A couple of days ago, as the test results came out, my son and a group of his 13-year-old friends piled into the back seat of my car, ready for the last-day-of-school party at McDonald's. “Jack got a laptop for getting straight A's, and Laurie got a cell-phone,” one boy said. “Oh, yeah, and Sarah got an iPad, and she's only in third grade,” said another. “And how about Brian? He got $10 for each A.”

    I suddenly became concerned. These payoffs might get parents through grammar school, but what about high school and beyond? What would be left after the electric guitar, the cell-phone, and the DVD player?

    I saw the road ahead:As the homework load increased, my income would decrease.I saw my comfortable lifestyle disappear before my eyes — no more of those $5 bags of already-peeled organic carrots. No more organic anything!

    I started to feel surprised and nervous. Would every goal achieved by my two children fetch a reward? A high grade point average? A good class ranking? Would sports achievements be included in this reward system: soccer goals, touchdowns? What about the orchestra? Would first chair pay more than second? I'd be penniless by eighth-grade graduation.

    “We never paid anything for good grades,” said my neighbor across the street, whose son was recently accepted at MIT. “He just did it on his own. Maybe once in a while we went out for pizza, but that's about it.”

    Don't you just hate that? We're all running around looking for the MP3 player with the most updates, and she's spending a few dollars on pizza. She gets motivation; we get negotiation. And what about the primary grades? What do these students get? “When the teacher asked if anyone got rewards for good grades, everyone in my class raised their hands and said they got ice cream cones ,” said one third-grader.

    Teenagers who spend hours in front of the television may have a poorer diet as young adults.

    A study, which included nearly 1,400 high school students, found those who watched TV for five hours or more per day had less healthy diets than peers(同龄人) five years later. Why does this happen? Should the parents take any measures?

    On the one hand, people who spend a lot of time in front of the TV, especially teenagers, may snack more, and that may affect their long-term diet quality.

    On the other hand, TV ads for fast food, sweets and snacks tempt teenagers to eat more of those foods. And TV time might also replace exercise time for some kids.

    Lead researcher Dr. Daheia J. Barr-Anderson, of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, told Reuters Health a clear correlation between TV time during high school and diet quality in young adulthood. While the heaviest TV viewers were eating the most junk food, those who'd watched less than two hours per day had the highest intake(吸收) of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and high-calcium food. In her opinion, parents should limit and monitor TV viewing.

    As far as I am concerned, children should watch no more than two hours of television per day. And parents should set a good example by eating right, being physically active and curbing their own TV time.

    For 26 years, the Chicago International Children's Film Festival (CICFF) has featured (放映，上演) thoughtful, memorable, meaningful and culturally diverse children's movies. This film festival in 2009 ran from October 22 to November 1 and featured more than 200 films. It is the largest annual film festival in North America and the only Academy­qualifying children's film festival in the world. Winners in the short film category go on to compete in the Oscars！The films came from more than 40 countries. More than 25,000 people attended.

    TFK Kid Reporter Meghan Pfau was there. “We don't just show kids movies. We ask kids to think about what they are watching,” CICFF Director Nicole Drieske told TFK. “Five minutes before the lights go down we have a talk with everybody. We talk about what's going on in our minds when we are watching a movie,” she explains. “Movies teach us so much. If we're not paying attention to what we are watching, we aren't learning as much as we could.” Viewers vote to give their opinions at the end of each movie. The CICFF staff wants kids to feel like they are an important part of the festival.

    Kids can also attend interactive (互动的) workshops led by filmmakers, media professionals and celebrities. And young talent takes part in the CICFF. Eleven­year­old Shiropa Purna wrote and directed Our Boat is Our Address ， which is featured in the festival. “My dad is a director and he taught me many things，”Shiropa says.

    A “children's jury” meets in August to watch more than 100 movies that will appear in the festival. They rate the films based on plot, character, setting, acting and sound. The jury awards more than a dozen prizes. The awards are announced at the festival's Closing Night Award Ceremony.

    You probably know who Marie Curie was, but you may not have heard of Rachel Carson. Of the outstanding ladies listed below，who do you think was the most important woman of the past 100 years?

Jane Addams (1860－1935)

    Anyone who has ever been helped by a social worker has Jane Addams to thank. Addams helped the poor and worked for peace. She encouraged a sense of community (社区) by creating shelters and promoting education and services for people in need. In 1931，Addams became the first American woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rachel Carson (1907－1964)

    If it weren't for Rachel Carson, the environmental movement might not exist today. Her popular 1962 book SilentSpring raised awareness of the danger of pollution and the harmful effects of chemicals on humans and on the world's lakes and oceans.

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930－present)

    When Sandra Day O'Connor finished third in her class at Stanford Law School, in 1952, she could not find work at a law firm because she was a woman. She became an Arizona state senator (参议员) and，in 1981, the first woman to join the U．S. Supreme Court. O'Connor gave the deciding vote in many important cases during her 24 years on the top court.

Rosa Parks (1913－2005)

    On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks would not give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger. Her simple act landed Parks in prison. But it also set off the Montgomery bus boycott. It lasted for more than a year, and kicked off the civil ­ rights movement. “The only tired I was, was tired of giving in，”said Parks.

    If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Other than flying and communicating with someone from his mind (which, let's be honest, would probably actually be awful), breathing underwater is one of the favorites. You can hang out with Aquaman and Ursula, and when the end of the world comes and we're all living under water, you'll be fine.

    With this in mind, a student at the Royal College of Art, London has designed a 3D-printed amphibious garment called AMPHIBIO —essentially a set of gills (鳃) —for this very purpose. According to Jun Kamei, a biomimicry designer and materials scientist, it is "for a future where humankind lives in the water".

    With the world set for a global temperature increase of 3. 2℃ (5. 7℉) by 2100, rising sea levels are a very real threat to large coastal cities, potentially affecting up to 2 billion people —or 26 percent of the current global population.

    Kamei's little device uses a specially designed porous (多孔的) material that fills oxygen again in the water and releases carbon dioxide. It is inspired by water-diving insects that create their own little scuba diving set by creating a protective bubble of air around their body thanks to their water repellent (防水的) skin.

    The technology is easily 3D-printable too, which will be great when we need them together. These "gills" could replace heavy and clumsy scuba equipment, making it more similar to free diving but for longer. This could have immediate applications for underwater rescue plans —the 12 boys rescued by divers from a flooded cave in Thailand, for example, where it took weeks to work out how to get the boys and the vital breathing equipment through those narrow tunnels.

    So far, the tech has only been tested as a working prototype, not actually on humans, so the dream may have to be on hold for now. And scaling up and testing on humans is Kamei's next plan. This may sound unbelievable, but Kamei insists he has a much more optimistic vision of the future.

    The Winter Olympics is also called the White Olympics. At this time, many colorful stamps are published to mark the great Games. The first stamps marking the opening came out on January 25, 1932 in the United States for the 3rd White Olympics. From then on, publishing stamps during the White Olympics became a rule.

    During the 4th Winter Olympic Games a group of stamps were published in Germany in November 1936. The five rings of Olympics were drawn on the front of the sportswear. It was the first time that the rings appeared on the stamps of the White Olympics.

    In the 1950's, the stamps of this kind became more colorful. When the White Olympics came, the host countries(东道国)as well as the non-host countries published stamps to mark those Games.

    China also published four stamps in February 1980, when the Chinese sports men began to take part in the White Olympics. Japan is the only Asian country that has ever held the White Olympics. Altogether 14,500 million stamps were sold to raise money for this sports meet. Different kinds of sports were drawn on these small stamps. People can enjoy the beauty of the wonderful movements of some sportsmen.