Every year about 640,000 kilograms of pumpkins are grown in the US. Not all of the pumpkins are eaten. Many are used to celebrate Halloween, the night of October 31st. Halloween is a big celebration in America. One tradition that many people enjoy is to carve faces in pumpkins, put a light inside and put the pumpkins around their houses. After Halloween they throw all the pumpkins away.

But in Oakland, a city in California, people have found a way to use all those pumpkins, as well as lots of other food waste. They use them to generate electricity. Food waste is taken from supermarkets and restaurants and put into large tanks. Inside these tanks, bacteria break down the food waste. This release methane gas. Then the gas is burned to generate electricity-enough electricity to power 13,000 homes.

Recycling the food waste provides a cheap source of fuel for generating electricity. But there are other good reasons to recycle the food waste too. Methane gas in the atmosphere is one of the causes of global warming. When food waste is buried in the ground, it can take 40 to 100 years to break down, and over that time it is slowly released all the methane gas into the atmosphere. But when food waste is kept inside the tanks, it breaks down in about three mouth. Instead of going into the atmosphere, most of the methane gas is kept and used.

Other cities around the world are now following Oakland’s example and using food waste to generate electricity. Maybe the next time you turn on the lights in your house, they’ll be powered

by pumpkins! 

It’s true that many dads in the wild aren’t interested in parenting but there are some that work pretty hard to give their little ones a good start. Maybe one of these dads will make you remember your own dad!

The male giant water bug(雄性负子蝽) doesn’t seem to mind a heavy lad(负荷物) on his back for his kids. The female puts about 100 to 150 eggs on the back of the male, and then she leaves. Once the female is gone, the male has to look after the eggs. It usually takes one to two weeks for the eggs to hatch(孵化). The father giant water bug jumps around to make sure the growing eggs get enough air and water. All this time he can’t fly because of the weight of the eggs growing rapidly on his back.

Now let’s turn to the male stickleback fish. When the mother leaves after laying her eggs, the father tends his young. If the young fish go too far away, their father helps with their safe return by carrying them back in his mouth. The male stickleback looks after all his young- as many as 100-until they can live on their own.

A similar example can be found in emperor penguins(帝企鹅) living in cold areas. The male emperor penguin goes without food while looking after his egg until it hatches. For about 62 to 67 days, the egg stays on top of the father’s feet, in very cold temperatures that drop down to -39℃.As a result, the father may lose nearly 50 percent of his body weight while waiting for his baby penguin to be born!

We all know that recycling rubbish is very important. But sometimes it is not so convenient when we can’t find a recycling bin anywhere.

Now a team of middle school students from the US has solved that problem by designing their Recycling Bin app (应用程序).

This app encourages people to recycle. It provides users with a map of local recycling centers. And it allows them to save places as favorites onit. This app also reminds users to recycle.

The group of nine sixth-graders is from STEM Center Middle School. They came up with the idea as part of a school project for the Verizon Innovative App Challenge. Their school provided professional app training. It gave 10 teams Samsung tablets (平板) as prizes.

The challenge wanted to develop students’ interest in science, technology and engineering. In this contest, students showed an app design that could solve a problem in their school or city. The nine students came up with the idea for Recycling Bin when they saw a need for more recycling.

“We thought that this would really help a lot of people,” Jaden Hilkemann, 12, told Time For Kids.

They kept their design easy so that anyone could use it. Now the free Recycling Bin app has been put into use in the Google Play app store for Android phones or tablets.

“I was so excited when it went up at the app store,” Seralyn Blake, 12, said. “A lot of my family members downloaded (下载) the app. It was pretty cool.”

A large part of China experienced larger amounts of smog (雾霾) than usual and the air was badly polluted this January. The distance one could see was shorter than 1,000 meters inBeijing,Tianjin, and the provinces ofHebei,Henan,Shandongand Anhui. In some areas, it was down to 200 meters.

People usually set off firecrackers (爆竹) to celebrate the Spring Festival. But because of the smog, this year seemed very quiet. It was really different. A man called Zhang Wei said that his friends and he hadnˈt set off a single firecracker.

“We all suffered from last monthˈs smog. If we donˈt call an end to the firecrackers, the environment will get worse and worse during the holiday.” Said Zhang Wei. He called on more people to set off fewer firecrackers during this yearˈs Spring Festival holiday by putting up a notice in his neighborhood.

More Chinese looked forward to celebrating the holiday in a greener way. They decided not to set off firecrackers. They also decided not to waste food. They said that the new celebrations sounded fashionable.

 To clean the sky, more than ten provinces including Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu have started to use national 4 standard (标准), which is expected to reduce (减少) vehicle emission (车辆排放) by 30% to 50%. Beijing even has started to use the stricter national 5 standard.

We still have a lot to do to improve the air quality. For example, using public transportation as much as possible is not a hard thing for us to do, but it matters a lot.

here are four inventions.

1  when it raina, do your shoes get wet ? Of course, they do! But you can buy these clever Umbrellas For Shoes. They keep the rain off your feet.

2  Do you have to clean the floor at home? Perhaps your cat can do a better job than you. Buy these Cleaner Cat Brushes. Then you can sit back and relax!

3   Do you talk too long on the phone? Most people do ! Save time---buy the Exercise Telephone! It weighs five kilograms. Then your calls will be less than five minutes long.

4   Do your friends sometimes come up behind you and make you jump? Do cars come around the corner when you try to cross the road ? Well, it won’t be a problem if you have Two-Way Glasses. You can look at things behind and in front of you at the same time.

Dolphins talk with sounds. They show their feelings with sounds.

Dolphins travel in a group. We call a group of fish a “school”. They don’t study, but they travel together. Dolphins are mammal（哺乳动物）, not fish, but they swim together in a school.

Dolphins talk to the other dolphins in the school. They give information（信息）. They tell when they are happy or sad or afraid. They say “welcome” when a dolphin comes back. They talk when they play.

They make a few sounds above(在···上面) water. They make many more sounds under water. People can’t hear these sounds because they are very, very high. Scientists make tapes of the sounds(录音) and study them.

Sometimes people catch a dolphin for a large zoo. People can watch the dolphin in a show. Dolphins don’t like to be away from their school in a zoo. They are sad and lonely.

There are many stories about dolphins. They help people. Sometimes they save somebody’s life. Dolphin meat is good, but people don’t like to kill them. They say that dolphins bring good luck. Many people believe this.