Volunteer Opportunities Abroad

    For those looking to break into the competitive world of journalism (新闻工作), this is for you! You will be working at “The Village”, an English and Romanian language magazine. As a writer you will work on special tasks, reporting local events with guidance from the editor. You will be interviewing local people, writing reports, and taking photographs. You will also have the chance to live with a local host family to experience their culture.

    Volunteers joining our project (项目) in Cambodia will travel to the island of Koh Sdach. You will become part of this tiny island, learn to dive (潜水), and take part in valuable social projects.

    During your stay you will complete a course to learn to dive. After that you will take part in dives to clean up rubbish under the sea and collect information on rare fish. During the two weeks you may also have the chance to join in a village fun day where volunteers play games with the village children.

    On this project you will spend two weeks living with a host family and coaching soccer in friendly West Africa! You will spend your two weeks in Accra helping local children develop their soccer skills. You will develop their skills and confidence while having fun playing soccer at the same time.

    Teachers' Day around the world is not celebrated on the same day. In some countries, Teachers' Day is celebrated on working days. However, in other countries, it is celebrated on holidays.

    Here we are giving you a list of countries that celebrate Teachers' Day on holidays.

China

    The Teachers' Day was proposed(提议) at National Central University in 1931. It was adopted(被采纳) by the central government of Republic of China in 1932. In 1939, the day was set on August 27th, Confucius's birthday. People's Republic of China government called it off in 1951. It was reestablished in 1985, and the day was changed to September 10th. Now more and more people are trying to celebrate the Teachers' Day back to Confucius's birthday.

India

    In India, Teachers' Day is celebrated on September 5th, in honor of Dr Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, the second President of India. Because his birthday was September 5th. At schools on this day, students in India celebrate this day to show their respect and love to their teachers.

Russia

    In Russia Teachers' Day is on October 5th. Before 1994, this day was set on the first Sunday of September.

USA

    In the United States, Teachers' Day is a holiday on the Tuesday of the first full week of May.

Thailand

    January 16th was adopted as Teachers' Day in the Thailand by a resolution(决议) of the government on November 21, 1956. The first Teachers' Day was held in 1957.

Iran

    In Iran, Teachers' Day is celebrated on May 2nd every year. It is in honor of the famous Iranian professor Ayatollah Morteza Motahhari who died on May 2, 1980.

    Although different countries celebrate Teachers' Day on different days, the activities people take to celebrate it just stay the same.

    An idea that started in Seattle's public library has spread throughout America. The concept is simple: help to build a sense of community (社区) in a city by getting everyone to read the same book at the same time.

    In addition to encouraging reading as a pursuit (追求) to be enjoyed by all, the program allows strangers to communicate by discussing the book on the bus, as well as encouraging reading as an experience to be shared in families and schools. The idea came from Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl who launched the “If All of Seattle Read the Same Book” project in 1998. Her original program used author visits, study guides and book discussion groups to bring people together with a book, but the idea has since expanded to many other American cities, and even to Hong Kong.

    In Chicago, the mayor (市长) appeared on television to announce the choice of To Kill a Mockingbird as the first book in the “One Book, One Chicago” program. As a result, reading clubs and neighborhood groups sprang up around the city. Across the US, stories emerged of parents and children reading to each other at night and strangers chatting away on the bus about plot and character.

    The only problem arose in New York, where local readers could not decide on one book to represent the huge and diverse population. This may show that the idea works best in medium-sized cities or large towns, where a greater sense of unity (一致) can be achieved. Or it may show that New Yorkers rather missed the point, putting all their energy and passion into the choice of the book rather than discussion about a book itself.

    Ultimately, as Nancy points out, the level of success is not measured by how many people read a book, but by how many people are enriched by the process, or have enjoyed speaking to someone with whom they would not otherwise have shared a word.

    A volunteering vacation can be a meaningful way to spend your time off, but to make the trip satisfying both for you and the cause you are supporting, several factors need to be considered. Here is some advice on planning the satisfactory vacation:

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} There are hundreds of causes to volunteer for, and finding one close to your heart will lead to a more worthwhile trip. Possibilities include wildlife conservation, education, environmental protection, health and nutrition. Also, consider any personal and professional skills that you can contribute. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    Choose your destination and setting. Your volunteering trip will be more enjoyable if you use it to reach a favorite destination. Southeast Asia is on your mind, helping with tree­planting programs in Bali would benefit the environment and let you appreciate the scenic island. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Is volunteering outdoors in a hot or snowy climate attractive, or do you prefer being in an air­conditioned office?

    Ask the right questions. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Be aware that most volunteering programs require a week-long stay. Ask other questions like: How many hours of work per day is required? Are there days off? Will you be working individually or as part of a team? And what are the goals of your efforts? {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Ask if the cost includes only accommodations or meals and transportation too.

A. Figure out your cause.

B. Find a well­respected organization.

C. And think about the surroundings you want.

D. Your duty there is to rest and play.

E. The more you know about your trip, the more successful it will be.

F. Despite the word “volunteer”, these vacations usually cost you some money.

G. If you're a doctor, for example, working at a health clinic could be an ideal fit.

    After photographer Monni Must's daughter Miya died, the sad mother adopted her black dog, Billy Bean. As Billy became increasingly weak, the thought of its dying was just more than Must could handle. So she decided to clone the dog. “I feared everyone was going to forget Miya," she said, "and my other daughters thought I had completely lost my mind."

    Billy's cells were shipped to ViaGen Pets, a Texas company that provides the cloning service. With more than $50,000, Must picked up a new puppy. "The dog has a real soul and is everything my daughter was—fun, social and kind," she said. "I feel that I still have that touchable connection and not just a spiritual connection.”

    Cloning animals is hardly new. But the recent news that singer Barbra Streisand had cloned her dog grabbed international headlines. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals(PETA) president Ingrid Newkirk issued a statement saying she would love to talk her out of cloning, noting that millions of wonderful dogs are getting old in animal shelters every year or dying in terrifying ways when abandoned.

    Normally, a doctor takes a tissue biopsy(组织活检), a piece of skin and muscle about the size of a pencil eraser, from the dog. The next step is to take an egg cell from a donor dog, remove the egg's nucleus, and insert DNA from the pet to be cloned. When an embryo(胚胎)develops, it is transplanted in the body of a mother dog.

    In the basic cloning procedure, scientists take an entire adult cell and put it into an egg that's been relieved of its own DNA. The resulting embryo is a clone. However, in many animals, only one in 100 cloned embryos ever leads to a live birth. Some embryos die in the IVF dish or in the mothers bodies. Of those that are born, a few suffer from abnormalities and quickly die. Besides, pet cloning doesn't mean copying everything of your beloved pets.

    Chocolate could soon be a thing of the past, after scientists warned that the cacao plant, from which chocolate is made, could be extinct within 32 years.

    Over half of the world's chocolate comes from just two countries in West Africa­Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana­where the temperature, rain, and humidity provide the perfect conditions for cacao to grow. But the threat of rising temperatures over the next three decades caused by climate change, is expected to result in a loss of water from the ground, which scientists say could upset this balance.

    According to the related data, a temperature rise of just 2.1℃ could spell an end for the chocolate industry worldwide by 2050. Farmers in the region are already considering moving cacao production areas thousands of feet uphill into mountainous area­much of which is currently preserved for wildlife. But a move of this scale could destroy ecosystems that are already under threat from illegal farming and deforestation.

    Part of the problem, according to Doug Hawkins, is that cacao farming methods have not changed for hundreds of years. "Unlike other tree crops that have benefited from the development of modern, high yielding strains and crop management techniques to realize their genetic potential, more than 90% of the global cocoa crop is produced by small farms with unimproved planting material," he said. "It means that we could be facing a chocolate decrease of 100,000 tons a year in the next few years."

    Now scientists at the University of California at Berkeley have teamed up with American candy company Mars to keep chocolate on the menu. Using the controversial(有争议的) gene-editing technology known as CRISPR they are trying to develop a type of the cacao plant capable of surviving in dryer, warmer climates. If the team's work on the cacao plant is successful, it could remove the need for farmers in West Africa to relocate to higher ground, and perhaps even allow cacao to be grown elsewhere in the world.