The Verizon Innovative App Challenge gives kids a chance to create apps that can solve problems in their community.

    Do you want to make a difference in your community? The Verizon Innovative App Challenge can get you started. The first step is to think of a problem in your community. The next step is to create an app that can solve the problem.

    Groups of five to seven students in middle school or high school, led by a teacher, can enter the contest. First, teams compete on a local level. Teams that make it to the next round receive $5,000 for their schools. Finalists present their app ideas to judges in a live webinar (网络研讨会)．

    Next, the judges pick national winners. The top eight teams receive an additional $15,000 for their schools, and each team member receives a Samsung tablet. Plus, the winning teams get the chance to bring their app to life.

    A group of six girls from Los Fresnos, Texas, won the second annual Verizon Innovative App Challenge. They came up with the Hello Navi app concept, short for “hello navigation”. The app was designed to help visually­impaired (视力受损的) students navigate their school by using an internal compass and voice­over technology. Read more about the team in September 19, 2016 issue of TIME For Kids: Edition 3－4.

    Do you have an app idea that could help solve a local issue? The deadline to register is November 24, 2016. Find more information and register your team at www. verizonfoundation. org/appchallenge.

    Here are some tips from the Verizon Foundation to get you started：

•Get your team together for a brainstorming meeting. Write out all the ideas that come to mind.

• Don't ignore challenges. Think of the problems that exist in your community.

•Ask family, friends, and people in your community to share their thoughts about problems that they want to see solved.

Movie

Pete's Dragon

    Pete, played by Oakes Fegley, ventured into the water with his dragon pal, Elliot, in the new movie Pete's Dragon. The film brought an animated dragon, Elliot, and his human best friend, Pete, together. Shooing it took a lot of imagination for Oakes Fegley, the 11-year-old actor who played Pete, and Oona Laurence, the 13-year-old actress who played Natalie. She discovered Pete and Elliot in the woods.

    Kubo's Great Quest(寻找)

    The movie was about a young boy named Kubo, who live with his mother in a quite village in ancient Japan. After accidentally calling for a vengeful spirit from the past, Kubo set off on a heroic quest to find a magical suit of armor(盔甲) once worn by his father. Along the way, he gained two animal companions, Monkey and Beetle. Their journey was filled with magic, music, and the telling of many stories.

    Ice Age: Collision Course

    When the original Ice Age film was released in 2002, an animated herd of prehistoric animals took the world by storm. Fast-forward 14 years and the fifth movie in the Ice Age franchise(获特许经营权的企业)was hitting theaters. Ice Age: Collision Course followed those same beloved mammals that moviegoers have watched grow up. This time around, it isn't global warming that threatened the herd, but a big planet that's headed toward Earth.

    Finding Dory

    In Finding Dory, the forgetful blue tang, Dory, suffered from short-term memory loss. On Dory's journey to reconnect with her mom and dad, she made some new friends.

    No one is sure how the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids near Cairo. But a new study suggests they used a little rock‘n'roll. Long-ago builders could have attached wooden pole s to the stones and rolled then across the sand, the scientists say.

     “Technically, I think what they're proposing is possible,” physicist Daniel Bonn said.

    People have long puzzled over how the Egyptians moved such huge rocks. And there's no obvious answer. On average, each of the two million big stones weighed about as much as a large pickup truck. The Egyptians somehow moved the stone blocks to the pyramid site from about one kilometer away.

    The most popular view is that Egyptian workers slid the blocks along smooth paths. Many scientists suspect workers first would have put the blocks on sleds(滑板). Then they would have dragged them along paths. To make the work easier, workers may have lubricated the paths either with wet clay or with the fat from cattle. Bonn has now tested this idea by building small sleds and dragging heavy objects over sand.

    Evidence from the sand supports this idea. Researchers found small amounts of fat, as well as a large amount of stone and the remains of paths.

    However, physicist Joseph West thinks there might have been a simpler way , who led the new study . West said , “I was inspired while watching a television program showing how sleds might have helped with pyramid construction . I thought , ‘Why don't they just try rolling the things?'“A square could be turned into a rough sort of wheel by attaching wooden poles to its sides , he realized . That , he notes , should make a block of stone” a lot easier to roll than a square”.

    So he tried it.

    He and his students tied some poles to each of four sides of a 30-kilogram stone block. That action turned the block into somewhat a wheel. Then they placed the block on the ground.

    They wrapped one end of a rope around the block and pulled. The researchers found they could easily roll the block along different kinds of paths. They calculated that rolling the block required about as much force as moving it along a slippery(滑的)path.

    West hasn't tested his idea on larger blocks, but he thinks rolling has clear advantages over sliding. At least, workers wouldn't have needed to carry cattle fat or water to smooth the paths.

    The Humane Society of Utah,a non-profit organization,is the largest shelter in the state because it takes every animal that can be lawfully accepted.The shelter employed photographer Guinevere Shuster,from New York,who came up with a creative way to find new homes for the dogs.She took lively photos for them.

The 31-year-old created sets of four pictures showing the playful and serious sides of each animal.Guinevere Shuster tried her best to show these dogs the way they'd really look if you allowed them into your life.She said,"I'm always trying to imagine better ways to make the poor animals attractive to the public.The photos show their great personalities and are a much better way than presenting them as the sad dogs waiting to be taken home.I'm lucky because I get to connect the two things I love most,animals and photography."

Guinevere says she finds it easy to work with dogs.She said,"It's just me and the dog in the office so they can pay their attention to the photo-taking.I use a lot of treats and some funny noises I've learned to get the dogs' attention. A fun method is to throw treats at the dogs-it's useful for getting unusual looks from them."

    Since starting the project,a number of dogs have been taken home by dog lovers after they saw Guinevere's pictures on the Humane Society of Utah's Facebook page.In the last three years,she has photographed more than 4,000 animals.This year,the shelter has placed nearly 9,000 homeless pets into their permanent homes.

    When I was a boy there were no smart phones, and our television only got one channel clearly. Still, I never felt bored. The fields, hills and woodlands around my home were the perfect playground whose adventures were only limited by my imagination. I can remember once hiking to nearby lake and walking slowly around it. At the back of it I was amazed to find an old dirt road that I had never seen before. It was full of muddy type tracks and deep woods bordered it on both sides, but exploring it still seemed like a fine adventure.

    I walked on and on for what seemed like hours. I was sure my guardian angel was whispering in my ears "turn around and head back home", but I was stubborn and walked on. There was still neither a car nor a house in sight I noticed that the sun was starting to go down and I grew scared I didn't want to end up trapped on this road, and I was worried that it would be dark before I could make my way back to the lake again.

    I continued to walk on with something growing inside of me. My heart was pounding and my legs were aching. I was almost in tears when I saw something in the distance. It was a house that I recognized. I jumped up and down and laughed out loud. It was still over a mile away, but my legs felt like feathers and I hurried back to my house in no time. I walked in with a big smile on my face just in time for dinner. Then I ended my adventure with a good night's sleep.

    I often thought of that experience recently. Actually, in our life, all roads, no matter how they twist and turn, can lead us home again. They can lead us to our homes in our hearts. May you always walk your path with love! May you always help your fellow travelers along the way! And may your roads always lead you home again!

    When I first married my wife, I lived and worked in Ontario, moving from small town to big city as I pursued my career as a radio broadcaster. We have two sons, both of whom were born in Toronto and moved with us to Ottawa. They went to school, grew up there, and then pursuing their own careers, they also moved. One went to Canada's east coast near a city called Halifax and the other headed to the west coast Vancouver. We had a dilemma; we were left in the middle.

    The problem wasn't pressing at the time because I was still working and my job was in Ottawa. However, as we began to considering retirement we wondered where we should spend our final years. We couldn't be close to both of our children and there was no telling when they might again relocate. For several reasons, we settled on a small town on Vancouver Island. At least we were close to one of them. However, he had his sights set on Hollywood and, when an opportunity presented itself, he left Canada and headed south. So, there we were, and still are, in our little west coast town. We love our little corner of paradise (乐园）but we paid a price. We have not been there for some important events such as the births of two of our grandchildren. We have missed watching them grow up, backyard barbecues, and the normal, noisy households. Our home, while comfortable, is also very quiet.

    Every fall we travel to see the children and try to spend a week or more with them and we make the even longer trip to see our grandchildren, who are now teenagers, actually into their twenties. They seldom come to visit us. The distances are just too great and it is costly.

    Fortunately, both our boys are doing well and our grandchildren are growing straight and tall. We love all of them and they love us but the reality is that they don't need us. We have done our jobs and at least in theory，we can sit back, relax and enjoy the time remaining to us. In fact, we're happy but there were times I think about the things we didn't see. They have also missed having a set of parents and grandparents around.

    Life has been good for our family but we have paid a price.