Do you want to make a difference in your community? The Verizon App Challenge can get you started. The first step is to think of a problem in your community. The next step is to create an app that can solve the problem.

    Group of five to seven students in middle school or high school, led by a teacher, can enter the contest. First, teams will compete on a local level. Teams that make it to the next round receive $ 5,000 for their schools. Finalists present their app ideas to judges in a live web conference. Next, the judges pick national winners. The top eight teams receive an additional $ 15,000 for their schools, and each team member receives a Samsung tablet. Plus, the winning teams get the chance to bring their app to life.

    A group of six girls from Los Frenos, Texas won the second annual Verizon App Challenge. They came up with the Hello Navi app concept, short for “hello navigation”. The app was designed to help visually impaired (受损的) students navigate (导航) their school. Do you have an app idea that could help solve a local issue? The deadline to register (登记) is November 24. Find more information and register your team at verizonfoundation.org/appchallenge.

Here are some tips from the Verizon Foundation to get you started:

    Get your team together for a brainstorming meeting. Write out all the ideas that conic to mind. Don't ignore challenges. Accept the idea that you can solve a problem that exists in your community. Ask family, friends and people in your community to share their thoughts about problems that they want to see solved.

    I really love my job because I enjoy working with small children and like the challenges and awards from the job. I also think my work is important. There was a time when I thought I would never have that sort of career.

    I wasn't an excellent student because I didn't do much schoolwork. In my final term I started thinking what I might do and found I didn't have much to offer. I just accepted that I wasn't the type to have a career.

    I then found myself a job, looking after two little girls. It wasn't too bad at first. But the problems began when I agreed to live in, so that I would be there if my boss had to go out for business in the evening. We agreed that if I had to work extra hours one week, she'd give me time off the next. But unfortunately, it didn't often work out. I was getting extremely tired and fed up, because I had too many late nights and early mornings with the children.

    One Sunday, I was in the park with the children, and met Megan who used to go to school with me. I told her about my situation. She suggested that I should do a course and get a qualification if I wanted to work with children. I didn't think I would be accepted because I didn't take many exams in school. She persuaded me to phone the local college and they were really helpful. My experience counted for a lot and I got on a part-time course. I had to leave my job with the family, and got work helping out at a kindergarten.

    Now I've got a full-time job there. I shall always be thankful to Megan. I wish I had known earlier that you could have a career, even if you aren't top of the class at school.

    On plenty of drives with my mom through my childhood, she would suddenly pull over the car to examine a flower by the side of the road or rescue a beetle from tragedy while I, in my late teens and early twenties, sat impatiently in the car.

    Though Mother's Day follows Earth Day, for me, they have always been related to each other. My mom has been “green” since she became concerned about the environment. Part of this habit was born of thrift (节俭). Like her mother and her grandmother before her, mom saves glass jars, empty cheese containers and reuses her plastic bags.

    Mom creates a kind of harmonious relationship with wildlife in her yard. She knows to pick the apples on her trees a little early to avoid the bears and that if she leaves the bird feeders out at night, it is likely that they will be knocked down by a family of raccoons (浣熊). Spiders that make their way into the house and are caught in juice glasses will be set loose in the garden.

    I try to teach my children that looking out for the environment starts with being aware of the environment. On busy streets, we look for dandelions(蒲公英) to fly in the wind; we say hello to neighborhood cats and pick up plastic cups and paper bags. This teaching comes easily, I realize, because I was taught so well by example. Mom didn't need to lecture; she didn't need to beat a drum to change the world. She simply slowed down enough to enjoy living in it and with that joy came mercy and an instinct(直觉) for protection.

    I am slowing down and it isn't because of the weight of my nearly forty years on the planet, it is out of my concern for the planet itself. I've begun to save glass jars and reuse packing envelopes. I pause in my daily tasks to watch the squirrels race each other in the trees above my house.

    Last summer, in the company of my son and daughter, I planted tomatoes in my yard. With the heat of August around me, I ate the first while sitting on my low wall with dirt on my hands. Warm from the sun, it burst on my tongue with sweetness. I immediately wanted to share with my mom.

    Alexander John Jordan was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1914. After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Wisconsin. After about one year of college, Alex dropped out.

    Alex then went from job to job. He drove a taxi and worked for Royavac. He also worked for his father's construction company, where Alex got his basic knowledge of construction.

    In the 1940s, Alex discovered Deer Shelter Rock and began having small picnics on the top of the rock. He then started bringing his tent and camping out. One night, his tent got blown away and from that day, Alex decided he wanted to build something more stable. That was the beginning of his dreams. Alex started off by renting the rock and a bit of land around it from a local farmer. He first built a small studio with a fireplace. Then Alex, with his parents' help, bought 240 acres of land, so he could build as he pleased. What took shape on and around Deer Shelter Rock was truly a wonderful achievement. More wonderful still is the fact that he built much of the original house by himself, carrying the materials up the 75-foot-high rock.

    As curiosity grew surrounding his project, more and more people came to visit the House on the Rock. Alex decided to charge people 50 cents to visit, thinking that would drive them away; however, people gladly paid the fee. In 1960, Alex decided to open the House on the Rock to the public. This increased the interest and the crowds grew. All of the money taken in over the years was put directly back into the House. Alex was devoted to the House on the Rock. It was his life and dream.

    If you are the kind of tourist who likes to visit places with outstanding landscapes and multicultural cities, then Asia is the place to go. Take a cruise(巡游)to Asia and you will not be disappointed.

    The Finest Asian Cruise Explorations

    Tourists who want to visit several Asian countries understand that cruising there is the best alternative. You can decide to take a two-week cruise, starting from Sri Lanka to Thailand. There's also a three-week cruise that starts off in China all the way to Japan. A most popular voyage is one that starts from Hong Kong to Singapore.

    The Best Time to Travel

    When touring Asia, it's best to understand that different cruise lines have different travelling timelines. You can be caught in the rain during your tour(October to December in Malaysia and December to February in Indonesia). Most cruises take place from December to the end of March.

    Booking Cruise-ship Tours

    Given that you'll probably be taking long flights to get to South Asia and the Far East, the budget will be large, especially if you are visiting as a family. In addition, many people tour this region, so it would be best if you book early when the prices are more appealing.

    Activities

    There are so many ports in Asia and this might bring a challenge if you want to get somewhere in time. Make sure you plan your day-trips in advance and follow the cruise line tours to avoid missing the boats. Apart from visiting the cities, you could also go to Borneo, Indonesia to see the orangutans(猩猩). You can also hop across several islands from Bali, appreciate the colorful floats as well as the cherry blossoms in Japan and visit the floating fish farms in Vietnam.

Seeds on Ice

    Close to the North Pole, remote and rocky Plateau Mountain in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard seems an unlikely spot for any global effort to safeguard agriculture. In this cold and deserted environment, no grains, no gardens, no trees can grow. Yet at the end of a 130-meter-long tunnel cut out of solid stone is a room filled with humanity's most precious treasure, the largest and most diverse seed collection—more than a half-billion seeds.

    A quiet rescue mission is under way. With growing evidence that unchecked climate change-will seriously affect food production and threaten the diversity （多样性） of crops around the world, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault （地窖） represents a major step towards ensuring the preservation （贮藏） of hundreds of thousands of crop varieties. This is a seed collection, but more importantly, it is a collection of the traits found within the seeds: the genes that give one variety resistance to a particular pest and another variety tolerance for hot, dry weather.

    Few people will ever see or come into contact with the contents of this vault. In sealed boxes, behind multiple locked doors, monitored by electronic security systems, enveloped in below—zero temperatures, and surrounded by tons of rock, hundreds of millions of seeds are protected in their mountain fortress. Frozen in such conditions inside the mountain, seeds of most major crops will remain viable for hundreds of years, or longer. Seeds of some are capable of retaining （保留） their ability to grow for thousands of years.

    Everyone can look back now and say that the Seed Vault was a good and obvious idea, and that of course the Norwegian government should have approved and funded it. But back in 2004, when the Seed Vault was proposed, it was viewed as a crazy, impractical, and expensive idea.

    We knew that nothing would provide a definite guarantee. But we were tired, fed up, and frankly scared of the steady, greater losses of crop diversity. The Seed Vault was built by optimists who wanted to do something to preserve options so that humanity and its crops might be better prepared for change. If it simply resupplied seed gene banks with samples those gene banks had lost, this would repay our efforts.

    The Seed Vault is about hope and commitment-about what can be done if countries come together and work cooperatively to accomplish something significant, long-lasting, and worthy of who we are and wish to be.