It is no secret that play-based learning improves the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children. Researchers now believe that certain board games, like Chutes and Ladders and Monopoly, can also help enhance their math skills.

The team at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago, Chile, came to this conclusion after analyzing the results of 19 studies. They were conducted between 2000 and2023. All but one of the studies focused on the relationship between math skills and board games.

In these studies, kids aged 3-9 played board games under the supervision (监督) of teachers or trained adults. The 20-minute sessions were held twice a week for about six weeks. In some cases, one set of kids (the intervention group) played number-centric board games, while the other (the control group) played board games that did not require math skills. in other studies. both the intervention and control groups played number-based games. They were, however,   given different games, like Monopoly and Dominoes.

The participants’ math skills were assessed before and after each study. The researchers looked for improvement in four key categories. They included the ability to name numbers and demonstrate simple number knowledge-such as “nine is greater than three.” Changes in the kids’ abilities to add and subtract and their interest in math were also noted.

The results of the study were published in the journal Early Years on July 6, 2023. It revealed that playing board games helps improve the children’s math skills in over half of the four areas. Additionally, nearly a third of the children in the intervention groups scored higher on math tests than those in the control groups.

The researchers hope their findings will inspire the creation of new board games specially designed for classroom learning. Meanwhile, boost your math skills by organizing a game a night or two with family and friends this summer—it all adds up!

What’s the furthest you have ever cycled? Perhaps you cycle to school or to work, or maybe at most a short cycling trip with friends? How would you feel about spending months on the road travelling solo from the UK to China，by bike?

As an experienced British cyclist and adventure lover, Pete Jones is at present making a long trip across the Eurasian Continent from Britain to China alone. For Pete, camping in the wild and cycling for long distances through inhospitable terrain (不适合人居住的地带) are his second nature.

Mr Jones is currently taking a great journey. Having lived on and off (断断续续地) in Xinjiang for three years, and having visited the country many times since 1992, Pete Jones is no stranger to China. But he says many people there are puzzled by his strong love for cycling, and they ask why he chooses to cycle when he can afford a car. Indeed, while there are about 400 million bicycles in China, where it has long been the preferred means of transport, rapid economic growth has caused an rapid development in car ownership.

Edward Genochio, another British cyclist who completed a 41,000 km trip to China and back, said one of his goals was to tell people cycling is a safe, sustainable and environmentally friendly means of getting about.

In the UK, the last few years have seen a rise in the number of people choosing two wheels over four, with some estimates (估计) saying the number of people cycling to work has almost doubled in the last five years.

Politicians also see cycling as a way to prove that they are concerned about the environment, with people such as London mayor Boris Johnson often riding to work by himself. But we may have to wait some time before we see him emulating (效仿) Pete Jones in attempting to cycle all the way to China.

We live in the age of envy. Career envy, kitchen envy, children envy, food envy, holiday envy. You name it, there’s an envy for it. Human beings have always felt what Aristotle defined in the fourth century BC as pain at the sight of another’s good fortune. But with the coming of social media, says Ethan Kross, professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, “envy is being taken to an extreme.” We are constantly bombarded by “Photoshopped lives”, he says, “and that applies a toll (严重的不良影响) on us the likes of which we have never experienced in the history of our species. And it is not particularly pleasant.”

Clinical psychologist Rachel Andrew says she is seeing more and more envy in her consulting room from people who “can’t achieve the lifestyle they want but which they see others have”. Our use of social media platforms, she says, amplifies this deeply disturbing psychological discord. “I think what social media has done is make everyone accessible for comparison,” she explains. “In the past, people might have just envied their neighbors, but now we can compare ourselves with everyone across the world.”

And those comparisons are now much less realistic, Andrew continues: “We all know that images can be filtered, that people are presenting the very best take on their lives.” We carry our envy amplification device around in our pockets, we sleep with it next to our pillows, and it tempts us 24 hours a day, the moment we wake up even if it is the middle of the night. “What I notice is that most of us can intellectualize what we see on social media platforms — we know that these images and narratives that are presented aren’t real, we can talk about it and rationalize it — but on an emotional level, it’s still pushing buttons. If those images or narratives tap into what we desire, but what we don’t have, then it becomes very powerful.”

No age group or social class is immune from envy, according to Andrew. In her consulting room she sees young women, self-conscious about how they look, who begin to follow certain accounts to find hair inspiration or makeup techniques, and end up envying the women they follow and feeling even worse about themselves. But she also sees the same pattern among older businessmen and women who start out looking for strategies and tips on social media websites, and then struggle to accept what they find, which is that some people seem to be more successful than they are. “Equally, it can be friends and family who bring out those feelings of envy, around looks, lifestyle, careers and parenting — because somebody is always doing it better on social media,” she says.