US President Barack Obama visited the Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing on Nov. 18th, 2009. The Great Wall was the second sightseeing program for Obama during his visit to China.

    Built originally as the biggest defense work in ancient China, the Great Wall today has become one of the must-see places for visiting foreign leaders to the country in the past sixty years.

    “ I'm inspired by the majesty(雄伟壮观) of the Great Wall and grateful for the warmth of the Chinese people,” Obama said after his half-hour tour.

    “It's magical,” Obama said when walking along the Great Wall, “it reminds you of the sweep of history and our time here on earth is not that long. We better make the best of it.”

    “I brought back the admiration(钦佩) for the Chinese civilization(文明), I bring here the greetings of American people.” Obama said when climbing a watchtower to enjoy a distant view at the Badaling section of the Great Wall.

    Obama is the fifth US president to visit the Great Wall. Richard Nixon visited the Great Wall in 1972, Ronald Reagan in 1984 and Bill Clinton in 1998, In 2002, former US President George W. Bush and his wife Laura toured the same sections Obama did.

    My students entered the art room with their usual eagerness to see what they would be learning in today's class. Little did they know they were going to be students for a new teaching method that is spreading the nation.

    I often use videos as previews and supplements (补充) to our art lessons providing students with a variety of artists showing their skills in real-life situations outside the classroom. Finding a new painting technique called glue batik(胶水蜡染),  I thought of something new I hadn't tried before!  How awesome would it be to learn a new technique together with artists? The lesson was planned, presented to the students without any introduction or set objectives. I also asked the students to watch and pause the video as often as they needed to.

    They watched as the artist explained and showed her skills, taking notes on her steps and results. After the video, they shared what they felt the artist's objectives were, her end result using art vocabulary as well as the steps they would need to know to present their own examples. Then they began creating their works using the glue batik technique.

    Surfing the Internet a couple of weeks later, I found that the teaching method I used sounded very familiar to a new movement in education called flipped teaching, which was developed by Jonathan Bergmann. He asked his students to watch video lectures at home and do exercises (homework) in class under supervision (监督). He found that grades went up and he also found time for other types of activities, which Bergmann states are more important than the videos.

    Back to my art class, the students were learning to get ideas, make predictions, and explain reasoning to their classmates. Together they compared, asked questions and made discoveries as they presented the technique.

    We're often reminded of the importance of preserving the planet as we see it for future generations—and children at St Oswald's Primary School in Chester certainly agree.

    Nine-year-old Isobel Kelleher from the school's Hummingbirds class thinks adults need to take note. “Sometimes they can be busy and I don't think they think they can make a difference，but if everyone does a little bit it all adds up，” she tells HuffPost UK.“ We started looking at plastic pollution in our oceans and the things like plastic bags and broken down pieces of plastic that are polluting them.” she says.“ Fish can eat the plastic and they can die，or we might even eat the fish ourselves.”

    Mr Timms，Isobel's teacher，has been spearheading a new project at the school which lets children loose creatively to raise awareness of the need to be more environmentally friendly. The entire Hummingbirds class，which is made up of 9 and 10-year-old pupils，has been busy writing poems and creating online video adverts to warn adults about the serious situation of our oceans and wildlife.

    Mr Timms thinks children have an important role to play in teaching us how to take care of the things around us. We sometimes overlook how much we can really learn from children.” he says.“ It has been really hard to believe having parents come in saying that their children have been asking them to stop using plastic，and to recycle more，and even stopping them using plastic straws.”

    Mr Timms is proud of his Hummingbirds class.“ The message that they would like to send to the world is simple stopping this isn't someone else's job，and it won't be OK if we just leave it.”

    Nine years ago, a few days before Christmas, I was a director at a company in San Francisco, and I was called into a meeting that was already in progress. That meeting turned out to be my exit interview. I was 64 years old at the time. It wasn't completely unexpected. I signed a pile of papers and left the company.

    So, 40 plus years of employment was over. I had a good reputation and background. Retirement was not a choice for me. I wanted to do something. And then an idea came into my mind, born from my concern for our environment. I wanted to build my own business, designing and producing biodegradable(可生物降解的)packaging from waste. This is called clean technology, and it was really meaningful to me. It could help reduce billions of pounds of single-use plastic packaging wasted each year.

    Five years later, I'm delighted and proud to share with you that our income has doubled every year and we have no debt. Meanwhile, I have a wonderful partner, and we've won more than 20 awards for the work that we've done.

    And I am doing the most rewarding and meaningful work of my life right now. But what I really long for is to find other first-time entrepreneurs(企业家)who are my age. I want to connect with them.

    So I want to do something about that in a few years. I want us to start talking more about people who don't become entrepreneurs until they are seniors. And then connecting all of them across industries, regions and countries—building a community.

    Naturalist John Muir called the Marin County woods named for him "the best tree-lover's monument that could possibly be found in all the forests of the world."

    Located only 11 miles north of the Golden Gate Bridge near San Francisco, California, USA. Muir Woods puts some of nature's most huge creations within reach of little feet, hands, and imaginations.

    "Muir Woods is home to a small forest of redwood trees that reach to the sky," says David Shaw of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. "Redwoods grow taller than any other tree species in the world. The average age of the redwoods here ranges from 400 to 800 years old and many ancient specimens have been around for more than a thousand years."

    William Kent, the man who donated the 295 acres to create the Muir monument, grew up in Marin and played in similar redwood forests. That childhood experience inspired him to save the redwoods as an adult.

    "Young people can learn about young William Kent when they visit here," says ranger(护林员) Timothy Jordan. "Kent's early connection with nature developed his love of the outdoors. As an adult, he witnessed the destruction of many Bay Area redwood forests. This, with the writings of John Muir, inspired Kent's conservationism."

    Walking (and playing)in, on, and around the redwoods will help kids understand why young Kent was so fascinated(深深吸引) by the trees. Ranger Jordan encourages children to lie down and look up at the treetops, hug a redwood tree, and start a nature journal like John Muir.

    "Have kids find a redwood spray(小树枝)the same age as them, count the rings in trees, and sit inside of a hollow redwood tree on Fern Creek." he advises.

    After all the interaction, the kids just may be ready to rest. Take this time to "be quiet and listen to the sounds of the forest," says Shaw. "Encourage kids to think about how these trees have stood quietly through year after year of rain, sun, and sometimes even snow."

Most parents are worried the first time they catch their kids out in a lie. According to child and teen psychiatrist Gayani DeSilva, lying can actually be a sign of healthy development in young children. "Kids lie for many reasons, and much of it is normal," DeSilva says. "People are not born with the knowledge of communicating with others and getting their needs met. They'll experiment with different communication styles and techniques until they find the ones that work best for them. Lying is one of those techniques."

As kids get older, they become more aware of how their actions affect others, and many will lie less frequently. In spite of this, parents still need to Lead their kids to form a habit of not lying. According to DeSilva, when children lie, look at them directly and ask what they need. After they tell you, gently remind them that telling you directly will be more effective than lying.

It's also a good idea to model the behavior you want to see in your kids. In other words, don't lie to your children. This will set you and your children on a course of open communication and trust.In some cases, lying is a sign of a deeper issue. A child who is neglected will lie more than a child who has attentive and responsive parents. He's not sure whether he's loved. He may lie to please others. The same goes for a child who has experienced something unpleasant. He may lie to try to hide his shame, avoid admitting his needs, or to control his surroundings to ensure his safety.

By paying attention to the reasons behind a lie, parents can figure out what need to be done. For example, while Jack might lie about completing his homework in order to play video games, he also might be trying to avoid negative feelings connected with school work, and this is just where parents should start, says therapist Gideon Javna.