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.

D

    Children as young as ten are becoming dependent on social media for their sense of self-worth, a major study warned.

    It found many youngsters(少年）now measure their status by how much public approval they get online, often through "like". Some change their behavior in real life to improve their image on the web.

    The report into youngsters aged from 8 to 12 was carried out by Children's Commissioner (专员）Anne Longfield. She said social media firms were exposing children to major emotional risks, with some youngsters starting secondary school ill-equipped to cope with the tremendous pressure they faced online.

    Some social apps were popular among the children even though they supposedly require users to be at least 13.The youngsters admitted planning trips around potential photo-opportunities and then messaging friends—and friends of friends — to demand "likes" for their online posts.

    The report found that youngsters felt their friendships could be at risk if they did not respond to social media posts quickly, and around the clock.

    Children aged 8 to 10 were "starting to feel happy" when others liked their posts. However, those in the 10 to 12 age group were "concerned with how many people like their posts", suggesting a "need" for social recognition that gets stronger the older they become.

    Miss Longfield warned that a generation of children risked growing up "worried about their appearance and image as a result of the unrealistic lifestyles they follow on platforms, and increasingly anxious about switching off due to the constant demands of social media.

    She said: "Children are using social media with family and friends and to play games when they are in primary school. But what starts as fun usage of apps turns into tremendous pressure in real social media interaction at secondary school."

    As their world expanded, she said, children compared themselves to others online in a way that was "hugely damaging in terms of their self-identity, in terms of their confidence, but also in terms of their ability to develop themselves".

    Miss Longfield added: "Then there is this push to connect—if you go offline, will you miss something, will you miss out, will you show that you don't care about those people you are following, all of those come together in a huge way at once."

    "For children it is very, very difficult to cope with emotionally." The Children's Commissioner for England's study—life in Likes—found that children as young as 8 were using social media platforms largely for play.

    However, the research—involving eight groups of 32 children aged 8 to 12—suggested that as they headed toward their teens, they became increasingly anxious online.

    By the time they started secondary school—at age 11—children were already far more aware of their image online and felt under huge pressure to ensure their posts were popular, the report found.

    However, they still did not know how to cope with mean-spirited jokes, or the sense of incompetence they might feel if they compared themselves to celebrities(名人）or more brilliant friends online. The report said they also faced pressure to respond to messages at all hours of the day—especially at secondary school when more youngsters have mobile phones.

    The Children's Commissioner said schools and parents must now do more to prepare children for the emotional minefield(雷区）they faced online. And she said social media companies must also "take more responsibility". They should either monitor their websites better so that children do not sign up too early, or they should adjust their websites to the needs of younger users.

    Javed Khan, of children's charity Bamardo's, said: "It's vital that new compulsory age-appropriate relationship and sex education lessons in England should help equip children to deal with the growing demands of social media.

    "It's also hugely important for parents to know which apps their children are using."

    My motivation for starting our family tradition of reading in the car was purely selfish: I could not bear listening to A Sesame Street Christmas for another 10 hours. My three children had been addicted to this cassette（磁带）on our previous summer road trips.

    As I began to prepare for our next 500-mile car trip, I came across a book—Jim Trelease's—The Read Aloud Handbook. This could be the answer to my problem. I thought. So I put Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach into my bag. When I began to read aloud the tale of the boy who escapes the bad guys by hiding inside a giant peach, my three kids argued and fought with each other in their seats. But after several lines, they were attracted into the rhythm of the words and began to listen.

    We soon learned that the simple pleasure of listening to a well-written book makes the long miles pas more quickly. Sometimes reading became the most interesting part of the trip. I read Wilson Rawls's Summer of the Monkeys as we spent two days driving to the beach. We arrived just behind the power crews restoring（恢复）electricity after a tropical storm. The rain continued most of the week, and the beach was covered with oil washed up by the storm. When we returned home, I asked my son what he liked about the trip. He answered without hesitation “The book you read in the car.”

    Road trips still offer challenges, even though my children now are teenagers. But we continue to read as we roll across the country. And I'm beginning to see that reading aloud has done more than help pass the time. For at least a little while, we are not shut in our own electronic worlds. And maybe we've started something that will pass on to the next generation.

    Parents should stop blaming themselves because there's not a lot they can do about it. I mean the teenager problem, the one I want to talk about as a specialist. Whatever you do or however you choose to deal with it, at certain times a wonderful, reasonable and helpful child will turn into a terrible animal.

    I've seen friends deal with it in all kinds of different ways. One strict mother insisted that her son, right from a child, should stand up whenever anyone entered the room, open doors and shake hands like a gentleman. I saw him last week when I dropped in on them. Sprawling himself (懒散地躺) on the sofa in full length, he made no attempt to turn off the loud TV he was watching as I walked in, and his greeting was no more than a quick glance at me. His mother was ashamed. "I don't know what to do with him these days," she said. "He's forgotten all the manners we taught him."

    He hasn't forgotten them. He's just decided that he's not going to use them. She admitted that she would like to come up behind him and throw him down from the sofa onto the floor.

    Another good friend of mine let her two daughters climb all over the furniture, reach across the table, stare at me and say, "I don't like your dress; it's ugly." One of the daughters has recently been driven out of school. The other has left home.

    "Where did we go wrong?" her parents are now very sad. Probably nowhere much. At least, no more than the rest of that unfortunate race, parents.

A hybrid electric vehicle (混合动力车) or HEV is a vehicle driven by the combination of petrol engine and electric motor. Terrence has been driving a HEV for five years. He really doesn't understand why more people aren't accepting them. "I probably spend about $ 7 a day on petrol," the taxi driver told news. com. au. In his previous conventional vehicle Terrence said he was spending up to $ 30 a day on petrol, meaning he saves almost $ 6000 every year.

The Toyota spokesman said this was quite a high saving and official tests estimate (估计) an average driver would only save about 33 percent off their current bill. This means a driver paying $ 30 a day on petrol would see their bill drop to about $ 20 using the hybrid. "A taxi driver that drives in built-up areas and spends little time on highways will notice a higher fuel saving," he said. "Low speeds allow the electric motors to be used more and the petrol engine used less."

While some people are skeptical about how reliable hybrids are, Terrence said he had never run out of power. His Camry cost about $ 34,000 and so after five years, it's nearly paid for itself. "For cab drivers, it's a real advantage because of the cost-effectiveness," he said. Terrence has no complaints about the car. "I love it, the calm and quietness of it, the simplicity of it—you just jump in and go. The maintenance（保养）is really low. But the only difficulty is finding someone to service the car as there are not many experienced mechanics（机修工）."

Terrence said it's "extraordinary" that more drivers aren't buying more hybrid electric vehicles and that governments are not encouraging this more. "I think people have a view that you have to plug it in, which is not true. A lack of information about the cars may be stopping people from taking the plunge. It's not promoted at all for the public to understand—it's simplifying the actual owning of a car—you don't have to do so many things to own it and run it, it's just so much simpler. Why wouldn't the government promote such a thing?"

I love hiking. In the mountains, the birds sing for me; the various trees and flowers overwhelm (征服) my eyes and the deep blue of the sky inspires me and makes me feel calm. Furthermore, I can breathe the fresh air, keeping away from the dust and pollution of the city. It seems that all my senses are awakened when I am in the mountains. More importantly, hiking teaches me a lot.

I have been a traveler since childhood and was drawn towards mountains and their beauty. Later my reading several travel books made me think if I could also go on such journeys. Finally, I decided to give it a try. After I was well-prepared to face all difficulties of the hike, I joined a group of hikers. On the way, we encouraged each other, took beautiful pictures, and sat down now and then to feel the breath of the land. All my worries disappeared and we talked and laughed just like kids. This journey excited me for a long time.

I never actually realized the need for water until I started hiking. I remember once I was on a hike where our water was not enough. It was a night hike and the next day we had to return back to our base camp following the same route. So we have to save it for emergencies (紧急事件).That day I exactly learned water is of great value and that we have a duty to save it.

Besides enjoying the beautiful natural views, you have to go out of your comfort zone and push yourself hard to challenge your normal limits when hiking. On a hike, you may sometimes get injured but you can't stop until you reach the destination. Every next try will surely make you stronger and happier if you embrace (拥抱) your injuries, pains and discomforts.

Sometimes we may have a conversation with those locals living in wooden houses. You know, mountain life is hard and difficult. But they never complain about their life. They are happy with what they have. Many times they are facing extreme weather and they just fight with them. They are so brave. What can we complain about?