In 1869, the Smiley family purchased an area of land about 100 miles north of New York City. Over time, some of their property and much of the surrounding landscape became the Mohonk Preserve, which has since grown to 8,000 acres and attracts visitors and rock climbers.

    But the Mohonk Preserve also has a long scientific legacy. In the 1930s, Dan Smiley, a descendent of the original owners, began keeping track of the plants and animals that lived in the area.

    Megan Napoli is a research ecologist with the Mohonk Preserve in New York. She thinks Smiley's efforts produced a rare long-term data set of observations, which is useful for studying the impacts of climate change. For instance, other research has shown that songbirds are migrating north earlier and earlier in the spring.

    It's important for the birds to arrive at the proper time in the spring, because they need to time their arrival with the insect emergence. So they need to be here to establish their nesting sites, lay their eggs. Once the eggs hatch, they have their baby birds, so they need to time it when the insects are most abundant.

    Napoli has begun analyzing about 76,000 observations of songbird migration dates collected by Smiley and his team to see if they, too, show that climate change has altered the timing of migrations. Her results suggest that they do.

    Napoli found that short-distance migrants that spend their winters in the southern U. S. now arrive an average of eleven days earlier than they did in the 1930s. Long-distance migrants that overwinter in the tropics arrive roughly a week earlier. Napoli presented her results at a recent Ecological Society of America meeting in Portland, Oregon.

    Meanwhile, who knows how many other long-term, personal data collections like Smiley's are out there, waiting to be discovered and to help improve official attempts to track the planet's changes.

    My folks bought their first house in the early 1940s after Dad got a better job in Marquette, Michigan. We lived just inside the city limits in what was still a rural area.

    In the spring of 1948, when I was 6 years old, my parents bought a calf（小牛）to replace our cow, which had been killed the year before. So one day we drove to a local farm and returned with a white and brown calf we named Tubby.

    We didn't own a truck, so Tubby rode home in the backseat of Dad's car with my 9-year-old brother, Steve, and me. As you can imagine, the trip was a lot of fun for us kids.

    Later that summer, Mom thought it would be cute to take a picture of me sitting on Tubby's back. All went well until the snap of the camera shutter sent Tubby charging off on a run, with me holding on for dear life.

    I lasted for about 30 feet before I hit the ground. Mom was quick enough to shoot a follow-up picture, so we had photos of me both on and off Tubby!

    When summer had passed, the day arrived for poor Tubby to fill our freezer. I must have been somewhere else with my Mom on the fateful day, because I have no memory of how it happened. All I knew was that the barn was empty, and that we had plenty of meat for dinners.

    I hadn't lived on a farm like my mother, so I didn't understand that what happened to Tubby was not unusual. Livestock aren't meant to be pets, and most farm kids know and accept that truth.

    Whenever we had beef for dinner, I would tearfully, “Is this Tubby?” This went on for a couple of weeks until Dad had finally had enough and declared, “No more cows!” That made me feel a little better about poor Tubby.

    A Language Programme for Teenagers

    Welcome to Teenagers Abroad! We invite you to join us on an amazing journey of language learning.

    Our Courses

    Regardless of your choice of course, you'll develop your language ability both quickly and effectively.

    Our Standard Course guarantees a significant increase in your confidence in a foreign language, with focused teaching in all 4 skill areas — speaking, listening, reading and writing.

    Our Intensive Course builds on our Standard Course, with 10 additional lessons per week, guaranteeing the fastest possible language learning(see table below).

    Evaluation

    Students are placed into classes according to their current language skills. The majority of them take an online language test before starting their programme. However, if this is not available, students sit the exam on the first Monday of their course.

    Learning materials are provided to students throughout their course, and there will never be more than 15 participants in each class.

Arrivals and Transfer

    Our programme offers the full package — students are taken good care of from the start through to the very end. They are collected from the airport upon arrival and brought to their accommodation in comfort. We require the student's full flight details at least 4 weeks in advance.

    Meals/Allergies(过敏)/Special Dietary Requirements

    Students are provided with breakfast, dinner and either a cooked or packed lunch (which consists of a sandwich, a drink and a dessert). Snacks outside of mealtimes may be purchased by the student individually.

    We ask that you let us know of any allergies or dietary requirements as well as information about any medicines you take. Depending on the type of allergies and/or dietary requirements, an extra charge may be made for providing special food.

    What's it like to become a music star with millions of fans? These young artists know the feeling. Over the course of their short careers, they have attracted the attention of the biggest stars in the world and taken home prizes from major shows. For now they're just kids that everyone in music is watching. Check out the next generation of stars below.

    FIFTH HARMONY

    The 1990s was a brilliant period for girl groups. But after that few groups have been able to make much of an influence. This doesn't seem to bother Fifth Harmony, who landed the biggest hit of their career in 2016 with "Work from Home", a pop song that encourages everyone to ask for leave more often. When it climbed to No.4 on the Billboard Hot100, it was the first time that a girl group had entered the top 5 in the past ten years.

    LORDE

    It's been four years since the release of Born Heroine — the hot selling CD that made her a 16-year-old global sensation and the spokeswoman for a new generation of smart, strong-minded, creative female pop artists. She contributed to The Hunger Games soundtrack (插曲) in 2014, and for this time setting foot in Hollywood production also brought her more opportunities in her following career.

    TROYE SIVAN

    You might recognize the rising star Troye Sivan from YouTube, where he's been uploading videos since he was 12 and his channel already has millions of fans, or from the movies, where he played the role of young Wolverine in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

    Liana nervously bit her nails while she waited for the exam to arrive. She looked around the room; hundreds of other law students sat in rows staring anxiously at the tables in front of them. Just as she began to take a deep breath to calm her anxiety, an exam booklet(册子) was placed in front of her. This was the moment she had been expecting ever since she began law school three years ago. She picked up her pencil, and opened to the first page of the bar exam, a test for all students wanting to become licensed lawyers.

    Liana never thought she would want to become a lawyer. Her parents were both artists. Law was something she had not been exposed to as a child. But art made for a tumultuous career—both of her parents had struggled to find jobs and worked round the clock when they were young. Even though they finally seemed successful and happy, Liana wanted something different.

    She was the anchor on her high school debate team, and consistently impressed her competitors with her analytical thinking. "Never argue with Ms. Lakes," her teachers would say. So she chose to major in law. In her mind, she pictured herself in a New York City courtroom(法庭) dressed in an expensive suit, with papers in her hand, waving at the jury(陪审团) in a speech on human rights.

    But now, with the bar exam sitting in front of her, she started to worry. "What if I don't pass? Did I study enough?" Her thoughts raced through her mind. On the first page were seven paragraphs detailing a law situation followed by a series of questions. Liana read through the paragraphs, and quickly scribbled down an explanation of the first question before moving onto the next question. The next few hours went like this as the clock ticked closer and closer to the lunch hour.

    At 12:00 p.m. sharp, a buzzer(蜂鸣器) sounded and everyone was told to put down their pencils and walked out for an hour-long lunch break. At lunch, Liana met her friend, Kevin.

    "How did it go?" she asked. "To be honest, I've no idea. I just kept writing." Kevin said. Liana laughed and said she felt the same way.

    After lunch, the two exchanged words of encouragement. They strolled back into the exam center a bit more refreshed. Liana finished the second half of the exam that day with a better feeling than what she started with in the morning.

Should you find yourself in possession of an additional sum of $100, how might you employ this financial increment to cultivate an atmosphere of benevolence within your local society? If you possess an imaginative reply to this inquiry, peruse our Frequently Asked Questions below and put forth your application for our recurring competition.

What is the nature of this initiative? Kindness-In-Action is a program dedicated to facilitating the realization of benevolent concepts. Individuals from across the globe proffer their proposals on the actions they would undertake if bestowed with an extra $100, and KindSpring designates a victor on a monthly basis.

What is the operational mechanism?Initially, you are to proffer your concept; upon its selection, you will be contacted by one of our volunteer adjudicators to coordinate a telephonic or Skype conversation. Subsequently, we will dispatch a check to you, and you will be granted a month to actualize your concept within your community. Following the implementation, you are to convey your narrative and photographic documentation to the KindSpring community. Moreover, your endeavor will be highlighted in our monthly bulletin, which has a readership extending to over 100 thousand individuals across 150 nations, thereby enabling the propagation of the concept and the amplification of its compassionate influence.

What are the evaluative standards for selection? The criteria for selection encompass your intrinsic motivation, the innovative utilization of Smile Cards, the prospective cascading impact within the local society, and the endorsements from the KindSpring community—current members are entitled to log in and cast their votes. Fundamentally, our objective is to incite modest acts of kindness, not grand gestures.

What was the genesis of this endeavor?In the month of May, we received an unforeseen contribution. In the spirit of sharing the elation, we posted a succinct announcement within our virtual community soliciting ideas. Within a fortnight, we received more than 50 submissions, and numerous individuals assisted us in the appraisal process by bestowing "smiles". On the first of July, we proclaimed our inaugural winner and pledged to perpetuate this initiative. The ongoing purpose of this venture is to: inspire inventive acts of kindness within local societies, to empower individuals to exercise munificence, to exemplify a trust-based philanthropic approach, and to disseminate beneficial concepts.Click Here to Apply. Or join our community and help us select the next winner.