A walk in one of the regional parks and forests is a great way to explore the diverse landscape of greater Wellington.

    From coastal sands to historic paths,farmland to green native forest,the parks and forests offer a variety of countryside and scenery to suit all ages and levels of fitness.

    Most of the walks offer the chance to take a break and enjoy picnicking or swimming.

What to take

    Many of the walks go through areas exposed to winds and changeable weather.Please take with you some water and sun hat especially on walks marked with hiking symbol.Always take some warm clothing and a rain jacket.

All times stated are estimates for the return trip.

    Where indicated, mountain bikes and horses riders may use tracks.

Opening hours

    The parks and forests are open daily from 8 am till dusk.Parks or walks marked with a farm animal symbol may be closed for lambing Aug—Nov.Please check with the ranger or on our website www.gw.govt.nz.

Caring for your pack

●Pack in and pack out.Take your rubbish home and recycle it when possible.

●Keep dogs under control and remove droppings.

●Do not remove, disturb or damage native plants or animals.

●Light no fires.

●Poison may be laid in the parks and forests to control the field mouse.Do not remove notice or disturb baits, lures, trapping lines or the mousetraps.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    One of the greatest contributions to the first Oxford English Dictionary was also one of its most unusual. In 1879, Oxford University in England asked Prof. James Murray to serve as editor for what was to be the most ambitious dictionary in the history of the English language. It would include every English word possible and would give not only the definition but also the history of the word and quotations (引文)showing how it was used.

    This was a huge task. So Murrary had to find volunteers from Britain, the United States, and the British colonies to search every newspaper, magazine, and book ever written in English. Hundreds of volunteers responded, including William Chester Minor. Dr. Minor was an American Surgeon who had served in the Civil War and was now living in England. He gave his address as “Broadmoor, Crowthorne, Berkshire,” 50 miles from Oxford.

    Minor joined the army of volunteers sending words and quotations to Murray. Over the next years, he became one of the staff's most valued contributors.

    But he was also a mystery. In spite of many invitations, he would always decline to visit Oxford. So in 1897， Murray finally decided to travel to Crowthorne himself. When he arrived, he found Minor locked in a book-lined cell at the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally insane.

    Murray and Minor became friends, sharing their love of words. Minor continued contributing to the dictionary, sending in more than 10,000 submissions in 20 years. Murray continued to visit Minor regularly, sometimes taking walks with him around the asylum grounds.

    In 1910, Minor left Broadmoor for an asylum in his native America. Murray was at the port to wave goodbye to his remarkable friend.

    Minor died in 1920, seven years before the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary was completed. The 12 volumes defined 414,825 words, and thousands of them were contributions from a very scholarly and devoted asylum patient.

    As for old people, some of the applications are hard to use because they didn't grow up with them. They don't have simple models of how they should work, what to do when something doesn't work or where to go for help. We make it as easy as possible to be used for people who are not familiar with the technology.

    I think there is huge potential and we are designing it. The ability to connect to friends, who remember the same movies and news and music, is really important, especially as people get old. They end up in retirement homes and they aren't always close to their friends. Allowing the network to help them connect with friends and family is a really powerful thing.

    My mother is an enthusiastic user of the Internet，although it took me years to get her to use e-mail. She was born with normal hearing, but lost it when she was 3.She was totally deaf for many years, until age 53, when she got ear aids. They work really well. That is a big change for her. But before then, her friends couldn't call her on the phone, so they insisted she use e-mail to communicate with them.

    Young people don't even think of the Internet as technology. It's just there, and they use it. There's been a very interesting change in communications styles between old people and young people. There are some kids who are now in their teens and aren't willing to make phone calls. And they think of e-mail as old-fashioned and slow.

    The reason why teens don't make phone calls seems to be that they don't know what to say. When they call they often stop for a while. They don't know what to say，and there's this silence. On the other hand, texting is considered proper, and it's okay if you don't answer. You might have been distracted. It's not considered rude. But it is considered strange if you're in this kind of voice conversation and simply stop talking.

Discover Nature Schools Programmer

    Becoming Bears (Kindergarten—2 grade)

    By becoming baby bears, children learn from their "parent" to survive the seasons. Kids will find safety in the spring and learn kinds of food bears eat during the summer, and then create a cave for winter hibernation (冬眠). After learning the skills needed to survive, students will go out of the cave as an independent black bear able to care for themselves.(1.5—2 hours)

    Whose Clues? (3—5 grade)

    Kids will discover how plants and animals use their special structures to survive. Through outdoor study of plants and animals, kids will recognise their special structures and learn how they enable species to eat, avoid their enemies and survive. Using what they have learnt, kids will choose one species and tell how they survive in their living places.(3—4 hours)

    Winged Wonders (3—5 grade)

    Birds add colour and sound to our world and play an important ecological (生态的) role. Students will learn the basics of birds, understand the role birds play in food chains and go bird watching using field guides and telescopes. Students will do hands－on activities. Students will use tools to build bird feeders, allowing them to attract birds at home.(3—4 hours)

    Exploring Your Watershed (6—8 grade)

    We all depend on clean water. Examining how our actions shape the waterways around us. Go on a hike to see some of the first－hand challenging water quality problems in a city. Students will test the water quality to determine the health of an ecosystem.

    Each programme is taught for a class with at least 10 students.

    All programmes include plenty of time outdoor. So please prepare proper clothing, sunscreen and insect killers for children.

    To take part in a programme, please e－mail dcprogrammes@mdc.mo.gov.

    There is a popular belief among parents that schools are no longer interested in spelling. No school I have ever taught in has ever ignored spelling or considered it unimportant as a basic skill. There are, however, different ideas about how to teach it, or how much priority (优先) it must be given over general language development and writing ability. The problem is how to encourage a child to express himself freely and confidently in writing without holding him back with the complexities (复杂性) of spelling. That's why teachers often encourage the early use of dictionaries and pay attention to content (内容) rather than spelling.

    If spelling becomes the only focus of his teacher's interest, clearly a bright child will be likely to "play safe". He will tend to write only words within his spelling range, choosing to avoid adventurous language.

    I was once shocked to read on the bottom of a piece of writing about a personal experience. "This work is terrible! There are far too many spelling mistakes and your writing is terrible." It may have been a sharp comment on the pupil's spelling in writing, but it was also a sad sign that the teacher had failed to read the composition, which contained some beautiful expressions of the child's deep feelings. The teacher was not wrong to draw attention to the mistakes, but if his priorities had centered on the child's ideas, an expression of his disappointment with the spelling would have given the pupil more encouragement to seek improvement.

China's marriage-age population base staying stable

（文章来源：Global Times）

The number of marriage registrations on May 20 this year made headlines over the weekend, despite declines in a few places compared with last year. The number of couples getting married will remain stable in the coming years, based on the huge population base in China, a Chinese demographic(人口统计学的) expert said. 

May 20 has become a popular date for marriage registration among Chinese young people, as "520" is pronounced like "I love you" in Chinese, boosting sales of related products and services such as wedding banquets, roses and hotel bookings. Many Chinese newlyweds reportedly lined up overnight outside marriage registration offices to tie the knot, according to media reports. Including Beijing, Shanghai and South China's Guangdong Province, local civil affairs bureaus in multiple places on Sunday announced the number of marriages on Saturday. 

A total of4,087 couples registered their marriages in Beijing, 2,097 couples tied the knot in Shanghai, 16,000 couples married in Southwest China's Sichuan Province and 11,156 couples were registered in East China's Jiangsu Province, along with 7,155 couples in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, 6,873 couples in Southwest China's Guizhou, 6,270 couples in East China's Fujian Province, 1,195 couples in Northwest China's Qinghai Province, and as many as 12,450 couples in Guangdong. 

Experts pointed out that the number of marriage registrations on a specific day can be affected by multiplefactors such as the connotation of the date, the population base of young people of marriageable age and people's general willingness to get married. According to the National Bureau of Statistics and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the number of marriages is declining but will still remain stable in the next few years, with a major turning point after 2035, Song Jian, a demographer from the Center for Population and Development Studies of the Renmin University of China, told the Global Times on Sunday. 

China's population base of marriage-age people will remain stable in the next few years, Song said. Although the rate of young people being unwilling to marry is on the rise, the proportion of people who never marry remains below 10 percent. "Statistics show that most Chinese people will eventually get married, but they are just putting off marriage," Song said. Compared with last year, marriage registrations in several places, including Jiangsu, Guangdong, Sichuan and Fujian fell sharply this year, which Song noted may be a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, which obstructed(阻碍) personnel flows and communication over the past two years, but the number on a specific date does not mean an overall decline of people getting married. 

Although May 20 this year fell on Saturday, some civil affairs authoritiesannounced to work 48 hours non-stop over the weekend , considering that most couples would like to choose an auspicious date to get married, since May 21, the traditional Chinese solar term Xiaoman (grain buds), was also an auspicious date according to the Chinese lunar calendar. A staffer from the marriage registration office of the civil affairs department in Rencheng district in Jining noted that the number of couples who got married over the weekend reached 400 as of Sunday afternoon, an obvious increase from 250 on May 20 last year. 

"Many newlyweds gave us a thumbs-up for our service and sacrifice, and we feel honored to satisfy those young people with our service and promote young people's willingness to get married," the staffer told the Global Times on Sunday. China's State Council approved the expansionof an inter-provincial marriage registration pilot program to 21 provincial-level regions across the country last week, a latest move to promote long-term and balanced population development, which is particularly appreciated by the migrant population, who no longer need to return to their hometowns to register their marriages. 

In the province of Guangdong, 1,813 couples have accomplished their inter-provincial marriage registration soon after the pilot program was approved. In Dong'ao village in Fujian, the place on the Chinese mainland closest to the island of Taiwan, 21 couples from Fujian and Taiwan participated a group wedding ceremony on Saturday, which is expected to promote cross-Straits affection and people-to-people exchanges through their small families.