Alida Monaco doesn't spend her summers doing the usual teenage work ,like working at the mall. Instead ,she's studying.

It used to be that a summer job was considered a teenage thing. Today ,Monaco ,who has never had a summer job ,is part of growing trend(趋势) teenagers concentrating on their studies ,even during the summer. That's down from 72% of Americans aged 16 to 19 who worked in July of 1978 ,according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Fierce competition (竞争) older workers to the workforce and weak economic（经济的）growth are all adding to the decrease of teenagers in the workforce. But as schoolwork grows increasingly heavy and homework eats up more time ,current data suggests the biggest reason why some teens won't be working this summer is that they simply don't have time.

For college-bond teens ,some   teachers   even advise students no t to waste time on a summer job. " Some of my students only have about six weeks off in the summer ,"said Shannon Reed ,a lecturer at the University of Pittsburgh and a former high school English teacher. " I could never advise that they got jobs during that short break. They should rest. "

Young people who don't work may miss out on valuable skills that they'll need later in life. Early work experiences teach reliability ,financial intelligence ,self-control and help people learn to deal with adult situations. But Monaco ,who plans to attend Harvard ,isn't fazed by her lack of work experience. " May be I have missed out on a couple of life skills , she said. " But I don't think it will harm in any way. "

It’s reported that about 20 percent of the Amazon rainforest has disappeared during the past 50 years. Deforestation is not only threatening the millions of unique plant and animal species native to the Amazon River area, it’s affecting humans worldwide. When it comes to the protection of the Amazon, it’s hard for many people to relate because they don’t feel connected to the area. There are actually a lot of direct connections, no matter how far away we are.

A connection that affects everyone on the planet is climate (气候) change. Planting new trees in the forest is basically a way of removing CO₂ from the air. Rain forests have a carbon (碳) reduction nearly equal to half of what is in the air. About half of that is in the Amazon. Another case in point is a big snake called the bushmaster that lives in the Amazon. Today, millions of people use medicines made from its venom (毒液) to treat high blood pressure. So they have longer, fuller, and more productive lives.

In the 1960s, there was only one highway in the entire Amazon. That’s an area as large as the continental United States with one highway and three million people. Today, there are between 30 million to 40 million people, countless roads, and about 20 percent forests have been cut down. But on the plus side, 50 years ago there were only two national parks and a national forest and a reserve in Brazil. Today, more than 50 percent of the Amazon is under some form of protection.

“There’s been a lot of damage done and forest lost, but nothing is gone until it’s gone”, noted National Geographic explorer Dr. Thomas Lovejoy. “We want to see more shared planning between the departments of transportation, energy, agriculture, and the other industries in the area. We think Amazon cities can have higher quality of life and keep people in existing cities so there’s less reason to deforest.”

You have probably read about robots replacing human labor as a new era of automation takes root in one industry after another. But a report suggests humans are not the only ones who might lose their jobs.

In New Zealand, farmers are using drones (无人机) to herd and monitor livestock, taking up a position that highly intelligent dogs have held for more than a century. The robots have not replaced the dogs entirely, Radio New Zealand reports, but they have appropriated (盗用) one of the animal’s most potent tools : barking.

The DJ-Innovations (DJI) Mavic Enterprise, a $3,500 drone favored by farmers, has a feature that lets the machine record sounds and play them over a loudspeaker, giving the machine the ability to act as the dogs. Corey Lambeth, a shepherd at a farm with sheep and cows, told RNZ the machines are surprisingly effective. “That’s the one thing I’ve noticed when you’re moving cows and calves—that the old cows stand up to the dogs, but with the drones, they’ve never done that,” he said, noting that it means the drones move livestock faster, with less stress, than the dogs do.

Farmers told RNZ the drones come in handy for more than just herding cows and sheep. The robots allow farmers to monitor their land from afar, tracking water and feed levels and checking on livestock health without disturbing the animals.

Jason Rentoul told RNZ last spring that a two-hour herding job that used to require two people and two teams of dogs could be accomplished in 45 minutes using a single drone. “Being a hilly farm where a lot of stuff is done on foot, the drones really saved a lot of man-hours,” he said. “The drone does the higher bits that you can’t see from the ground, and you would have to walk half an hour to go and have a look and then go, ‘Oh, there was no sheep there.’”

Farmers around the world are using drones. In South Africa, they monitor crop health from above, which boosts harvests, according to CN. In California, winemakers use drones equipped with sensors to grow healthier grapes, according to MIT Technology Review. Because drones fly closer to the ground, they are able to provide high-resolution images that are less expensive than hiring someone to fly an aircraft over a field, the publication reported.

In New Zealand, farmers say some dogs are learning to work alongside drones, identifying the machines as more co-worker than foe. “A good herding dog, he’s already figured out if the drones are working on that side. I’ll go over here (to the other side) and work over here,” Rentoul said. “For now,” farmers say, “there is still a need for herding dogs, primarily because they have a longer life span than drones, can work in bad weather and do not require an electrical socket every few hours to recharge”.

“There’s definitely going to be places for dogs always on farm,” Lambeth said. “The one down side of the Mavic drones or anything electronic is that you still need to bring them in and charge them.”