The best way of learning a language is using it. The best way of learning English is talking in English as much as possible. Sometimes you’ll get your words mixed up and people will not understand you. Sometimes people will say things too quickly and you can’t understand them. But if you keep your sense of humor (幽默感), you can always have a good laugh at the mistakes you make. Don’t be unhappy if people seem to be laughing at your mistakes. It is better for people to laugh at your mistakes than to be angry with you. because they don’t understand what you are saying. The most important thing for learning English is: “Don’t be afraid of making mistakes because everyone makes mistakes.”

Because of the COVID-19, many zoos are having hard times. Luckily, there are new ways for them to raise (募集) money, such as having animal shows online, selling cultural products (文化产品), making animal stars and adopting animals online (云认养).

For Nanjing Hongshan Forest Zoo, online adoption is one of the ways to get help to get through hard times. People from all over the world can pay to adopt their favourite animals. The zoo will use the money to buy food for its animals and pay for their medical care. If someone adopts an animal, they can get a certificate (证书) and learn about the animal’s daily life online. They can go to the zoo for free, have the chance to feed the animal and clean its living space.

Animals like elephants, golden monkeys, koalas and tigers are all on the adoption list. Each animal has its own introduction. You can see its photo and know about its age and living habits.

Online adoption makes people think about how a zoo works. Modern zoos are no longer places for visitors to see animals but places to teach people how to protect (保护) animals.

Most adults show less interest in climate（气候）change than young people. Yet it's adults who have the power to influence the policies（政策）causing climate change. Now a new study shows that teenagers may be able to raise their parents' interest in human effects on climate.

In the study, a new curriculum（课程）was used in some schools in coastal North Carolina. The students worked on four activities centered on the connections between climate change and local wildlife. They also took part in a community-based project and interviewed their parents about the changes in weather they had noticed in their lifetimes. To see how attitudes changed as a result of the program, the researchers surveyed both students and parents at the beginning and the end of the study.

The study shows the students who completed the climate change module cared more about the issue（问题）. The effect was even stronger among parents. Experts say the program's success had a lot to do with how teachers dealt with climate change in the classroom.

"Reading a textbook and completing a worksheet are unlikely to lead students to talk about their day at the dinner table, ”says Martha Monroe, an expert on environmental education at the University of Florida. Instead, the researchers designed hands-on lessons focused on local issues. For example, one task involved monitoring the weather outside the school and comparing it with historical information about the area.

Those activities may have helped increase parental involvement. "If you can get kids so excited and talking with their parents about what they are learning in schools, parents will want to learn, ”says Danielle Lawson, a social scientist and leading researcher of the study. However, she adds, “We are not telling the students what to think or what to say. That way, kids didn't feel that there was all this responsibility put on them to change their parents' minds about anything.”

Lawson is hopeful that kids can boost their parents' understanding of climate science. "I know how powerful kids can be, ”Lawson says. "Kids don't need a special curriculum to discuss climate change at home. They just need to talk to their parents about what they see going on.”