Students put projects to use

A folding hammock (吊床), a goalie pad (守门员护腿) and a weather balloon that went 30,000 meters up into the sky – these were some of the projects students of St. Thomas High School made and showed in Quebec, Canada.

“Students choose a subject of interest. They research it and put it into action,” Amber Carlon, the school’s program coordinator (协调员), told Global News. 

For Phillip Murphy, who created the weather balloon, science was his subject. “I wanted to go into something in science and engineering (工程),” Murphy said. 

As it flew into the sky, Murphy’s weather balloon recorded the temperature, altitude (海拔) and time with a camera and a GPS. “My family helped me build it. It was a lot of fun,” Murphy said.

Shelly Alkoby created a painting of lungs (肺) with 3D butterflies on them. She got the idea from a family member’s battle with cancer.

“I made this because one of my family members is being treated (治疗) at the Jewish General Hospital. I wanted to do something to thank the staff there for all the work they’ve done,” Alkoby said. 

“I decided to use bright colors with the butterflies and dark colors in the background. It means that through life’s hardships, there will always be light at the end of the tunnel.”

“It was a great celebration of young people’s creative ideas, and it felt so good to see them present their projects in person after the long lockdown because of COVID-19,” Carlon said.

One day, Fred has some questions. But he doesn’t take the dictionaries home (家). His father tells (告诉) him that Charlie, one of his classmates, has a good library. He goes to Charlie’s home in the morning. This is their first time to meet after middle school. Charlie looks at him for a long time. And then he calls out, “Oh, dear! It’s you, Fred! How are you, my old friend?”

They are happy to meet again (再；又) and talk about (谈论) their classmates and teachers. They also talk about the interesting things in the middle school. At last, Charlie shows Fred around his library. It is big and some nice books are in it. The dictionaries Fred looks for (寻找) are in it, too. So he asks, “Can I borrow (借) some dictionaries from you, please?”

“I’m sorry but no one can get books from me,” says Charlie.

“Are you afraid (担心) I’ll lose them?”

“No, I’m not. I’m afraid you don’t return (归还) them to me. Look! All the books in my library are not mine, but borrowed!”