The other day, I decided to teach my son about the power of small acts of kindness. He had won some lollies in a prize machine in the local supermarket, so I asked him if he would like to share his prizes with another child. He hesitated (犹豫) for a while because he is a shy little boy, but said yes after I encouraged him a bit.

A father and his child passed by us. I went to the father and asked if my son could give his daughter some candies that he had won. The father looked at me in a strange way and was unsure what to say. I explained that I was teaching my son about the power of kindness. At last, he said it was okay.

We went to his daughter, but to my surprise, the little girl wouldn’t accept the candies! My son was rather embarrassed by the fact that she wouldn’t accept his candies, and then he said to me, “We go to the same school, Mum.” And I suddenly remembered I had seen the little girl before in my son’s school.

When we left the supermarket, I explained to my son that people in the world today are not so open to kindness because their thoughts and opinions have been shaped by the past, and I told him not to be embarrassed. “They may have been unfriendly, but I’m sure we left them moved in some way. And the young girl will remember you as the boy with a kind heart when she meets you at school!” I said and he nodded.

When you picture doing a science project, you might imagine looking through a microscope or building a model volcano. But science projects can be done anywhere. Many teens get inspired from playing musical instruments to doing gymnastics. All it takes to transform your favorite activities into a science project is identifying a problem you want to solve.

Elizabeth, 14, who is in seventh grade at Davis Drive Middle School in Cary, N. C, designed a program. Her method is based on the golden ratio (比例). This ratio is often used to create pleasing parts in artworks. The ratio also appears in nature. Elizabeth’s data storage strategy helps computers write data evenly (均匀地) across memory devices. This could help such devices last longer.

“As long as I can remember, I’ve been an artistic person,” Elizabeth says, “In fourth grade, my art teacher taught us about the golden ratio. And at that point it was just, you know, something to use when we were painting.” But last year, Elizabeth had to replace the memory in her own computer, thinking the golden ratio might work in information storage, too. Elizabeth tested her golden-ratio technique by running programs on a computer.

But before this project, Elizabeth had no coding experience. To prepare, she spent months reading a textbook on how to code. She says, “It wasn’t like an ‘ah-ha’ moment. Writing programs is such a boring process. But it was just exciting to explore and see the computer actually just doing stuff that I told it to do after those hours.”

“Don’t limit yourself,” Elizabeth adds, “One of the biggest challenges you face is changing your mindset. I never thought that science or computer science would be my kind of thing, but after learning a bit about programming, I found that it was actually a new way to express myself. Words, painting, now programming.”

The Colorado 8-year-old will set out Tuesday to become the youngest person to reach the top of El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park. He will climb the rock face with the help of the hanging ropes. The journey is expected to take four days “of hanging from your fingers or hanging from your anchors(锚),”   Sam’s dad Joe Baker told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield on Sunday. They’ll camp one night on the top of El Capitan.

Sam and Joe Baker will climb in a four-person team. It is a Class 5 climb, the highest and most difficult of classifications. The routes are for expert climbers who train regularly and have a lot of natural ability.

“Sam has been training to take on El Capitan every day for the last at least 18 months,” his father said. In addition to physical training, planning how much equipment-including 200 pounds of water-to take for the daylong hike is among the challenges. “You can’t just turn on the water,” Joe said. “You have to carry it with you.”

While making it to the top of El Capitan would set records, that’s not Sam’s motivation for attempting the climb. “I’m most excited to climb with Daddy,” Sam told CNN.

Hanging from the rock face thousands of feet in the air, the climbers will dine on lasagna (意面) they cook from little packets on a gas stove. Sam is also planning a movie night while pausing from the side of the rock. In addition to his climbing accomplishments, Sam is getting really good at chess, so a travel chess set will be along for the climb too.

Aside from the lasagna, watching a movie and playing chess, Sam said “getting to the top” is his favorite part of climbing.

Joe and his wife fell in love while climbing, and Sam did well in a climbing harness (背带) “before he could walk”. When he was 6, Sam took on Lost Arrow Spire, a three-pitch climb that starts 2, 500 feet above Yosemite Valley. Only one other 6-year-old-world-class professional climber Tommy Caldwell, had ever done it.