For almost 100 years, the Winter Olympics has been a celebration of snow and ice sports around the world. It is a special event that only happens once every four years.

Although the Winter Olympics started with just five sports across nine disciplines (项目) in France in 1924, it has grown to include seven sports across 15 different disciplines and has been hosted in 12 countries across three continents (大陆). In 2022, for the first time ever in the Games’ history, Beijing will become the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

China has come a long way and achieved many goals since it took part in the Winter Olympics for the first time in 1980. In this short period of time, China’s players have won medals in six of the event’s sports. Short track speed skating (短道速滑) has been an area of expertise (专长) for China.

China’s love for winter sports has been growing. The Ministry of Education has set a goal of building 5,000 special schools by 2025 to improve winter sports education.

The government has also been encouraging primary and middle schools to add winter sports to their subjects. Many provinces and cities have already acted on this suggestion. Classes will be set up in schools in northern China to improve interest in winter sports. In southern China, schools can work with ice rinks (溜冰场) and winter sports clubs.

Beijing has already set a good example. It is reported that nearly 840,000 students in the city have begun taking winter sports lessons, including skating and skiing lessons.   

In recent years, the Chinese government has tried its best to narrow the educational gap in educational resources(资源) and quality between rural(农村的) and urban(城市的) areas. The country has made efforts to improve education in poor areas by giving special aids. With the help of the Project Hope, more and more new schools have been built in the poor areas, and more college graduates have been sent there to teach, and more money has been used to help students from poor families. Let’s take a look at what the government has done in the country.

Bringing better teaching resources

There is a special English class in a rural middle school in Sichuan. Through an online video chat, Bill from England is teaching students English from the poor areas in China. The goal of the local government is to bring better English education resources to their kids.

The government of Jinzhong City, Shanxi Province has introduced “Lessons in air” video courses to all its schools so that rural students can share education resources with urban students. With rich education resources at hand, students will have plenty of chances to learn from different teachers.

Financial(财政的)aid

Students from poor families can apply for student loans with no interest(无息贷款) when they enter the colleges or universities. Also they can apply for assistantship(助学金) that made going to school nearly free. Colleges or universities also provide scholarship(奖学金) for good students. Li Dong is a student from a poor county in Guizhou. With the help of the local government, he won a scholarship and he attended his dream college. “I’ll study hard and give back to society.” Li Dong said before leaving his hometown for college.

In most parts of the world, many students help their schools make less pollution. They join “environment club (环保俱乐部)”. In an environment club, people work together to make our environment clean.

Here are some things students often do.

No-rubbish lunches. How much do you throw away after lunch? Environment clubs ask students to bring their lunches in bags that can be used again. Every week they will choose the classes that make the least rubbish and report them to the whole school!

No-car day. On a no-car day, nobody comes to school in a car, not the students and not the teachers! Cars give pollution to our air, so you can walk, bike or run. Use your legs! It has lots of fun.

Turn off the water! Do you know that some toilets can waste twenty to forty tons of water an hour in a year? That will fill a small river! In environment clubs, students mend (修补) those broken toilets.

We love our environment. Let’s work together to make it clean.