In the old days, children were familiar with birth and death as part of life. Now this is perhaps the first generation of American youngsters who have never been close by during of the birth a baby and have never experienced the death of a family member.

    Nowadays when people grow old, we often send them to nursing homes. When they get sick, we send them to a hospital, where children are forbidden to visit terminally （晚期的）in patients— even when those patients are their parents. This deprives（剥夺）the dying patient of family members during the last few days of his life and it deprives the children of an experience of death, which is an important learning experience.

    Some of my colleagues and I once interviewed and followed about 500 terminally in order to find out what they could teach us and how we could be of more benefit, not just to them but to the members of their families as well. We were most impressed by the fact that even those patients who were not told of their serious illness were quite aware of its potential（潜在的）outcome.

    It is important for family members, and doctors and nurses to understand these patients' communication in order to truly understand their needs, fears and fantasies （幻想）. Most of our patients welcomed another human being with whom they could talk openly, honestly, and frankly about their trouble. Many of them shared with us their great need to be informed, to be kept up —to —date on their medical condition and to be told when the end was near. We found out that patients who had been dealt with openly and frankly were better able to cope with the coming of detach and finally to reach a true stage of acceptance before death.

    Many animals recognize their food because they see it.So do humans.When you see an apple or a piece of chocolate you know that these are things you can eat.You can also use other senses when you choose your food.You may like it because if smells good or because it tastes good.You may dislike sonic types of food because they do not look,smell or taste very nice.Different animals use different senses to find and choose their food.A few animals depend on only one or their senses,while most animals use more than one sense.

    Although there are many different types of food,some animals spend their lives eating only one type.The giant panda eats only one particular type of bamboo.Other animals eat only one type of food even when given the choice. A kind of white butterfly will stay on the leaves of a cabbage,even though there are plenty of other vegetables in the garden.However,most animals have a more varied diet.The bear eats fruits and fish.The fox eats small animals,birds and fruits.The diet of these animals will be different depending on the season.

    Humans have a very varied（广泛的）diet.We often eat food because we like it and not because it is good for us. In countries such as France and Britain,people eat foods with too much sugar.This makes them overweight,which is bad for their health.Eating too much red meat and animal products,such as butter,can also be bad for the health. Choosing the right food,therefore,has become an area of study in modern life.

    Top 4 Amusement Parks in the World

    It's summertime! That means parents have extra time to spend with their children, and what better way to engage in classic fun with family and friends than to visit an amusement park? Take a look at these fun choices — perfect summer trip ideas to fit every budget(预算).

    Cedar Point

    Tickets: $280 for adults, $120 for children

    Praising itself as the roller coaster capital of the world, Cedar Point's 18 coasters will ensure you're riding all day. Reader Alicia Goettemoeller describes the park as a “paradise for excited thrillers” while reader Nick Schuyler says it is “built for grown-up kids.”

    Knoebels

    Tickets: $120 for adults, $10 for children

    This old-fashioned amusement park is a must for your old memory games as well as money saving - admittance and parking are free of charge. Reader Tracy Ginsburg Maier says “a family of 4 can enjoy special offer to eat, swim and ride all day for $100” at Knoebels.

    Kings Island

    Tickets: $340 for adults, $160 for children

    Kings Island is one of the most visited theme parks in the US, with more than 3 million visitors per year. The park is especially known for its family-friendly attractions, such as Snoopy Island. Tickets to the main park also include admission to the nearby water park, Boomerang Bay.

    Dells Water Parks

    Tickets: $140 for adults, $80 for children

    Wisconsin Dells is a water park with dozens of indoor and outdoor water parks to spread around in. One of them, Noah's Ark, is the largest outdoor water park in the US. Many are open year-round and no charge for children under five.

    Our local Community Youth Club is a very popular organization with young people in my town. I have been a member for four years now and I've taken part in a lot of interesting projects. These include fun activities such as holiday camps and discos. We have organized sports competitions and we even made a video.

    But it isn't all just enjoyment, we have also started doing social work to help people in our neighbourhood. We have organized activities for small children during the holidays. We have also formed a social support group to help young people stop smoking.

    We are particularly proud of the most recent group we have created. It organizes regular visits to the local old people's home. This idea came from a school visit to an old people' home. My class spent an afternoon at a home and everyone found the visit very rewarding.

    The old people at the home were very excited by our visit. They were very talkative(健谈的) and they told us their personal stories. During our visit, the home was filled with the sound of laughter. We sang songs and played games with the old people and had tea together. But we realized that life wasn't always easy. Some of them were in poor health and were very unhappy. They couldn't go outside the visits by children brought some sunshine into their lives.

    Many young people like me do not live with our grandparents and we have very little contact with elderly people. As a result, many young people don't know what they are like and we have a lot of wrong ideas about them. We have little or no idea of the kind of lives they lead in their homes. After this visit, my friends and I decided we should do something to help improve the quality of their lives.

    Since the creation of our visiting group, over twenty volunteers(志愿者) have joined us. Up to now, we have organized three group evenings and a concert. But it is the individual(单独的) visits which are the most important. Club members regularly visit old people and everyone finds the experience rich and rewarding.

    Blue Planet II's latest episode focuses on how plastic is having a disastrous effect on the ocean and slowly poisoning our sea creatures. Researchers recently also found that sea creatures living in the deepest place on Earth, the Mariana Trench, have plastic in their stomachs. Indeed, the oceans are drowning in plastic.

    Though it seems now that the world couldn't possibly function without plastics, consumer plastics are a remarkably recent invention. The first plastic bags were introduced in the 1950s; the same decade that plastic packaging began gaining in popularity in the United States. This growth has happened so fast that science is still catching up with the change. Plastics pollution research, for instance, is still a very early science.

    We put all these plastics into the environment and we still don't really know what the outcomes are going to be. What we do know, though, is disturbing. Ocean plastic is estimated to kill millions of marine animals every year. Nearly 700 species, including endangered ones, are known to have been affected by it. One in three leatherback turtles, which often mistake plastic bags for jellyfish, have been found with plastic in their bellies. Ninety percent of seabirds are now eating plastics on a regular basis. By 2050, that figure is expected to rise to 100 percent.

    And it's not just wildlife that is threatened by the plastics in our seas. Humans are consuming plastics through the seafood we eat. I could understand why some people see ocean plastic as a disaster, worth mentioning to the same degree as climate change. But ocean plastic is not as complicated as climate change. There are no ocean trash deniers (否认者), at least so far. To do something about it, we don't have to remake our planet energy system.

This is not a problem where we don't know what the solution is. We know how to pick up garbage. Anyone can do it. We know how to dispose (处理) of it. We know how to recycle. We can all start by thinking twice before we use single-use plastic products. Things that may seem ordinary, like using a reusable bottle or a reusable bag—when taken collectively, these choices really do make a difference.

    My mother has a dining table which sits right in the middle of her dining room. It was once buried beneath piles of papers—magazines, articles, copies of schedules for vacations she took back in the 1990s, and baby pictures of grand children who are now paying off their college loans.

    My brother Ross and I recently flew to New York to visit my mother. "Mom, why don't we go through all that stuff?" Ross said. "No. Don't touch it!" My mother said. The next afternoon, when she couldn't find a bill she needed, Ross suggested it might be put somewhere in the dining room and that we find it together. "Besides," he said, "all those papers are clearly stressing you out." However, my mother just said, "Are you boys hungry?" And then she seemed to have lost herself in deep thought.

    On our last night there, my mother walked up to us with a small pile of unopened mails, which she had collected at the western edge of the dining table, and said, "Help me go through these." "Sure," I said. When we had succeeded in separating wheat from chaff (谷壳), I asked, "Would you want to deal with another little pile of papers?"

    My mother led the way  walking into the dining room the way an animal manager might be while entering a cage with tigers in it. Ross and I came in behind her and suddenly he reached for a pile of the papers on one side of the table. "No!" my mother said sharply. "Let's start at the other end. That's where the older stuff is." Finally, we threw 95 percent of the stuff into paper shopping bags. Then I asked what she wanted us to do with them, she surprised us all by saying, "Put them in the incinerator (垃圾焚化炉)."

    When I returned home, inspired by the visit to my mother, I sorted out my own accumulated(累积的) piles of papers, sold or gave away half of my possessions, and moved into a smaller house. It seems that my life has been cheaper and easier since then. And it proves that a small change does make a big difference.