Reducing plastic waste isn't easy because the cheap material is found in almost every household item. Now, a delicious and nutritious solution has come up to help reduce our dependence on this environmental hazard.

    David Christian, the co-founder of Evoware, says the idea of creating the biodegradable (生物降解的) products came from concern at the country's high pollution rate. Indonesia is home to four of the world's worst polluted rivers. Since single-use packaging is a large contributor to the problem, Evoware decided to deal with that first.

    After investigating various materials, the company settled on seaweed. Unlike com, commonly used for biodegradable containers, seaweed does not require resources like water or large amounts of space. Since Indonesian farmers already harvest more seaweed than they can sell, it's easy for the company to find the material.

    Though they will not reveal their production process, Evoware says the seaweed packaging contains no chemicals and is safe to consume. The company has also invented single-use cups, which can break down 30 days after they're thrown away.

    While replacing plastic with the seaweed products may seem appealing to most of us, it is a hard-sell in Indonesia. According to Christian, “The awareness to reduce single-use plastic is still very low. This makes our bioplastic unnecessary.” Also a factor is the cost, which is higher than using plastic. Hopefully, Evoware will succeed in convincing Indonesians and people worldwide that switching to their products will be helpful to protecting our beautiful planet.

    Recently,people in US education have gotten extremely worried because a new report has shown that American students have a math problem.

    The 2015 Program for International Student Assessment（评估）(PISA) shows math scores in the US getting lower and no improvement in science or reading.PISA tests 15-year-olds from different countries and regions in their math,science and reading skills.About 540,000 students from 72 countries and regions took part in the assessment in 2015.

    US scores in reading and science were about the same as three years ago,leaving Americans near the middle of the bigger group.But the situation in math is much more worrying.The US average score was 470,be;ow the OECD（经合组织）test average of 490,meaning the US was No.40 among the 72 countries and areas.It was 12 points lower than in 2012 and 18 points lower than in 2009.So,what is going on with American students' math skills?

    One reason may be that the US does not teach math in enough depth."Students are often good at answering the first part of a problem in the United States,"said Andreas Schleicher,director of education and skills at OECD."But as soon as students have to go deeper and answer the more complicated part of a problem,they have difficulties."In comparison,many high-performing countries and regions in math teach a lot less but focus in much greater depth, especially when you look at East Asia,Japan and Singapore,according to Schleicher.

    Another reason may be the fact that many people in the US are unwilling to travel to foreign countries to learn better teaching practices."One of our biggest challenges in the US is that the teachers are not going out and seeing what high-performing countries do differently,"said Wendy Kopp,who started Teach for America,in a news program.

    Will it matter if you don't take your breakfast? Recently a test was given in the United States. Those tested included people of different ages, from 12 to 83. During the experiment, these people were given all kinds of breakfasts, and sometimes they got no breakfast at all. Special tests were set up to see how well their bodies worked when they had eaten a certain kind of breakfast. The results show that if a person eats a proper breakfast, he or she will work with better effect than if he or she has no breakfast. This fact appears to be especially true if a person works with his brains. If a student eats fruit, eggs, bread and milk before going to school, he will learn more quickly and listen with more attention to class.

    Opposite to what many people believe, if you don't eat breakfast, you will not lose weight. This is because people become so hungry at noon that they eat too much for lunch, and end up gaining weight instead of losing. You will probably lose more weight if you reduce your other meals.

    Four Free Mobile Apps to Help You Learn English Faster

    Have you realized that you can put your smartphone to really good use for learning English? Here are 4 free mobile apps that will help you do just that.

Hello English

    It covers all the aspects of language learning, including vocabulary, translation, grammar, spellings, spoken and reading skills. It uses interactive games to teach different English lessons and offers new audiobooks, latest news, and books. However, you should already understand basic English structures and alphabets, for the app can't help you learn English from scratch(从零开始).

    Duolingo

    If you want to learn English from scratch, then this is the app you are looking for. Duolingo uses interactive games to help you learn English. For beginners, the app focuses on helping you learn verbs, phrases and sentences.

    Lingbe

    If you are ready to practice your spoken skills in the real-world, you'll need Lingbe. It's a community-based app where people help each other and share their native languages. It connects you with real people on call who are native English speakers.

    HelloTalk

    HelloTalk is similar to Lingbe as it connects you with native speakers to help improve your language skills. However, it adds a few extra functions that might interest you. You can view the information about users to find a match that interests you. Additionally, you can also send text and audio messages, and even do video calls with other people.

    If you are a beginner, start from Duolingo and then use Hello English to take full command over the language. For fluent spoken English learners, you can try out Lingbe or HelloTalk.

    Since many of you are planning to study at a college or university in the future, you may be curious to know what your future study will be like. This is the question I want to discuss with you today.

    First, let's talk about what your weekly timetable will look like. No matter what your major may be, you can expect to spend between four and six hours a week for each class attending lecture. Lectures are usually in very large rooms because some courses such as Introduction to Sociology or Economics often have as many as two or three hundred students, especially at large universities. In lectures, it's very important for you to take notes on what the professor says because the information in a lecture is often different from that in your textbooks. Also, you can expect to have exam questions based on the lectures. So it isn't enough to just read your textbooks; you have to attend lectures as well. In a typical week, you will also have a couple of hours of discussion for every class you take. The discussion part is a small group meeting usually with fewer than thirty students where you can ask questions about the lectures, the reading, and the homework. In large universities, graduate students called teaching assistants, usually direct discussion parts

    If your major is chemistry, or physics, or another science, you'll also have to spend several hours a week in the lab doing experiments. This means that science majors spend more time in the classroom than non-science majors do. On the other hand, people who major in subjects like literature or history usually have to read and write more than science majors do.

Kitchen Products That Will Make Your Life Easier

Food Chopper (切碎机) with Storage Container

Using a food chopper to save time and effort when preparing dinners is always a smart idea. But using a food chopper that doubles as a storage container is more convenient. This one is made of BPA-free plastics and comes with three interchangeable blades (刀片) so you can chop your vegetables in various sizes.

Available on Amazon. $ 18. 99

Mixing Bowl Set with No-skid (防滑的) Bottoms and Pour Spouts

This clever set of mixing bowls solves a few problems we didn't realize we had. For one thing, it has no-skid bottoms, so you can more easily have control over the bowl while using a hand mixer or other tools. And for another, the specially designed part makes it easy to pour liquid from the bowl into a pan or baking dish with hardly any effort. Plus, they're pretty cute.

Available on Amazon. $ 21. 97

Rubbermaid Fresh Works Produce Saver

Do you feel like you're constantly throwing away fresh vegetables you just bought? Rubbermaid's Fresh Works containers come in a variety of sizes, and are made to help food and vegetables remain fresh for as long as possible-saving your time and money in the long run.

Available on Amazon, $ 6. 99

Heat-Resistant Gloves

These aren't your grandma's potholders. These heat-resistant gloves are made with high-quality silicone, making them effective against high temperatures and non-slip. They're also multi-purpose, since you can use them inside when removing plates from the oven or outside while barbecuing.

Available on Amazon, $ 14. 99