A guiding principle for master cellist Yo-Yo Ma is that “the intersection(交汇) of cultures is where new things appear.” Certainly his biography is an intersection of cultures. He was born to Chinese parents in Paris, France; both his parents were musicians. When he was seven, his family moved to the United States. Gifted for his age, Ma attended Juilliard, the world famous music institute. He then chose to earn a liberal arts degree at Harvard rather than focusing only on music.

    Even in his earliest performing years, Yo-Yo Ma had a strong belief that it was important to share music with all kinds of people. Stories are told about how he once performed in the hallway of a large building for people who were unable to get tickets to his concert. He remained interested in making music accessible to diverse audiences and furthered his interest in different cultures when he visited the Bushmen of the Kalahari. He developed a vehicle to further these ideals when he founded the Silk Road Project.

    As he has said, the Silk Road is a metaphor(隐喻) for a number of things: as the Internet of ancient times, the routes were used for trade, by religious people, adventurers, scientists, storytellers. Everything from algebra to Islam moved along the Silk Road. It's the local-global thing. In the cultural world, you want to make sure that voices don't get lost, that rich traditions continue to live, without becoming common.

    This lesson explores the philosophy behind Yo-Yo Ma's founding of the Silk Road Ensemble(乐团), his belief that the arts, and particularly music, can make the world better, and that through cooperation, one can both preserve tradition and shape cultural evolution. Students also explore their own attitudes toward the arts, writing reflective essays on how the arts have played a role in their own lives.

    Vincent Willem van Gogh (30 March, 1853—29 July, 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist artist. He is considered one of the greatest artists with great influence on the greatest artists with great influence on the 20th-century art.

    Van Gogh spent his early adult life working for a firm of art dealers. After a brief period as a teacher, he became a missionary (传教士) in a very poor mining region. He did not begin his career as an artist until 1880; however, during the last ten years of his life, he produced more than 2,000 pieces, including around 900 paintings and 1,100 drawing and sketched (素描). He worked only with somber colours until he met Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism in Paris. Van Gogh used their bright colours and style of painting in a uniquely recognizable style. Most of his best-known works were produced during his final two years, when he was suffering from serious mental illness.

    In 1890, at the age of 37, van Gogh shot himself in the chest. He died two days later, with Theo, his brother and his best friend, at his side, who reported his last words as “The sadness will last forever”. It would not take long before his fame grew higher and higher.

    Van Gogh's mother threw away quite a number of his paintings. The only painting he sold during his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, was created in 1888. It is now on display in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Russia. Several paintings by van Gogh rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. On March 30, 1987 van Gogh's painting Irises was sold for a record of $ 53.9 million at Southby's, New York. On May 15, 1990 his Portrait of Doctor Gachet was sold for $ 83.5 million at Christie's, thus setting a new price record.

    A new collection of photos brings an unsuccessful Antarctic voyage back to life. Frank Hurley's pictures would be outstanding — undoubtedly first-rate photo-journalism — if they had been made last week. In fact, they were shot from 1914 through 1916, most of them after a disastrous ship wreck (海滩) by a cameraman who had no reasonable expectation of survival Many of the images were stored in an ice chest under freezing water, in the damaged wooden ship.

    The ship was the Endurance a small tight Norwegian-built three-master that was intended to take Sir Ermest Shackleton and a small crew of seamen and scientists, 27 men in all, to the southernmost shore of Antarctica's Weddell Sm. From that point Shackleton wanted to force a passage by dog sled across the continent. The journey was intended to achieve more than what Captain Robert Falcon Scott had done. Captain Scott had reached the South Pole early in 1912 but had died with his four companions on the march back.

    As writer Caroline Alexander makes clear in her forceful and well-researched story The Endurance、adventuring was then a thoroughly commercial effort Scott's last journey, completed as he lay in a tent dying of cold and hunger, caught the world's imagination, and a film made in his honor drew crowds Shackleton, a onetime British merchant-navy officer who had got to within 100 miles of the South Pole in 1908,started a business before his 1914 voyage to make money from movie and still photography. Frank Hurley，a confident and gifted Australian photographer who knew the Antarctic, was hired to make the images most of which have never before been published.

Discover Nature Schools Programmer

    Becoming Bears (Kindergarten—2 grade)

    By becoming baby bears, children learn from their "parent" to survive the seasons. Kids will find safety in the spring and learn kinds of food bears eat during the summer, and then create a cave for winter hibernation (冬眠). After learning the skills needed to survive, students will go out of the cave as an independent black bear able to care for themselves.(1.5—2 hours)

    Whose Clues? (3—5 grade)

    Kids will discover how plants and animals use their special structures to survive. Through outdoor study of plants and animals, kids will recognise their special structures and learn how they enable species to eat, avoid their enemies and survive. Using what they have learnt, kids will choose one species and tell how they survive in their living places.(3—4 hours)

    Winged Wonders (3—5 grade)

    Birds add colour and sound to our world and play an important ecological (生态的) role. Students will learn the basics of birds, understand the role birds play in food chains and go bird watching using field guides and telescopes. Students will do hands－on activities. Students will use tools to build bird feeders, allowing them to attract birds at home.(3—4 hours)

    Exploring Your Watershed (6—8 grade)

    We all depend on clean water. Examining how our actions shape the waterways around us. Go on a hike to see some of the first－hand challenging water quality problems in a city. Students will test the water quality to determine the health of an ecosystem.

    Each programme is taught for a class with at least 10 students.

    All programmes include plenty of time outdoor. So please prepare proper clothing, sunscreen and insect killers for children.

    To take part in a programme, please e－mail dcprogrammes@mdc.mo.gov.

    What's the point of studying? It's something you might ask yourself if you're studying for a degree and you're struggling to complete homework or in an exam, especially if your friends seem to be out having a good time, or are working and earning lots of money.

    Many of us choose to go to university as a first step towards a good career but sometimes that career is to go to university as a first step towards a good career but sometimes that career is hard to achieve and graduates end up doing something they are overqualified for. With the increasing costs of university, students begin to ask themselves whether a degree path is the best route into a career. There is a need for much better career advice and guidance into employment in addition to university education.

    But other new research says that a degree will in the long run, earn you more. However there are differences in your earning potential. Dr Jack Britton says that "graduates of the 24 Russell Group universities earn an average of £33,500 after five years - about 40% more than those who studied at other universities."

    However, it has found it's not just the location but other factors that can play a part in what you can earn, such as the subject a student chooses to study. It discovered that five years after graduation, the income gap between students who studied the subjects that attract the highest and lowest salaries can be considerable. Graduates in subjects such as law, medicine, dentistry as well, tend to do well. And as they progress, the pay gap between these careers and others, such as the creative arts, widens. There are factors too that influence what you might earn: Five years after graduation, men earn on average 14% more than women. Also, a student's social background can have an effect, with those from better-off household much more likely to go to university and particularly a good one.

    But if you still feel university doesn't deliver the best opportunities then there are encouraging words from Alistair Jarvis, head of universities UK, who told BBC News that "Employs are demanding more graduates and graduates are half as likely to be unemployed as likely to be unemployed as non-graduates. There are many good graduate outcomes coming from universities" So may all that studying is worth it-after all 'no pain, no gain'!

Cala didn't like us. Any of us. We didn't do anything to offend her and she didn't know us but that didn't matter; she still didn't like us.

As new teachers in the Emirati school, we Westerners greeted her every day. She ignored us. She came into our rooms and bypassed us as she shook hands with all the non-Westerners. Whenever we saw her, she avoided eye contact with us. Eventually, we stopped trying to befriend her.

I wouldn't say her nationality but her friends had been fired from the school. We had been employed in their places and that was enough for her to have nothing to do with us.

Well after 16 months in the school we had a secret friend gifting. To my surprise, I drew her name from the glass jar and that meant she was my secret friend. My role was to buy her a gift and say something about her when we publicly acknowledged who our secret friend was.

I decided to gift her a coloured bangle (手镯). I added a postcard and wrote "Love and Blessings, Rose Marie.

Then came the day. We all gathered in the meeting room. When you gave your gift, you said a few kind words about your secret friend and passed the gift to her. What could I say? Everyone knew she didn't like the Westerners. She taught music in the school so I said "My secret friend is someone who brings music to our ears every day." She came forward with a huge warm smile. She hugged me and kissed me on both cheeks and accepted my gift.

Since then, she smiles often. We hug and shake hands when we meet. I have seen her wear my gift several times and I am so pleased.