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    Do you have brown hair? Are you taller than other kids your age? These characteristics were decided before you were born. You got your traits from your parents. They passed their traits on to you through genes (基因).

    Genes carry codes (代码) for blue eyes or brown eyes. Genes say how tall you will get and what color hair you will have. You got half of your genes from your mother. You got half of your genes from your father. So you have your own set of genes. Each person gets different genes for each body part. That is why you look like but not exactly like your brother or sister.

    A dominant (显性的)  gene shows up most of the time. Brown eyes are dominant over bluc eyes. A recessive (降性的)  gene shows up less often. Light hair comes from a recessive gene. Dark hair is more common. Look at the eye color and hair color of the people around you. You will see that this is true.

    Genes help to make you who you are. But they don't tell the whole story. Your genes may help you to be fast and strong. But you still need to learn how to run or swim or skate well.

    “Without music, life would be a mistake,” famous German philosopher(哲学家) Friendrich Nietzsche said over a century ago. Music is a big part of our lives. But in recent years, some US schools have cut music classes to control budgets(预算).

    For example, Chicago public schools hurt arts education when it fired(解雇)over 1,000 teachers. Among them, 10 percent of the teachers taught art or music, according to The Washington Times. In fact, this is not just a problem in the US. In other countries, such as China and the UK, music classes are not thought to be as important as ones like science, math and history. That's partly because music is not seen as a very important life skill, and it isn't tested. Many students are busy with schoolwork, so parents and students choose to focus on subjects that are tested more often.

    However, learning music is beneficial(有益的)in many ways.

    When playing music, you need different abilities to work together. It is not as simple as it looks, according to Kenneth Guilmartin of Music Together, an early childhood music development program. For example, when playing the piano, people see music notes and decode(解码)them in their brains. They also use their fingers to make sounds. You need to deal with all these things at the same time.

    Music has a special connection with science as well. You can see that many scientists are good at playing music: Einstein played the violin, and German physicist Max Planck was talented in playing the piano.

    Each year more than2,500 people die and 12,600 are injured in home fires just in the UnitedStates, with direct property(财产) lossbecause of home fires at about $7.3 billion every year. Every day Americansexperience tile horror(惨状) of fires, but most people don'tunderstand fires.

    To protect yourself, itis important to learn something about home fires.

    In less than 30 secondsa small flame can get completely out of control and turn into a major fire. Itonly takes minutes for thick black smoke to fill a house or for it to be inflames. Most deadly fires occur in the home when people are asleep, lf yourealize a fire, you won't have time to take valuables because the fire spreadstoo quickly and the smoke is too thick. The fire uses up the oxygen you needand produces smoke and poisonous(有毒的) gases that kill. Breathing even small amounts of smoke and toxicgases can make you tired and sleepy, and short of breath. The smoke can causeyou to be a deep sleeper before the flames reach your door. You may not wake upin time to escape.

    Room temperatures in afire can be 100 degrees at floor level and rise to 600 degrees at eye level.Breathing in this super-hot air will burn your lungs. It can melt clothes toyour skin. In five minutes, a mom can get so hot that everything in it startsto burn at once.

    Fires are bright atfirst, but quickly produce black smoke and complete darkness. If you wake up toa fire you may be blinded, confused about where you are or which direction you shouldgo in and unable to find your way around the home you've lived in for years.

    Only when we know thetrue nature of fires can we prepare our families and ourselves.

    When throwing away rubbish, do you know which Bin it should go in? Have you ever noticed the differently-colored Bins on the street?

    Some of you might not be able to answer this question. However, it's actually quite important to know how to sort your waste. Not knowing how to sort waste can make it harder to save energy and protect the environment.

    If you don't sort your waste, all of it will go to a landfill and Be Buried(埋) together. These landfills can take up large areas of ground that could have Been used for planting trees or Crops. The electronic waste you throw away, such as Batteries, Can pollute the soil and groundwater. Other pieces of waste, like the metal part of a pen, can be used to make other things if they are properly recycled.

    With this in mind, many Cities in China have Been running waste-sorting Campaigns (活动)in recent years. For example, Shanghai announced in July that within three years, all of its residents(居民)should sort their waste into four groups wet, recyclable, harmful and dry.

   "Wet" waste is also known as household waste." They are things you don't want but that pigs can eat," Guangzhou Daily explained. Paper, metal, glass and other things that Can Be reused are recyclable waste.

    Harmful waste includes things like medicine, Batteries and fluorescent Bulbs. Finally, any waste that's not wet, recyclable or harmful will go in the" dry waste" bin.

    Many other Chinese Cities, including Shenzhen, plan to use this method to sort their garbage. Now that you know this, perhaps you can do your part to protect the environment and encourage others to sort their waste.

    Every day there is less and less space on Earth for rubbish. Yet every day we make more and more rubbish. What can we do? We can recycle some of our rubbish. Recycling means that the rubbish will be made into something that can be used again.

    Recycling helps Earth. And it saves space in rubbish dumps. Half of everything that we put into landfills could be recycled instead. In fact, most things made of paper, metal, glass and plastic can be recycled.

    Paper can be broken into small pieces and made into new paper. Steel and aluminum cans(金属雄)can be melted down(熔化)and made into new cans. The same is true of glass bottles. This can be done over and over again. Recycling doesn't take as much energy as making these things the first time. So we can use less of Earth's fuel resources.

    Plastic can be melted down, too. Then it can be formed into park benches, playgrounds and so on. Some people call plastic the "wood" of the future. Things made of plastic will last about 400 years-even if they stay outside in the weather. No wood can do that!