Teachers say the digital age has had a good influence and a not-so-good influence on this generation of American teenagers. More than 2,000 high school teachers took an online survey.

    75 percent of the teachers said the Internet and digital search tools have had a “mostly positive” effect on  their students' research habits and skills. But 87 percent agreed that these technologies "make the students not have enough attention.” And 64 percent said the technologies “do more to distract students than to help them academically.”Many students think “doing research” now means just doing a quick search on Google.

    Judy Buchanan is a director of the National Writing Project. Ms. Buchanan says digital research tools are helping students learn more, and learn faster. Teachers really like these tools, because they are ways to make some of learning exciting. Young people enjoy using these tools. And the goal is to help them become creative students of meaningful work, and not just that kind of copyist.

    But one problem the survey found is that many students don't have a good understanding of how to use the digital knowledge well. In other words, they trust(信任) too much of the information. Judy Buchanan says these students have not developed the skills they need to tell whether the online information is good or bad.

    Another problem the survey found is something that might not seem like a problem, at all, being able to quickly find information online. Teachers say the ability of their students to work hard to find answers is becoming weaker. They say students depend too much on search engines (引擎) and do not make enough use of printed books or research, librarians.

    Besides, many teachers are also worried about the problem that the Internet makes it easy for students to copy work done by others, instead of using their own abilities.

Teens Spring Events at San Francisco Public Library

GREAT TEEN BOOK SWAP

Sunday,March 19,2017-2:30 pm to 5:30 pm

FREE hook!Just leave us a review.

    Here's how it works: Every Thursday,the librarian will bring out several books and allow teens the chance to look through them for one that you'd like to keep.You will,in turn,swap us a review of the book by the end of the month.

For ages 12-18.

For more information,contact Dorcas at dorcas.wong@sfpl.org.

THE MIX BOOK CLUB!

Sunday,March 19,2017-4:00 pm to 5:00 pm

    Teens aged 13-18 are welcome to The Mix at SFPL Book Club!We read a different book each month that you help choose.This month we're reading The Sun is Also A Star,by Nicola Yoon.New members and drop-ins are always welcome!

For more information,please e-mail catherine.cormier@sfpl.org or call (415)557-4404.

THE PORTRAIT OF A LADY BY HENRY JAMES

Sunday,March 19,2017-6:30 pm to 8:30 pm

    Please join Chinatown's World Literature Book Club for an enjoyable discussion of The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.This famous novel follows the young,free-spirited heiress,Isabel Archer,as she travels from New York to Europe.

CARTOONING & GRAPHIC NOVEL WORKSHOP

Saturday,March 25,2017-2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

    Join teaching artist and cartoonist Aaron Southerland for a cartooning and graphic novel workshop.Students will learn to create their very own cartoon and comic characters through advanced drawing techniques.

    This is a Reading,Writing & Poetry program from SFPL.We love reading/sharing/creating words.

    Chinese writer and translator Yang Jiang died early on May 25, 2016 in Beijing at age 104. The longest-living Chinese woman writer, she was known for her modest, subtle and witty writing style.

    Yang became a household name in China for her novels, essays, plays and translated works. Her most popular novel, Baptism, describing a group of intellectuals (知识分子) adjusting to a new society in the early 1950s, has been translated into French and English.

    Yang began learning Spanish in 1959 at age 48, and started to translate Don Quixote in 1962. She was the first to translate Don Quixote into Chinese. The work was stopped twice due to the "cultural revolution". She completed it in 1976, and the Chinese edition was published in 1978 and has sold more than 1 million copies. In that year, the Spanish king and queen visited China, and then-leader Deng Xiao-ping gave the royal couple Yang's translation as a gift. Yang was received by Deng at the Great Hall of the People. While shaking hands, Deng asked her when she had completed the translation. "It's just published," she replied, having no time to tell the full story.

    She was married to Qian Zhongshu, a well-known scholar and author of the best-selling novel Fortress Besieged. Yang's memoir about her family, The Three of Us, written after her husband and daughter died, in 1998 and 1997 respectively, was translated into German.

    Yang never stopped writing. At 94, she started writing the book Walking onto the Edge of Life to reflect on her life. It won China's top book award in 2007. At 100, she was still writing articles for newspapers.

Dear Reader,

    Today I am going to ask you to support Wikipedia with a donation.

    Wikipedia is built differently from almost every other top 50 websites. We have a small number of paid staff，just twenty­three. Wikipedia content is free to use by anyone for any purpose. Our annual expenses are less than six million dollars. Wikipedia is run by the non­profit Wikimedia Foundation, which I founded in 2003.

    Wikipedia is driven by a global community of more than 150,000 volunteers — all devoted to sharing knowledge freely. Over almost eight years, these volunteers have contributed more than 11 million articles in 265 languages. More than 275 million people come to our website every month to access information,free of charge and free of advertising.

    But Wikipedia is more than a website. We share a common cause: Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's our commitment.

    Your donation helps us in several ways. Most importantly, you will help us cover the increasing cost of managing global traffic to one of the most popular websites on the Internet. Funds also help us improve the software that runs Wikipedia — making it easier to search, easier to read, and easier to write for. We are committed to increasing the free knowledge movement worldwide, by taking on new volunteers, and building strategic partnerships with institutions of culture and learning.

    Wikipedia is different. It's the largest encyclopedia (百科全书) in history, written by volunteers. Like a national park or a school, we don't believe advertising should have a place in Wikipedia. We want to keep it free and strong, but we need the support of thousands of people like you.

    Thank you,

Jimmy Wales

    Finding fruits and vegetables at your typical grocery store that have been grown without the extensive use of pesticides can be difficult. Fortunately, The Environmental Working Group(EWG) has done all of the work for you in finding healthy and pesticide－free produce.

    EWG has created the 2018 Shopper's Guide to Pesticides in Produce, which helps shoppers to find uncontaminated produce. Many consumers do not realize that pesticide residues(残留) are very common on conventionally grown produce products, even after they have been washed or peeled. Because of this, EWG has created their series of guides to lead consumers to safer food choices.

    In order to create these guides, EWG analyzed the USDA pesticides tests, which found a total of 230 different pesticides and pesticides breakdown products on thousands of produce samples. Analyzing this information, EWG observed the big differences of the amount of pesticides found from product to product.

    The guide's two main components are two compiled lists highlighting the cleanest and dirtiest produce concerning pesticides. These two lists, Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen, show consumers how certain foods continue to carry trace amounts of pesticides with them all the way to the grocery store shelves, while others make it to your kitchen virtually pesticide－free.

    Some of the highlights from their analyses included the following findings：

    More than one－third of strawberry samples analyzed in 2016 contained 10 or more pesticide residues and breakdown products.

    Spinach(菠菜) samples had, on average, almost twice as much pesticide residue by weight compared to any other crop.

    No single fruit sample from the Clean Fifteen tested positive for more than four pesticides.

    “With EWG's guide, consumers can fill their fridges and fruit bowls with plenty of healthy conventional and organic produce that isn't contaminated with multiple pesticide residue," said Sonya Lunder, a senior analyst in EWG.

    Only 25 years ago, the National Academy of Sciences raised concerns about exposure to poisonous pesticides in our food, yet consumers still consume a mixture of pesticides every day in America.

    More and more travellers in China nowadays prefer homestays rather than traditional hotels, as they seek private living experiences. The house-sharing model was first introduced by the website Couchsurfing, com in 2003. It is still the largest website for travellers to find accommodation(住宿) without much money to spend.

    Encouraged by her great experience of homestays in France, Maggita, 30, considered short-term hire as her first choice in her future trips. She later went back to her hometown Shanghai and ran a "shared accommodation" business.

    The short-term hire idea has been a win-win business model. For travellers, they can rent a special room at a reasonable price and also enjoy a firsthand experience of the local culture, compared with traditional hotels. For owners, they can gain much with daily rental. Now Maggita has quit her last job in an IT company and become a host of some 20 homestays, which enables her to earn a monthly income of around 40,000 —50,000 yuan.

    In recent years, China has seen many homestay booking websites such as Xiaozhu and Tujia. Chen Chi, the founder and CEO of Xiaozhu, said the model is to share rooms or apartments that are not in use with people who need them. Instead of the traditional view that Chinese people feel uncomfortable living with strangers, Chen found that a large number of travellers got along well with house owners.

    However, experts have pointed out a series of problems brought about by the fashion. Lacking supervision(监管) to those accommodation sharing websites, the service quality and accommodation safety cannot be guaranteed(保障).Experts suggest that the online websites should closely work together with communities and local police stations to improve the services.