In most parts of the world, manystudents help their schools make less pollution.They join environment clubs.Inan environment club, people work together to make our environment clean.

    Here are some things students oftendo.

    No-garbage lunches.How many lunch bagsdo you throw away after lunch? Environment clubs ask students to bring theirlunches in bags that can be used again.Every week they will choose the classesthat make the least garbage and report them to the whole school.

    No-car day.On a no-car day, nobodycomes to school in a car including the students and the teachers.Cars givepollution to us, so remember:

    Walk, jump, bike, or run!

    Use your legs! It's lots of fun!

    Turn off the water! Do you know thatsome toilets can waste twenty to forty cubic meters of water an hour? In ayear, that would fill in a small river. In the environment clubs, students mendthose broken toilets.

    We love our environment.Let's worktogether to make it better.

    Smog(雾霾) is a big problem in many Chinese cities. But it seems that besides wearing a mask, few of us know what has caused the smog and what to do to beat it. Chai Jing, a former news hostess with China Central Television, discussed the questions in her documentary Under the Dome.

    The 103 - minute film was published on major Chinese video - sharing websites on Feb 28. In the film, Chai visits polluted places and talks to officials and scientists. She comes to the conclusion that burning too much coal and oil are the main causes of PM2.5 and smog.

    To make things worse, according to Chai, the coal and oil we are burning is of poor quality and don't meet the standards for environmental protection. Therefore they have produced more harmful gas to pollute the air.

    To solve the problem, Chai suggests that we should clean our coal and oil or replace them with cleaner energy such as natural gas. In her film, Chai also pointed out that ordinary people can do something to help control smog too. For example, we live a greener life by using more public traffic. Or if we see things that could harm the environment, we can try to stop it. In one scene from the film, Chai sees a dirt mound in a building site exposed in the air, and asks the person in charge to cover it. When she sees a restaurant cooking without any suitable filter facilities, she calls the hotline 12369. The restaurant installed the filter a week later.

    Chen Jining, the new minister of environmental protection, praised Chai. "This film encourages ordinary people to care about the environment. This is what we need in the future. "

    Thanks to software like Apple's Siri or Microsoft's Cortana, it's easier than ever to do something on our phone or computer. All we have to do is "talk", and our favorite song starts playing a few seconds later. But in the neat" future, asking our phone to play a song by using our voice will seem as old--fashioned. That's because US tech company Microsoft recently applied for a patent* for a "brain control interface"(BCI): meaning that soon, we may be able to control our phone and computer with our thoughts.

    BCI technology works by changing brain signals into computer commands. This technology isn't brand new, however. Last year, for example, it was reported that scientists were able to help a disabled man from the US, 53-year-old Bill Kochevar, to move again. To do this, Kochevar was fitted with BCI technology, as well as equipment to make his muscles move. After a few weeks of getting used to it, Kochevar was able to use his thoughts to "tell" the BCI to move his muscles, meaning he was able to feed himself for the first time in years.

    Apart from helping disabled people, it's hoped that BCI technology will improve the daily lives of other people too. US social networking platform Facebook announced last year that it was working off BCI technology to help people type by using their brain. By 2020, the company hopes to have created a system that will allow people to type up to 100 words per minute just by thinking about them.

    However, many people are worried that technology that tan read our thoughts will create privacy problems, especially if social media companies are included. But Facebook researcher Regina Dugan said at a meeting last year that the company has no interest in reading people's private thoughts. "That might be more than any of us care to "know. And it's not something any of us should have a right to know," she said.

    Squirrels (松鼠) are getting ready for winter. They are looking for nuts and seeds, digging holes in the ground or finding holes in trees. That's where they store the food they will need during the coming months, when the weather is cold and sometimes snowy.

    Squirrels spend a lot of time in trees, which are like restaurants for them. Among their favorite things to eat are nuts and other parts of trees, like tender buds (花苞).

    Squirrels may also eat corn, insects and other animals. And, as anyone who has a bird knows, squirrels love bird food!

    Squirrels stay active all winter, so they need plenty of food to help keep up their energy. Squirrels tend to bury food underground, piece by piece. Some squirrels may gather food into piles that they put at the base of trees or bury underground.

    When they need food, squirrels use their memory and smell to help them find what they buried. Sometimes, you'll even see them digging through the snow.

    Squirrels make nests in trees. Some squirrels spend much of the winter in underground tunnels (地道), where it is warmer.

    When spring comes, squirrels change their eating habits to new plant growth, like buds and leaves. Sometimes they forget to dig up all their buried nuts.

    That's why you'll sometimes find a little tree growing in a place where neither you nor your family planted it. It must have been the squirrels.

    DNA is the whole" map" of the human body. It is something that all humans have, and it tells the body what to do. DNA is the reason that we look like our parents, because we get some of their DNA to make our own.

    People have been trying to understand the human body for a long time. In 1860, Mr. Mendel discovered why we look the same as other people in our family. It is because of small things called "genes" (基因)in our body. In 1953, two scientists, Watson and Crick, found out that genes are really messages. They're written in the DNA with a special language.

    In 1961, another two scientists found the first" word" that they could understand in that language. It shows how DNA tells the cell(细胞)to build its parts. So far, scientists have found all the words in the DNA map, but we still don't understand what they all do. By understanding what just one" word" means, we can help to save people from several illnesses. So the more we understand, the more doctors will be able to do.

    Most people hope that this can help to make better medicine to help sick people. Other people worry that when we learn more" word" and find out more information, we will use it in the wrong way. Just to make people more attractive, or stop sick people getting jobs.