(六)

Have you ever wondered what an American high school is really like? This article will describe a typical (典型的) high school and its students.

A typical American high school has several large buildings and enough space for about 1,500 students. Every student is given a locker. When students first arrive at school, they go straight to their lockers to put away or get their textbooks and to hang up their outdoor clothes. As American text-books are expensive, students would rather loan (租借) than buy them. Students must pay back if they lost any of them.

American students have different types of school transport. They usually take a yellow school bus or walk to school if they live close enough. Sometimes their parents drive them to school. When they turn 16 years of age, most take a free driving class at school for one term. If students earn passing grades in the class and also pass their state driver's exam, they can begin driving themselves to school.

Each day, students take six or seven classes. They must take science, math, English and social studies. They can choose art, homemaking, fashion design and other classes. In some schools students are required to take one or more of the following special classes: health education, physical education or foreign language studies. Students move to different classrooms for each subject. This is because each teacher has their own classroom. There is a five-minute break between classes, to give the students the time to hurry to their next. class.

The regular school day usually ends early in the afternoon. After school more than half of the students are involved in after-school activities. These activities include sports--especially football, bas ketball, baseball and soccer or clubs, such as yearbook, speech, school newspaper, photograph or student government.

（七）

Train stations and airports are crowded, babies are crying, and passengers are arguing. The same story also happens during rush hours in big cities every day. When there is a crowd, people lose their tempers (脾气) easily. What makes polite travelers suddenly forget their manners?

One of the causes is a crowded cabin (车厢). It makes you feel a distance from your sense of self. In other words, you're no longer yourself.

Tiredness also makes travelers lose their self-control. Think about all those traffic jams on the way to a train station, the long line waiting to enter the station and the busy phone calls from family, friends and workmates. When travelers finally get on the train, their patience has already run out.

Besides, a lack (缺乏) of sleep gives travelers a temper. If we are forced to get up early, many of us will act much more impatiently.

So, how can we make the world a better place when we're traveling with a big crowd? Try to improve the atmosphere (气氛). If it's a flight, the air hostess could stand in front of the cabin, saying things like, \on an airplane before.\

What's more, everyone can be helpful, such as giving the person next to you a smile, offering the seat to a needy person, and saying \

(八)

You can't look at sunflowers and feel sad. Their big bright faces almost seem to be smiling at you on a summer day as they slowly turn toward the sun. Not only do the flowers make people happy, they also provide food for bees, birds and squirrels and many other small animals that love to eat the seeds(种子).

Sunflower seeds aren't only delicious to animals. People love them, too. You can find bags of them in the stores. They tell you what kind of seeds they are and how they should be planted.

There are hundreds of different kinds of sunflowers. The biggest ones are Mammoth Russians. They grow to over 10 feet tall and produce big round heads with bright yellow petals (花瓣) that are over a foot across. They grow on strong thick stems (茎) with big heart-shaped leaves. The ripe seed heads sometimes get so heavy that they hang down. Other kinds of sunflowers, called dwarf, produce small stems and smaller flowers in colors such as light yellow and deep bright orange or red.

Sunflower is also a place in America. People there love sunflowers so much, so they

named their place \ There are sunflowers everywhere.

Sunflower

（九）

Have you ever eaten something that you grew in your own garden? Many people have not had the pleasure of this experience. Alice Waters, the owner of Chez Panisse Restaurant, set out to change all that for a special group of students at Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley, California.

Waters worked with the school's principal (校长), Neil Smith, to create a cooking and gardening programme at the school. Waters believes in the importance of people knowing where their food comes from. She also believes that there is a strong relationship between food, health, and the environment. She wanted to show children the pleasure in gardening and in preparing the foods that they grew. She wanted to teach them that a healthy body and a healthy environment go hand in hand.

The project that Waters began took a lot of time and patience. Teachers, students, and community volunteers helped her turn a parking area into a garden. At the same time, renovation (整修) was begun to turn an old cafeteria (自助餐厅) into a kitchen where students could prepare foods and share meals with their teachers.

In 1995, the first crops were planted. Every year since then, new crops are evaluated (评价) to make sure that they are best suited for the environment and the needs of the school.

Students have found that they look forward to the time they spend in the garden each week. They have learnt how to grow and harvest. They have learnt about the life cycles of various plants.

Alice Waters dreams that one day there will be a garden in every school in the United States. She hopes that school lunches can be prepared using the produce from the gardens.

(十)

Women make up 50 percent of world's population and yet they are not treated equally. They hold less than one-fifth of the all parliamentary (会议) seats around the world, occupy less than 19 percent of board (董事长) seats in Fortune 500 companies and earn 17 percent less than men for similar skills and positions. As a group, they are passed over and looked down on.

On March 8 every year, millions of women around the world celebrate International Women's Day. It is possible that you may not ]nave heard about the International Women's Day in the United States.Yet Women's Day had its origin in the United States.

Women's Day was first celebrated in February 1909 in the US to mark the one-year anniversary of the New York Garment Worker's Strike of 1908. Women used the chance to fight against warring and fight for women's vote rights.

Did you know that it was a Women's Day protest in St. Petersburg in 1917, which led to the revolution (革命) for bringing down the Russian empire? After the Russian revolution, Women's Day came to be celebrated as a communist (共产主义的) or socialist (社会主义的) holiday. As a result, the United States government didn't accept it as a holiday.

Today Women's Day is celebrated in places such as China and Russia as a sort of state-approved Valentine's Day or Mother's Day. The tradition in these countries is to give flowers and gifts to the important women in one's life.

In 1975, the United Nations officially announced March 8 as International Women's Day. Since then, it has been a practice to suggest an annual theme for each year. The theme for 2016 is \For Parity\ It calls on women and men to challenge the present state and inspire positive change in their communities and workplaces.

There is a lot that needs to be done. As a society, we need to offer women and girls chances to make their dreams come true, have equal chances for leadership, respect and value differences, and develop a better work environment. This day challenges and reminds that everyone can be a leader in their own small way and can take positive steps to bring about gender equality.

Our world can truly be balanced when we use the potential that women have to offer. As we prepare children for the future, it is important that girls and women should not be left behind.