According to a new survey, students' safety has become a big problem. Nearly 50% of students say they are worried about robbery on the way to and from school. Now in main big cities in China, some schools have taught an unusual lesson: self-protection. Students like this lesson because there are no exams or boring classes. And they can learn how to save lives and know how to stop danger before it really happens.

      Chen Haoyu, a teacher at Beijing No. 25 Middle School, gives young students advice on how to deal with danger.

★If you are robbed

     Keep calm. lf you can not cry for help or run away. Give the robber your money. Try to remember what the robber looks like and tell the police later.

★If you are in a traffic accident

     If a car hits you. You should remember the car number. If it is a bicycle, try to call your parents before you let the rider go. This is because you don't know how seriously you are hurt

★If it is raining hard and there is lighting

    Don't stay in high places and stay away from trees.

★When there is a fire

    Get away as fast as yon can. Put wet things on your body and try to find an exit. Do not take the lift.

★If someone is drowning

     If you can't swim, don't get into the water. Cry out for help.

      Remember that danger is never as far away as you think. Take care of yourself at all time!

    "Life is speeding up. Everyone is getting unwell." This may sound like something someone would say today. But in fact, an unknown person who lived in Rome in AD 53 wrote it. 

We all love new inventions. They are exciting, amazing and can even change our lives. But have all these developments really improved the quality of our lives?

    Picture this, you're rushing to finish your homework on the computer. Your mobile phone rings, a QQ message from your friend appears on the screen, the noise from the television is getting louder and louder. Suddenly the computer goes blank and you lose all your work. Now you have to stay up all night to get it done. How happy do you feel?

Inventions have speeded up our lives so much that they often leave up feeling stressed and tired. Why do you think people who live far away from noisy cities, who have no telephones, no car, not even any electricity often seem to be happier? Perhaps because they live a simpler live.

     One family in the UK went "back in time" to see what life was like without all the inventions we have today. The grandparents, with their daughter, and grandsons Benjamin, 10 and Thomas, 7, spent nine weeks in a 1940s house. They had no washing machine, microwave, computer or mobile phones. The grandmother, Lyn, said, "The more things you have, the more difficult life becomes." The boys said they fought less. Probably, they said, because there was less to fight over, such as their computer. Benjamin also noticed that his grandmother had changed from being a "trendy, beer-drinking granny, to one who cooked things"   

    We are lucky to live in a rich country where we have many things. However, most of us usually1 some things.

    Electricity(电) is one thing that we waste 2. Lights, TVs, 3 and other things are often kept on even when no one is using them. We should turn them off when we do not need them. It 4 less than a second to do it. Anyway, not wasting electricity saves money, because we do not have to 5 the electricity we do not use.

    The second thing that we often waste is water. Fresh water is precious(宝贵的) ， 6it shouldn't be wasted. It is only a simple matter of turning off a tap. I am sure 7 can do this easily if he wants to.

    8 big waste is food. My mother 9cook so much food that much of it was thrown away. I told her we had wasted so 10 food. She thought I was right and now cooks 11 what we can eat.

    It is not 12   to waste anything. I find there is a simple 13of not wasting things. That is to use only what we 14. Do not touch what we do not need. 15 this way we can stop being wasteful.

    Is there intelligent（有智力的） life on other planets? For years, scientists said "no" or "we don't know". But today this is changing. Seth Shostak and Alexandra Barnett are astronomers（天文学家）. They believe intelligent life exists（存在） somewhere in the universe. They also think we will soon contact these beings（人生物）.

    Why do Shostak and Barnett think intelligent life exists on other planets? The first reason is time. Scientists believe the universe is about 12 billion years old." This is long enough for other planets to have intelligent life," say Shostak and Barnett. The second reason is size-the universe is huge." Tools like the Hubble Telescope（哈勃望远镜） have shown that there are at least 100 billion galaxies," says Shostak. "And our galaxy, the Milky Way, has at least 100 billion stars.

    Some planets going around these stars might be similar to the Earth."

    In the past, it was hard to look for signs of intelligent life in the universe. But now, powerful telescopes（高倍望远镜） allow scientists to discover smaller planets-the size of Mars or the Earth-in other solar systems. These planets might have intelligent life.

    Have beings from space already visited the Earth?" Probably not," says Shostak. "It's a long way away. However, intelligent beings may contact us in other ways, such as radio signals（信号）. In fact, they may be trying to communicate with us now, but we don't have the right tools to receive their messages. However, this is changing. By 2025, we could make contact with other life forms in our universe and we might help each other."

The seasons on Earth

    The Earth that we live on is moving all the time. The Earth turns around itself once every 24 hours. This gives us day and night. The Earth also travels around the Sun once every year. This gives us the four seasons. We have spring and summer when our part of the Earth leans (倾斜) towards the Sun. We have autumn and winter when our part of the Earth leans away from the Sun.

    In many places on Earth, there are four seasons in a year. But in some places there are only two seasons. For example, near the North Pole (北极) there are only winter and summer. The winter nights are long. For more than two months you can't see the Sun, even at noon. The summer days are long. For more than two months the Sun never sets, and there is no night. In the tropics (热带地区) there are also two seasons: a rainy season (wet season) and a dry season.