Green is an important color in the nature. It is the color of grass and the leaves on trees. It is also the color of most growing plants.

Sometimes the word green means young fresh and growing. Sometimes it describes something that is not yet ripe or finished. For example a green hand is someone who has no experience who is new to a situation.

Someone who has the ability to grow plants well is said to have a green thumb（拇指）. It comes from early nineteen hundreds. A person with a green thumb seems to have a magic touch that makes plants grow quickly and well. You might say that the woman next door has a green thumb if her garden continues to grow long after your plants have died.

The Green Revolution（革命）is the name given some years ago to the development of new kinds of rice and other grains. The new plants produced much larger crops. The Green Revolution was the result of hard work by agricultural scientists who had green thumbs. Green is also the color used to describe such a cling-jealousy（嫉妒）. The green-eyed monster（怪物）does not come from outer space. It describes the unpleasant feeling a person has when someone has something he wants. Your friend may suffer from the green-eyed monster if you get a pay rise and he does not.

When nature meets man-made roads, it’s seldom a good thing. Millions of animals get killed by cars every week. So, engineers tried to build green bridges for animals over busy roads. These bridges help keep animals and people safe.

The idea of green bridges isn’t really new. In fact, the first animal crossing appeared in France in the 1950s. As well as Germany, which has made more than 80 green bridges since 2005, Canada and the United States are also trying to protect native wildlife by building animal bridges over the years.

Although there are various designs, most green bridges share something similar. First, they are usually quite wide, giving animals plenty of room to move. Second, they are usually covered with soil and plants to look like the forests that lie on either side of the roads. Lastly, they are wider at the ends, spreading out where they meet the land. This helps gather animals onto the bridge and guide them out when they leave.

People may wonder ________. In Canada’s Banff National Park, 11 kinds of large animals such as bears, elk and cougar s have already gone across these green bridges more than 200,000 times since 1996. In some places, we’ve also seen a 90% drop in accidents between animals and cars where these bridges have been built.

These crossings are clearly a step in the right way to offer living chances and safety to wild animals. And with these bridges, both animal and human deaths on roads will continue to go down.

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When you go to watch a sport, you don’t just go to see the athletes. Many people also eat popcorn and hot dogs. People sing songs and hold signs. They watch cheerleaders and make jokes. You can do all kinds of things when you watch sports.

Mascots (吉祥物) are another big part of sports. A mascot is a team’s symbol. For example, if a team is called the Dragons, then their mascot is a dragon. If a team is called the Cowboys, then their mascot is a cowboy.

At many sports games, there is a live mascot. This is a person who wears a mascot costurne. For example, a mascot for the Dragons would wear a dragon costurne. Usually, these costurnes look very silly, and they don’t look real at all.

A mascot’s job is to make the sport more fun, and to make the fans more excited. Different mascots do different things. Some of them dance and sing songs. Some of them wave flags. Some of them do very unusual things, like having races around the field.

Some people like mascots, and some people don’t like them. The people who like mascots say that they make the game more fun. They also say that fans are too serious sometimes, and mascots are important because they help fans relax. People who don’t like mascots say that they make it hard to focus on the game. They say that when a mascot is dancing and singing, it’s hard to watch the game.

Mascots are getting more and more popular. New mascots are coming out all the time. Some of the new mascots become popular, and some retire very quickly. It doesn’t matter if you love mascots or if you hate them. These days, they are a big part of modern sports.