Last week the electricity in my flat went out.【小题1】 My typical evening is spent watching TV and scrolling (滚动) through social media. Tonight this wasn’t possible. My roommate and I weren’t prepared with candles and matches. We just rely on electricity.

So for me it was an early night, 【小题2】 That night, losing our electricity felt like losing a basic necessity, as basic as running water. But really, electricity is a luxury that we’ve grown to take for granted. I use electricity all the time, even when it’s not really necessary.

【小题3】 And as I’m writing this, I have my lights on, even in the middle of the day when I don’t really need them.

【小题4】It contributes to global warming. It is harming our environment and we need to do what we can to stop it. Not only that, but if we continue to use the same large amount of energy, we will soon run out of it.

How would we survive in a world without electricity? Our daily lives go around it. We wouldn’t be able to function. 【小题5】So, shouldn’t we start preparing for it now? Cutting down on our use of electricity would save energy resources so that they could last for longer. And if everyone does it, we can make a big difference.

Glacier National Park in Montana shares boundaries with Canada, an American Indian reservation, and a national forest. Along the North Fork of the Flathead River, the park also covers about 17, 000 acres of private lands that are currently used for ranching(牧场)and agriculture. This land is an important part of the habitat and migratory area in which several endangered species live. These private lands are essentially the only ones available for development in the region.

With encouragement from the park, local landowners initiated a land use planning effort to guide the future of the North Fork. The park is a partner in an inter local agreement that calls for resource-managing agencies to work together and with the more than 400 private owners in the area. A draft plan has been prepared, with objective of maintaining traditional economic uses but limiting new development that would damage park resources. Voluntary action by landowners, in cooperation with the park and the county, is helping to restrict small productions, maintain wildlife habitats, and minimize any harmful impact on the environment.

The willingness of local landowners to participate in this protection effort may have been stimulated by concerns that Congress would impose a legislative solution. Nevertheless, many local residents want to save the existing character of the area. Meetings between park officials and landowners have led to a dramatically improved understanding of all concerns.

When most people think of drones (无人机), they think of technology and fun. Safe to say, few people would think about farming. However, a group of students from York College of Pennsylvania have been building a drone that will not only help local farmers but the environment, as well.

Samantha Gotwalt and Blayde Reich, two senior Mechanical Engineering majors at York College in the group, both found the work to be quite fascinating. According to Samantha, the idea came from a York College professor, who has worked with drones, and wanted to get students involved with a project beneficial to the community. “We really want to help farming and agriculture. It’s super-important to America and our economy,” Blayde says. “We want to help the smaller farmers, and one of the benefits is not having to spend their money on fertilizer and pesticides (杀虫剂).”

The idea is to design and build a drone that will take video imagery of the fields to determine what is needed to produce the best crop, while saving money and sparing the environment by reducing pollutants in the runoff water. Ideally, that data gained will help the farmers better determine what chemicals they need — and what they don’t.

However, finding the right equipment for the project was a challenge, starting with what drone the team would design for this particular usage. Samantha says she researched durability and control of drones to help make the proper determination.

“We are flying over the field and we want to have enough efficiency and go relatively slow enough that our pictures turn out well and fly low enough that it is not using up all of its power,” she says. “The fields are a couple hundred acres, so you need your drone to be able to fly the length of that field.”

Blayde says the team continues to learn a great deal of information that will help the farmers and the environment.