On a rainy day, about 150 volunteers worked for eight hours to clean up Carson Creek that is near a river. About nine tons of trash was taken out from there.

    “We did a good job,” said Alan Specter, the organizer of the event. “We're planning to come back here one more time, three years from now. Of course, we hope that there won't be so much trash next time.”

    The trash came in all shapes, sizes, and colors: cans, bottles, bicycles, batteries, furniture, clothing, plastic bags, dolls, and even a golf bag with a full set of golf clubs (球棒).

    The dirty and tiring work was done by two volunteering groups — Save the Bay and Watch the Whales. Most of the volunteers came from a local police station and a fire station. And some of them were old people who had already retired (退休).

    That day, it rained a little. All of them wore boots, gloves and raincoats. They did the work along a two-mile river with over 500 big yellow trash bags everywhere.

    No one found anything that cost much. A five-year-old boy found an earring which he thought might be worth a million dollars. He said he'd sell it. Then he'd donate half of the money to Watch the Whales, and use the other half to buy his favorite ice cream every day.

    Many people laughed at the boy's story. However, it was easily found that the environment there did become better.

    When I was in high school.I worked part-time helping Dad sell fruits and vegetables at a matket. One day，as I was preparing the fruits. A little boy came by with his mom and sister. He was  about eight years old，and the girl.five or six. They were looking the fruits in front of me. I heard the kids say to their mom(in French),"They're good!" I knew it was French. Because I can speak and understand it.

    Then I noticed how mom was picking the fruits.At first I thought she was really looking at the fruits because she was facing them. But then I noticed how much she had to feel and smell each one as she picked them out. And often asked her son if it looked okay, but looked way above where his face was. Putting what I saw together,I was sure she was blind.

    Both of the kids continued to help their mom pick out the fruits .The son made sure the fruits were not obviously bad, and the daughter handed them to her mom. The woman then felt each one and smiled, and the daughter would put them into their basket .The kids were smiling while helping their mom pick the fruits out.

    Their smile and gentle manner moved me in a way that never happened before .It was so beautiful to see such young kids so willingly help. Most kids that age would be picking out candies or toys in a store for themselves, instead of helping their mom pick out fruits as the two kids did.

    It was great to witness the moment, but not so great because I didn't tell the mom how beautiful her children were in their language .this is what I regret to this day.

It was a February afternoon. We were in a classroom. Taylor Angler watched some ducks swimming on a farm. But it was all in her head. A virtual reality headset (虚拟现实头戴式显示设备) took her there. "I was surprised to find that the ducks were right in front of me! It was an exciting experience (经历)." Taylor said after taking off the purple headset and finding herself still in the classroom. Many students around the world are taking VR "trips" like Taylor. But what change does it cause in learning? 

Taking children to visit different places is a good way to teach them about the world. But what can children do if they forget it after the trip? VR lets children go back at any time. 

It's difficult to talk about something if you didn't see it with your own eyes in the past. If you didn't see the ocean, with VR, now you can have a look at it for yourself. 

VR can also help students in science classes at school. "Too often at school, when you do experiments (实验), you put different kinds of chemicals together and then get the result. And if you aren't successful, you need to do it again," a high school teacher said. "But we don't have enough chemicals. With VR, I just need to do it again on the computer. I don't have to use chemicals."

VR is useful, but that's not to say we don't need real-world experiences. The real world is what we really need to learn about.