First Lady Michelle Obama is a big fan of volunteering. Volunteering means working for free to help someone else. Mrs. Obama says volunteering is very important. “It should be part of everyone's life,” she says.

    Many teens agree. They say that helping others feels great and makes a difference. These days, more teens volunteer than work for pay. Teens clean up parks, walk dogs at animal shelters, visit the elderly and more.

    Some cities —including Seattle, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. —require high school students to volunteer. Students must volunteer in order to graduate. The student volunteers learn new skills and help their communities.

    Many parents are in favor of the idea —they say volunteering helps teens build job skills. But most teens don't want to be forced to volunteer. They say they are busy. And they say volunteering is only fun if it's a choice.

Read both sides of the debate and decide.

YES

Volunteering can help teens get into college or get a job.

Many cities and towns need help. Volunteers can help keep important programs going.

Not all teens will volunteer if it isn' t required. Schools should require students to do all they can to get ready for adult life.

NO

Most teens are already very busy with classes, homework, jobs and sports. Forcing them to do more isn't fair.

It should be up to each person. Helping out doesn't feel as good if you have to do it.

Finding a volunteer job isn't always easy. Students shouldn't be kept from graduating because of something they can't control.

    A new concept vehicle, Pod was introduced by Toyota and Sony at the Tokyo motor show. The car is intended as a four-wheeled friend. It aims to provide affection, sympathy and encouragement. Like a dog welcoming its master, the car sits up, wags its tail and acknowledges its owner's presence using hydraulics(液压装置) and a multi-colored LED display panel(引擎) across the front.

    While on the road, the car constantly monitors the driver's mood with pulse and sweat sensors on the joystick(操纵杆). Cameras focused on the eyes keep watch for any sigh of drowsiness. If a driver appears to be losing his or her cool, Pod will display warnings, play soft music and blow cold air at the face. Drivers are shaken awake with loud music and a shaking chair.

    To improve driving skills, pod compares acceleration, braking and steering with the best performance recorded by professionals. It uses this comparison to score drivers, offer advice and rank all Pod owners. Toyota claims that the car will eventually be able to learn its owner's likes and dislikes by monitoring passenger conversations. If the car hears a favorite song being discussed, it will download the track from the Internet and play it without being asked. It will also recommend restaurants that might suit the driver's taste and take photographs of passengers when they sound particularly happy.

    In keep with the moodiness that is the car's main selling point, Pod expresses a form of road anger. If a driver brakes or swerves(转向) suddenly, the LED panel shows an angry red and the tail rises at the back.

    Anger is one of the car's ten “emotional states”. Another is sadness — a blue front with tear-shaped lights seemingly dropping from headlights — which appears after a flat tire or when gas is low.

    “We wanted to show that the cars can be cheerful and entertaining,” said Yasunori Sakamoto, part of the Toyota design team. Mr Sakamoto said Toyota has no plans to put Pod on the market. Sad, really.

    Teary-Eyed Stories from Strangers

    The Man at the Market

    When the supermarket clerk summed up my groceries, it was $12 over what I had on me. I began to remove items from the bags, when another shopper handed me a $20 bill. “Please don't put yourself out,” I told him.

     “Let me tell you a story,” he said. “My mother is in hospital with cancer. I visit her every day and bring her flowers. I went this morning, and she got mad at me for spending my money on more flowers. She demanded that I do something else with that money. So, here, please accept this. It is my mother's flowers.”

    A Family's Food Angel

    Since my mother lost her job, our family troubled new worries: no income, the same bills, and no way to afford groceries. It was around this time that she started finding boxes of food outside our door every morning. This went on for months, until she was able to land a job. We never did find out who it was and who left the groceries for us, but they truly saved our lives.

    Seven Miles For Me

    Leaving a store, I returned to my car only to find that I'd locked my keys and cell phone inside. A teenager riding his bike saw me kick a tire and say a few choice words. “What's wrong?” he asked.

    I explained my situation. “But even if I could call my wife,” I said, “she can't bring me her car key, since this is our only car.” He handed me his cell phone. “Call your wife and tell her I'm coming to get her key.”

    “That's seven miles round trip.”

    “Don't worry about it.”

    An hour later, he returned with the key. I offered him some money, but he refused. “Let's just say I needed the exercise,” he said. Then, like a cowboy in the movies, he rode off into the sunset.

    Breaking Bread

    Last December, before work, I stopped at a deli (熟食店) and ordered an everything bagel with cream cheese. It was toasty warm, and I couldn't wait to dig in. But as I left the store, I noticed an older indigent gentleman sitting at the bus stop. Knowing it would probably be his only warm meal of the day, I gave him the bagel.

    But all was not lost for me. Another customer from the deli offered me half of her bagel. I was so delighted because I realized that in one way or another, we are all looked after.

More than 100 scientists traveled to faraway places to collect wild crop seeds in an effort to help battle climate change. The scientists have been likened to the hero of the Indiana Jones movies. Like him, they had to face blood-sucking creatures and fierce tigers. Some-times, they had to use elephants for transportation because they couldn't find any other means of transportation.

A report on the project was published last week. It described the results of a six-year search to collect thousands of wild seeds. The seeds could be important in feeding a growing human population at a time when rising temperatures are affecting crop production in some areas.

The scientists traveled on foot, by four-wheeled vehicles, boat and riding horses and they even rode elephants to reach faraway areas. They collected 4,644 seed samples of 371 wild relatives of 28 crops. Many of those wild relatives are said to be endangered.

The Crop Trust, a nonprofit organization that works to save different kinds of crops, was directing the project. The group was working in partnership with Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens and Millennium Seed Bank. Additional financial support came from Norway. The project is believed to be the largest organized international effort yet to collect and protect crops' wild relatives.

Some relatives of widely grown crops have developed so they can survive usual and severe conditions such as low rainfall, flooding, extreme temperatures and poor soils. Scientists say the wild crops offer a largely unused source of diversity for protecting crops against climate change.

Some crops are threatened because of destruction of forests, conflict and expanded cities. Experts say losing this diversity could endanger food security around the world. A United Nations report says that food supplies are under severe threat. The report notes that the number of animal and plant species are quickly disappearing as the world deals with how to feed a rising population.

What will you do if you can't eat everything bought in the canteen(食堂)? {#blank#}1{#/blank#} According to a survey, what students waste every year could feed over 10 million people. 

{#blank#}2{#/blank#} According to Xinhua News Agency, the food wasted by Chinese people is about 50 million tons of grain every year, which could feed 200 million people. 

Food waste, which has become a global issue, serves as a mirror that reflects various cultural and social issues in different countries. In the west, for instance, consumerism, the belief that it's good to use a lot of goods and services, is often to blame for food waste. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}Chinese people are well known for being hospitable and generous. Many even feel that they lose face if their guests have eaten all the food. On campus, a generation of single children is less aware of the food waste issue. Students nowadays are well protected by their families and hardly have any concept of how much toil (辛劳) others go through in order to provide them with the food they eat. 

{#blank#}4{#/blank#}There are 925 million hungry people in the world. They don't have enough food to eat. And farmers work very hard to grow the crops. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}It's also important that everyone thinks about how they can do their bit to reduce food waste. Recently a campaign against food waste launched on line in China might make you think twice about being so wasteful.