How does a young dog or cat get to know a new home? The animal uses its nose. Right away it smells its new places. Then it makes wider and wider circles, smelling all the time. Before long it can find its way home very well, even in the dark. It simply follows something it knows well.

    Stories happen about animals who found their way across land they had never smelled before. Take the case of Smoky, a small white cat. Smoky had some funny red hair around its right ear. One day Smoky and his owner began a long journey. They were moving from Oklahoma to Tennessee. When they were just eighteen miles from their Oklahoma home, Smoky jumped out of the car. Then he found his way back to the old house. There he wandered around outside for many days. Finally he disappeared.

    A year later Smoky meowed at the door of a house in Tennessee. A man opened the door. "Is that you, Smoky?" he said in surprise. At first he couldn't believe it. Then he saw the red hair around its right ear. It was Smoky!

    Have you seen advertisements about hair care products? The models(模特) have shining hair like jewels(宝石). But now making hair shine is no longer the task of hair care products, because hair can be made into real jewels. Believe it or not, a company called LifeGem in the US makes it possible.

    The company is in the business of taking hair from dead people and making them into diamonds(钻石). Now the company plans to make three diamonds using Beethoven's hair to show their latest technology. The work will take about 7 months. In the end, Beethoven's long hair will become three shining diamonds.

    Since the great musician died in 1827, you may wonder where they got Beethoven's hair. A man called John Reznikoff gave the hair to the company. He holds the Guinness World Record for the latest and most valuable collection of celebrity(名人) hair. His collection also includes hair of Napoleon, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. In total, the collection is worth over five million dollars.

    Though it sounds unbelievable, diamonds made with hair are for the families to remember the dead.

    In the most southern part of our planet, there's a place that's covered with snow and ice all year round. But it has the clearest and cleanest air. Amazingly, in this place, the sun sometimes hangs even in the midnight sky. This place is Antarctica (南极洲): the coldest, windiest and harshest (恶劣的) place on the Earth.

    As the world's least-known place, Antarctica is of great interest to scientists around the world. During 30 years, China has sent many scientists to Antarctica. They mostly look at the resources under the icy land and do research about climate change and marine (海洋的) biology.

    Antarctica is a place with fantastic views. However, life there is very hard. Food is one of the biggest problems. Frozen food which can be heated easily is people's daily food. Fresh vegetables are hard to grow in the cold weather.

    Sleep is also difficult. In Antarctica, summer lasts from November to March. During this period, Antarctica points to the sun and receives sunlight 24 hours a day. In order to get some sleep, scientists cover the windows with black plastic cloth to create "night".

    Working in Antarctica is dangerous, especially when meeting gale-force (七级以上的) winds. They can easily blow people away. So there are ropes that connect buildings of some research stations. People can hold these ropes to keep their balance in forceful winds.

    What's morel communicating with others is difficult. Without cables and Internet in some research stations, two-way radios are the only tools to communicate. If people want to say hello to friends and relatives, they can use satellite phones.

    Although it is challenging to work in Antarctica, scientists' passion to learn about this mysterious land will never end. It is hopeful that one day they will step every corner of this icy land.

    Give your dead batteries a new life. Recycle them！

    Batteries(电池) are used to power clocks, computers, tools and more. However,

Your batteries have some serious power when their lives are over.

WHY TO RECYCLE BATTERIES

    Remember, batteries are harmful waste. This mean you could properly throw away. You may not think one little battery can cause that much pollution. But don't think of it as just one battery—there can be millions. In Canada, each person uses about 20 single-use batteries every year. That's about 700 million batteries! If all these batteries end up in landfills(垃圾填埋场), the heavy metals inside them can get into the water, land and air. It can be harmful to humans and wildlife.

    By recycling single-use batteries instead of throwing them away, you can cut down pollution and also help save energy. All batteries are mainly made of plastic and valuable metals. Through recycling programs, dead batteries can be changed into something useful like steel products, or even new batteries!

    HOW TO RECYCLE BATTERIES:

    Make a difference by starting to collect batteries at your home or school today. You can prepare a box for battery collection and invite friends, family and classmates to bring in old batteries to be recycled.

    There are many safe ways to deal with your batteries. You can:

    Find a Call 2 Recycle public collection station near you.

    Ask the store where you bought the batteries if you can return them there.

    Communicate with your local city government to find out if there are special programs for recycling used batteries!

    For more information, visit https://ecokids.ca/batteries.

    Have you noticed your life becoming a little easier? Now, when you go to a certain shopping mall, you can enjoy its free Wi-Fi there. When you want to take a taxi, you can book one with your phone. In fact, all these can be seen as the basic parts of a smart city.

    The idea of a smart city was brought up by US company IBM in 2010. Generally, a smart city is a city that uses digital technologies such as the Internet to improve city planning, save money and resources, and make our life convenient. How smart can a city be? Here are great examples that we can learn from.

    In 2009, Dubuque became the first smart city in the US. The city used smart water meters to take the place of traditional water me tens. They can detect (探测) water waste and leakage (泄漏) and send data to let the house owner know. The same system is used for other city resources like electricity and natural gas. In this way, people know how they use their resources and are glad to help reduce waste.

    Santander in Spain also gives us a look at the future. If people point a phone toward a nearby bus stop, the phone immediately shows all bus lines that serve the stop as well as their arrival times. The government organized a research team and provided an App (应用程序) that collects data on almost everything: light, temperature, and the movements of cars and people. Opening the App near a supermarket provides immediate information on special offers.