We need animals. Every animal has its place in the balance(平衡) of nature. We should try to help save the animals.

    Some people think zoos are good places. The zoos give the animals the comfortable and safe living places. If the animals get hurt or ill, people will take care of them. The zoo is a good place to know the rules in the wild world. We can be much closer to nature. We can know more about the animals in the zoos by watching, listening even smelling instead of just looking at the pictures in books.

    Some people don't think animals feel happy in the zoos. Animals like pandas, wolves and bears usually live in the wild. They play and find food by themselves. They are free and happy in the wild. If they are in the zoos, food is enough and rooms are comfortable. They do not need to do their best to find food to eat or places to stay in. They just walk around, sleep day and night, but they are not free at all.

    I think we should build national parks as wild life nature reserves to protect animals. If we do nothing, animals will get fewer and fewer.

    Do you know that a student can produce up to 240 pounds of school waste and lots of waste gas (气体) during a term? This includes transportation, food, paper, pens, pencils and so on.

    Transportation    Some parents drive their kids to school every day. We all know waste gas from cars is a main cause air pollution. If parents who live in a neighborhood can take turns to drive their kids to school each day, that'll be better. Another way of going green is to walk to school if students live near their schools.

    Food    It's surprising that only one elementary school can produce up to 19,000 pounds of lunch waste each year. That's only one school. One way to help take care of the environment is to stop using plastic bags. There are all kinds of environmental boxes for students to put their food in.

    Paper, pens and pencils Lots of paper is thrown away by American students. They throw away about 1.6 billion pens every year. They waste many pens and chemicals (化学药品) in them are bad for the environment. Many more pencils are thrown away than pens. Pencils are made from trees, so if more pencils are thrown away, more trees will be cut down. So students should reuse (再使用) paper, pens and pencils instead of throwing them away.

    Backpacks As fashion comes and goes, almost every kid needs a new backpack every year. They can save lots of money and materials if they reuse the same schoolbags each year.

Tips for Writing Better Articles

    Many of us don't spend a lot of time improving our writing skills. This can be a problem when we hand in our articles. Good writing skills will help us improve our grades and benefit us later in life. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}.

    Make good word choices. When we're not sure which word is the right one for a sentence, look it up in a dictionary. Many of us choose words in a hurry and don't take the time to decided if they're proper. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}.

    Check facts. If we want people to believe what we write, we must make sure our facts are true. We should use dependable facts.

    Rewrite. A common problem is that we don't like to rewrite. In fact rewriting is the best way to find out and correct some mistakes, like grammar and spelling mistakes. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}, though it takes more time and more work.

    Read aloud. Sometimes it's easier to find problem with spelling, word usage, and grammar when we read aloud. Reading aloud help us not only find out our problems but also develop our writing.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. Preparing a list is necessary for writing a good article. Such a list includes:

Is there a proper title? Have we explained every point? Are all the parts of the article included? This can help us to make sure that we have covered everything.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. But with a few simple steps, we can improve our writing skills and learn how to write better articles.

    Fun or kind? Old or young? Let's see what these students say about their favourite teachers?

Zhao Dan

    My favorite teachers are learned(博学)teachers because they can make their lessons easy and interesting. And in class, after learning what is in the book, we hope to learn more.

Wang Jianing

    My geography teacher Mr. Todd is kind to students. His class is interesting. All of the students want to learn and do their homework.

Wang Peng

    We boys and girls often have questions. We really want to talk about these questions with teachers and make friends with them. I don't like old teachers because they can't understand(理解)us!

Lu Hongfei

    Ms. Li is my English teacher. She always wears purple clothes. It is her favorite color. She often teaches us to sing English songs.

It's early in the morningand the alarm clock has already rung several time. You have to pull yourselfout of bed and rush to school because you're afraid of being late for school.

As a school student, this is probably a commonexperience for you. But thanks to new rules, students in Zhejiang andHeilongjiang provinces can now stay in bed longer than before.

On Feb 23, the Zhejiang Department of Educationannounced (宣布) a new rule that asksprimary schools to start school later. According to the rule, start times couldbe different among different grades, with students in Grade 1 and 2 starting noearlier than 8:30 am.

A similar guideline (指导方针) was announced by the education department in HeilongjiangProvince on Feb 24. Students from all primary and junior high schools in theprovince have been required (要求) to arrive at school noearlier than 8 am.

According to a 2016 study by the ZhejiangDepartment of Education, half students in Grade 4 slept nine hours or more anight, while the enough sleep time for primary students in 10 hours.

"I welcome the new rule so much. It is sucha wonderful rule that gives my son enough time for breakfast, which isnecessary for his health and growth", a mother named Xu Li said. She isfrom Hangzhou and his son is in Grade 1. These changes have received muchpraise as they make students get enough sleep and enough time for breakfast.

Pushing back school times isn't unique (唯一的) to China. In the United States, schools in at least 21 statesbegan to start school later in 2017, as studies have shown that later schoolstart times could be good for students' development.