There are some easy things you can do to protect(保护) the environment and the earth. Choose ideas from the list or come up with a few of your own.

    ●Plant flowers grass or trees.

●Whenever you visit a park or beach, take away what you bring there—-keep rubbish in a bag until you can put it in a dustbin.

    ●Turn off the lights, TV sets when you leave the room. This saves a lot of electricity.

    ●Turn off the tap when you brush your teeth. You can save some water by not letting it run. Also, use a glass cup instead of a paper cup because this saves paper.

    ●Keep the doors and windows closed in winter to keep warm air in.

    ●Give your old books and magazines to a library instead of throwing them away.

    ●Give your old clothes to poor children you know instead of throwing them away.

    ●Use both sides of paper.

    ●Stop pouring dirty water into the rivers or the lakes nearby.

    ●Encourage all your friends to do the same things you do to help protect the earth.

    You don't have to wait until Earth Day to do these things. Make every day Earth Day.

    If everyone makes a contribution (贡献)to protecting the environment, the world will become much more beautiful.

    The sun, the moon and the stars are all in the sky. We see the moon and the stars at night. The sun is a ball. It's much bigger than the moon. It gives us heat (热量). The sun has a family. It's the biggest member of the family. The moon is a ball, too, like the sun and the earth. Sometimes it looks as round as a plate (盘子). Sometimes it looks half a plate. It looks bigger because it's much nearer to the earth. It's much smaller than the sun. It's smaller than the stars. The light (光) on the moon comes from the sun. It has no light of its own.

    The stars look smaller than the sun. They look small because they are very far away from us. All day the stars are in the sky. But the light from the sun is too bright. We can't see the stars in the day.

    As space science develops, man has learned more and more about space. Space is not only amazing but also dangerous. While working in space, spacemen are facing danger as well as success.

    Scientists have found out that the radiation(辐射) is the greatest danger to spacemen in space. When spacemen are working in space, they are in danger of the radiation from the sun and other stars, which is bad for their health. The harm of the radiation won't be found until their children even grandchildren are born. Some special medicine may work a little, but no really effective medicine has been found so far.

    Space rubbish is also thought to be a great danger to spacemen. It's reported that there were 9,000 man-made things flying in space. About 30% of these are satellites, 10% are spaceships, and the rest are space rubbish. An explosion(爆炸) in space in 1999 made a cloud of 300,000 fragments, each at least 4 mm in size. A small piece of these even knocked a spaceship window and caused some damage(损坏). Scientists are watching and reporting any possible danger all the time. They are working to deal with space rubbish.

    Although space is really dangerous, it interests many people on the earth. In the near future, it may become possible for people to spend a few days in a space hotel. We may even choose to leave the earth and live in space in a few years. So we should do something to help improve the space environment.

What do you think is an important social skill? I think it's being polite. It can help you make friends, show respect and achieve success. Here are some tips to help you be polite. 

Greet people politely. You can be polite by offering a proper greeting. When first meeting or greeting someone, give him a warm smile. It shows that you are in good spirits and are happy to see him. Also, shake hands to show respect. 

Make small talks. Instead of jumping right into business. You can make small talks first. Talk about their lunch or their day. Listen carefully and pay attention to what they are saying to you. Show them you're interested by asking questions. 

Congratulate other people on their success. When others do well, offer them your praise. If you meet a friend who has recently graduated, won a match, or got a new job, congratulate him. 

Avoid uncomfortable topics. Some topics can make people uncomfortable. You might hurt other people's feelings if you talk about them. Try to keep your conversation in the pleasant areas. 

Make eye contact (接触). When in conversation with someone, look them in the eye when you're speaking. Keeping eye contact shows that you are paying attention. However, don't stare at people all the time. 

When you go to the park, you might notice many older people listening to audiobooks (有声书). Audiobooks have become quite welcome these days. Why are more and more people choosing audiobooks over paper books? Is listening to an audiobook just as beneficial (有益的) as reading a book?

Reading needs us to focus (集中) all our attention(注意) on the words in a book, and we also need to find time and a place to sit down and read. However, you can listen to audiobooks any time and any place you like, and it gives your eyes a break, too.

But the big question is, do we get knowledge from audiobooks as effectively (有效地) as we do from paper books? Researchers did a study to find the answer. Volunteers (志愿者) in Group One were asked to listen to an audiobook while volunteers in Group Two read a book of the same content (内容). It turned out that they recalled the same amount of information, whether they listened to it or read it.

Another study published in the Journal of Neuroscience further supported (支持) the result above. In the study, researchers scanned people's brains when they listened to and read books, and they learned how their brains worked. The result showed that listening to audiobooks activates (激活) almost the same parts of the brain as reading does.

However, some people still believe that they learn better from reading paper books. One reason might be that when we listen to audiobooks, we are often multitasking (处理多个任务). "If you're trying to learn while doing two things, you're not going to learn as well," Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia, told The New York Times.