Five years ago, when I taught art at a school in Seattle, I used Tinkertoys as a test at the beginning of a term to find out something about my students. I put a small set of Tinkertoys in front of each student, and said: "Make something out of the Tinkertoys. You have 45 minutes today - and 45minutes each day for the rest of the week."

    A few students hesitated to start. They waited to see the rest of the class would do. Several others checked the instructions and made something according to one of the model plans provided. Another group built something out of their own imaginations.

    Once I had a boy who worked experimentally with Tinkertoys in his free time. His constructions filled a shelf in the art classroom and a good part of his bedroom at home. I was delighted at the presence of such a student. Here was an exceptionally creative mind at work. His presence meant that I had an unexpected teaching assistant in class whose creativity would infect（感染）other students.

Encouraging this kind of thinking has a downside. I ran the risk of losing those students who had a different style of thinking. Without fail one would declare, "But I'm just not creative."

"Do you dream at night when you're asleep?"

"Oh, sure."

"So tell me one of your most interesting dreams." The student would tell something wildly imaginative. Flying in the sky or in a time machine or growing three heads. "That's pretty creative. Who does that for you? "

"Nobody. I do it."

"Really-at night, when you're asleep?"

"Sure."

"Try doing it in the daytime, in class, okay?"

    In the depths of the French Guianese rainforest, there still remain unusual groups of (土著的）people. Surprisingly, these people live largely by their own Laws and their own social customs. And yet, people in this area are in fact French citizens because it has been a colony of the French Republic since 1946. In theory，they should live by the French law. However, their remote locations mean that the French law is often ignored or unknown, thus making them into an interesting area of “lawlessness” in the world.

    The lives of these people have finally been recorded thanks to the effects of a Frenchman form Paris called Gin. Gin spent five months in early 2015 exploring the most remote comers of thin area, which sits on the edge of the Amazon rainforest, with half its population of only 250,000 living in its capital, Cayenne.

    “I have a special love for the French Guianese people. I have worked there on and off for almost ten years," says Gin. "I've been able to keep firm friendships with them. Thus I have been allowed to gain access to their living environment. I don't see it as a lawless Und. But rather I Me it as an area of freedom."

    “I wanted to show the audience a photographic record touching upon the uncivilized life," continues Gin. “I prefer to work in black and white, which allows me to show different specific worlds more clearly.”

    His black-and-white pictures present a world almost lost in time. These pictures show people seemingly pushed into a world that they were unprepared for. These local citizens now have to balance their traditional self-supporting hunting lifestyle with the lifestyle offered by the modern French Republic, which bring with it not only necessary state welfare, but also alcoholism, betrayal and even suicide.

    Wood has many great characteristics that make it the perfect building material. It is cheap, durable, easily available, and most importantly, environmentally sustainable. The one thing it is not, is transparent! Now thanks to a team of scientists at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology the material may even be able to add that feature to its already impressive list.

    Lead researcher Dr, Lars Berglund said he was inspired to create the transparent wood after learning how Japanese researchers had developed a see-through paper for use in flexible display screens for electronic devices. The team began by pulling out the wood's lignin(木质素). The lignin-free wood was then dipped into a polymer(聚合物)and baked at a temperature of 158°F for four hours. The result was a hybrid product that was not only stronger and lighter than the original wood but also, almost transparent. The researchers were able to adjust the level of transparency by varying the amount of the polymer injected and also by changing the thickness of the wood.

    While scientists have previously created a see-through wood for small-scale applications like computer chips, the transparent wood is the first one being considered for large scale applications. The researchers, who revealed their findings in Biomacromolecules on April 11, picture using the transparent wood in buildings to allow for more natural light, or to create windows that let in the desired amount of light without sacrificing privacy.

    Wood that allows light to pass through could lead to a brighter future for homes and buildings. Berglund also thinks the wood could play a significant role in the design of solar panels. The semitransparent material would be able to keep light longer and give it more time to interact with the conductor, thus resulting in better solar efficiency. Additionally, substituting the currently used glass with this new product would help solar energy manufacturers improve their carbon footprint and lower the cost. They are now experimenting with ways to scale up the manufacturing process so that the transparent material is cost-effective to make and easy to use.

SuperCamps

    We are a leading provider of childcare in the UK, offering OFSTED registered holiday camps to children aged 4 to 14 throughout the school holidays. Operating at 60＋ locations, we have holiday camps available in London and the South East, as far south as Cornwall and all the way up to North Yorkshire. Whether you are looking for fun holiday clubs and kid activities, a five-day specialist holiday camp for older children or a combination of the two to keep your children entertained throughout the school holidays, we have your childcare covered!

    Our multi-activity holiday camps offer an abundance of fun, age-oriented(导向的)activities(4-5-year-olds, 6-9-year-olds and 10-12-year-olds), from swimming and go-karting to arts and crafts and LEGO workshops. These day camps are a great choice for parents looking for regular childcare service, available as individual days or a week at a time.

    For children looking for a school holiday experience, our specialist holiday camps are the ideal choice. Our Cookery: International Cuisine, a 5-day specialist course is a cookery camp with a difference, where children can really master their cooking skills!

    Bushcraft: Rainforest Adventure is the perfect outdoor adventure camp for children with a passion for bush craft and survival skills, with activities like Laser Tag and making campfires to inspire the interest of young adventurers!

    Meanwhile, our LEGO Play course is a holiday camp focusing on the art of building amazing creations with LEGO bricks. This camp really motivates the imagination of children in a way that only uses LEGO bricks!

    All new for 2019, our Chelsea Foundation FC Camps invite all football fans to take a shot at our Multi-Dimensional soccer camps! Children will receive hours of on-pitch training and competition with Chelsea FC approved coaches, as well as hours of off-pitch sessions around nutrition, recovery and lifestyle!

    To find your nearest holiday camp, simply enter your postcode or town in the box above or choose your camp by county here and BOOK ONLINE TODAY!

    The European Union(EU) is an organization of European countries. The countries are independent and are governed in different ways. In the United Kingdom, for example, the head of state is a king or queen. In France, on the other hand, the head of state is a president. But each of them sends representatives(代表)to European Parliament, which has some control over what happens in each of the member countries.

    The idea of the EU began in the 1950s. The first members were France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Italy. Little by little, the number increased during second half of the twentieth century. By the year 2000, there were 15 member countries. The new countries were Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

    In 2004, the EU increased to 25 members. The Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, plus the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus and Malta all became members. The expanded EU has a population of more than half a billion people, twice as big as the population of the US.

    The Huaqing Palace Heritage Site

    Address: At the foot of Lishan Mountain in Lintong, 30 kilometers east of Xi'an.

    Opening hours: From March to November: 7:00-18:00;

    From December to February: 7:30-18:30.

    Bus routes: 914, 915, U5, and 306.