and analyzing reef damage and fish populations, you will play a part in conserving this precious ecosystem off the coast of south West Thailand. You will also help with a beach clean-up.

After your two /four weeks you will return home with a universally recognized qualification, a wealth of diving experience, and the knowledge that you have made a useful contribution to the preservation of a wonderful marine ecosystem.

When Chery Hanbury stepped outside her home the morning after Hurricane Irma swept through her Bradenton, Florida, neighborhood, she expected to see a few of her neighbors out surveying the damage, too, and cleaning up debris. What she did not expect to see was an actual superhero at work.

But that's exactly what she spotted when a man in a red and blue outfit using a chainsaw to cut a tree that had fallen across her road caught her attention ''I thought, OMG! Spider-Man! '' she said. ''I was shocked. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.''

Hanbury called her family outside to see too, and her husband Alan was able to snap two pictures of the mysterious good Samaritan. "Spider-Man worked the tree, then swung off and jumped in his little black pickup with a friend and flew off " said Hanbury. ''I do not know why he was dressed as Spider-Man, nor do I know the name or identity of the masked man. ''

Hanbury's own two daughters, Ciara, 22, and Skye, 21, are grown, and most of the neighborhood withdrew before the storm, so unfortunately, no children were around to witness the Spider-Man in action. However, Hanbury said he was a welcome surprise and provided a laugh that lifted the spirits of those who experienced the scary storm. "It was a silver lining after waiting a long week for the hurricane to arrive, she said. ''People were terrified and exhausted.''

Thankfully, the hurricane wasn't as bad as it was predicted for Hanbury's area. ''We still have lots of people without power, and my neighbors' generators (发电机) are running at the moment. But for the most part, we just have high numbers of trees and power lines down with much debris, but everyone is safe! '' she said

Now that her photos are going viral (疯传), Hanbury hopes Spider-Man knows he is cheering the spirits of people in Bradenton and around the world. ''To Spider-Man, I would like to say, 'Thank you! ''' she said. ''I'm glad we have real-life heroes. ''

Time and how we experience it have always puzzled us. Physicists have created fascinating theories, but their time is measured by a pendulum (钟摆) and is not psychological time, which leaps with little regard to the clock or calendar. As someone who understood the distinction observed, ''When you sit with a nice girl for two hours it seems like a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove, a minute seems like two hours. ''

Psychologists have long noticed that larger units of time, such as months and years, fly on swifter wings as we age. They also note that the more time is structured with schedules and appointments, the more rapidly it seems to pass. For example, a day at the office flies compared with a day at the beach.

Expectation and familiarity also make time seem to flow more rapidly. Almost all of us have had the experience of driving somewhere we've never been before. Surrounded by unfamiliar scenery, with no real idea of when we'll arrive, we experience the trip as lasing a long time. But the return trip, although exactly as long, seems to take far less time. The novelty of the outward journey has become routine.

When days become as identical as beads (小珠子) on a string, they mix together, and even months become a single day. To counter this, try to find ways to interrupt the structure of your day-- to stop time, so to speak.

Learning something new is one of the ways to slow the passage of time. One of the reasons the days of our youth seems to be full and long is that these are the days of learning and discovery. For many of us, learning ends when we leave school, but this doesn't have to be.

Imagine looking at a view of mountaintops and wondering about the name of each peak. Suddenly, above each mountaintop, a name appears on the sky. The words are not written in smoke by skywriting planes. The words are actually not in the sky at all. They come from tiny computers in contact lenses (隐形眼镜)

Computers have become smaller and smaller over the decades. The first computers filled houses. Transistors (晶体管) and then chips allowed computers to become small enough to fit on a desktop, then a laptop, and finally a phone. When experimenting with further reductions in size, developers often have to deal with the limits of human eyesight, which control how small the computers can be and still present visible information.

One new solution employs microprojectors (微投影机) to create a readable display for tiny computers. These machines project computer information onto any surface. Though an impressive breakthrough, there are potential problems. Such public displays can lead to privacy concerns; Most people do not want their information displayed on a wall for everyone to see. Besides, these projectors are extremely expensive, and their screens give users headaches.

Babak Parviz, a researcher at the University of Washington, created another solution: inventing a screen visible only to a person wearing a contact lens. Parviz created a computer in a contact lens that uses the wearer's field of vision as the display. To create the display, Parviz took ordinary soft contact lenses with a wirelessly controlled system. At some point, Parviz says, it will be possible to connect the lens to a remote personal computer device such as cellphone or a laptop. By looking in a certain direction, the wearer sends the computer visual information about what he or she sees. The device then uses this information to point out the names of peaks.

These contact lenses are inserted and removed in much the same way as ordinary contact lenses. In addition, the computers in the lenses won't block the wearer's sight at all. Although now the computers are not on lenses treating eyesight problems, Parviz hopes that someday the technology will progress to that level.

Ever since the University of Bologna in Haly was founded in 1088 as the first modern university, most people have associated great universities, with major cities.

Colleges and universities in the U.S., though, have followed a different pattern. To be sure, leading universities such as the University of Chicago and Columbia University in New York City call major urban centers home.In some cases, the university is, for all practical purposes, the whole town.

Many early colleges and universities were founded by religious (宗教的) groups that sought to educate students far from the distractions of city life. When Harvard University was founded in 1636 by Congregationalist Church ministers, Cambridge, where the university is now located, was quite separate from Boston. Moreover, when the U.S. began building a network of public universities in the 1860s to bring agricultural and technical research and know-how to the westward- spreading frontier, most were located in small towns.

Given the huge diversity of U.S. higher education, the message for international students shopping for a great university is doubled.Don't be put off if you have never heard of the city or town where a school is located. Top-rated colleges and universities located in lesser known places may amaze you in an unimaginable manner with their high quality and a significant number of their international students.

A. Bloomington is also a great college town.

B. Think the Sorbonne in Paris or Peking University.

C. Set your sights beyond the most well-known schools.

D. One reason: there were no major cities there at the time.

E. There was no better recipe for popularity than small campuses.

F. Part of the explanation for this lies in America's distinctive history.

G. But many are located in cities and towns most people have never heard of.

My 14- year- old son, John, and I spotted the coat at the same time. The coat had a black velvet (丝绒) collar, delightful tailoring, a Fifth Avenue label and a(an)1 price of merely $28. We looked at each other, saying nothing, but John's eyes2. Dark, woolen topcoats were popular just then with teenagers. John put the coat on and

3it. He turned from side to side, 4 himself in the mirror with a serious, studied5that soon changed into a smile. It's a perfect6 

John wore the coat to school the next day and came home wearing a big smile. ''How did the kids like your coat? '' I asked. "They love it." He said, carefully 7 it on the chair and smoothing it flat. Over the next few weeks, the8came over John. Quiet, reasoned discussion9 argument. He became more thoughtful and eager to

10. ''Good dinner, Mum, '' he would say every evening. One day when I 11that he start on homework before dinner, John said, ''You are right, and I guess I will.''

When I 12 this to one of his teachers and remarked that I didn't know what caused the changes, she said with laughter, ''It must be his coat! ''

John and I both know we should never13 a person's clothes for the real person within them. But it is meaningful to 14 a standard of excellence for the world to see, to practice a standard of excellence in thought, speech and behavior, and to 15 what is on the inside with what is on the outside.

People of all ages are concerned about the spread of the coronavirus, and teenagers, as a group, tend to experience intense fearfulness. Accordingly, their growing anxiety should be taken into (consider) seriously. Adults can help by making sure teens don't overestimate the dangersunderestimate their ability to protect themselves.

Anxiety can be  (health). But not all teens know that it typically acts  a useful and protective emotion. Adults can encourage teenagers to channel their discomfort into useful action, such as learning about and following the  (recommend) health guidelines.

We can also remind teenagers that we should wash our hands and follow other heath recommendations not only  (protect) ourselves, but also to help to ease the stress. Adults can note that  (make) personal sacrifices (牺牲)- such as postponing a vacation or staying home if we're not feeling well helps to reduce the chance of carrying illness into our own communities.

Teenagers who are feeling  (high) anxious about Covid-19 should  (encourage) to take a break from seeking, or even accidentally encountering, information about the virus.  we can do is to encourage finding distractions, such as doing their homework or watching a favorite show, to protect them from noticing the increasing virus figures.

内容包括：

1）你个人的基本情况；

2）申请陈述内容；

3）希望获准。

注意：

1）词数 80 左右；

2）可以适当增加细节，以使行文连贯。

Dear Sir or Madam,

    ……

Yours sincerely,

Li Hua

My mother used to ask me what is the most important part of the body. Through the years I would take a guess at what I thought was the correct answer.

When I was younger, I thought sound was very important to us as humans, so I said, ''My ears, Mommy.'' She said, ''No. Many people are deaf. But you keep thinking about it and I will ask you again soon.''

Several years passed before she asked me again. Since making my first attempt, I had contemplated (考虑) the correct answer. So this time I told her, ''Mommy, sight is very important to everybody, so it must be our eyes." She looked at me and told me, "You are learning fast, but the answer is not correct because there are many people who are blind.

Over the years my mother asked me a couple more times and always her answer was: ''No, but you are getting smarter every year, my child.''

Then last year, my grandpa died. Everybody was hurt. Everybody was crying. Mom looked at me when it was our turn to say our final goodbye to Grandpa. She asked me, ''Do you know the most important body part yet, my dear?'' I was shocked when she asked me this on this occasion. I always thought this was a game between her and me. She saw the confusion on my face and told, ''This question is very important. How you answer it shows whether you have learned about life. ''For every body part you gave me in the past, I have told you were wrong and I have given a reason why. But today is the day you will know the answer.

I looked puzzled.

''All your previous answers -- ears, eyes, hands, heart. They are all very importantto yourself. But this time I need you think of something that is important to others.''

Paragraph 1:

''My dear, the most important body part,'' she said, ……

Paragraph 2:

''Mom, I understand. And you can cry on my shoulder, too.'' ……