备战2024年中考英语阅读话题训练三 人与自然 主题17 时事热点

2024 "Guizhou in My Eyes" Video Competition

Are you interested in making videos? Yes! Do you want to show your best video of Guizhou and win a big prize? Yes! Then join us and follow these steps NOW!

Prizes

The competition is open to ALL!

All the competitors are required to send your personal information to Li Hua at 774576525@gg. com between April 8 to April 14. Don't forget to upload (上传) your video before April 27th. 2024!

What do you usually do in your free time？Do you watch short videos on some apps？According to the China Internet Network Information Center，the number of short video users reached 888 million in August，2021.That is，about 93.4%of all Chinese Internet users are watching or making short videos，or both.If you say short videos are only popular in China，you are wrong.Tik Tok（抖音） has more than 800 million users around the world.

Many users like short videos.They say the videos not only make them relaxed，but also teach them useful skills."I love watching Lao Qia's short videos on my phone，"Francis，one of the short video users，says "Lao Qiao is a famous cook and his videos are my favorite ones.From his videos，people can learn how to make Shaanxi noodles in no time at all."

However，quite a few people think short videos are not so good."There are many other ways to relax，like watching movies，reading books and playing sports，"they say，"All of them are more meaningful（有意义的） to people.What's more，if people start watching the short videos ，they can hardly （几乎不） stop.There are always new ones waiting for them，so they always spend hours on them."Some educators（教育家）day people should not spend much time on short videos."Most of them are just for fun.They don't teach people to think or to improve themselves.It's not good for people，and not good for society（社会），either."

Recently, an elderly woman touched many people's hearts. She was honored (给与奖励) as a role model in China's fight against poverty (贫穷). Her name is Xia Sen.

Over the past years, 98-year-old Xia Sen has given away most of her personal savings to help students from poor families in Danfeng, Shaanxi, and Shangyou, Jiangxi get an education. Born in 1923, Xia was only 15 years old when she became a teacher in Yan'an. While teaching she kept learning. Years later, she went to work as a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

In 2006, Xia visited Xijie Primary School in Danfeng. The school was old and in bad condition. That made her very sad. She spent 20,000 yuan buying desks and books for the students.

In 2008, she took out 200,000 yuan and helped Zhaogou Primary School in Danfeng build a classroom building. It is a building with eight bright and clean classrooms, which is a complete change from what their old classrooms looked like.

Five years later, Xia used 1 million yuan of her savings to set up the "Xia Sen Scholarship ( 夏森助学金)" to help high school and college students from poor families in Danfeng and Shangyou. So far, at least 182 students have gotten help from the scholarship to pay for their education.

Some students who got Xia's scholarship went to Xia's home to visit her in 2018. To their surprise, Xia and her husband led a very simple life. "I was moved by Granny Xia and her husband," one student said.

Though Xia and her husband have given away most of their savings to help the poor students, they always say that what they have done is far from enough. Xia often says her life is much better than her life in Yan'an. Now her only hope is that she can help more students.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics was a great success. Chinahas kept the promise to hold a green Olympics. Many green actions made itpossible, like providing environmentally friendly smart beds, using new energy(能源)cars supportingsporting places with 100% clean energy and reusing rain and snow water

Take making ice as an example. China didn't use R507a commonmaterial to make ice because it isn't friendly enough to the environment. Through18 months' hard work, China independently developed the CO₂ directcooling technology.

A net of tubes runs under the ice. High-pressure liquid(液态)CO₂ goesthrough them to create heat(热) exchange. The CO₂evaporates(蒸发) under the ice surface. The evaporationtakes in heat and turns water on the surface into ice. And the CO goes intoanother circle. This technology helps to make ice better and faster. And aboveall, it is much greener because there's no new CO₂ produced. Amongall the 15 ice sporting places in the Winter Olympics, 7 used the CO₂direct cooling technology to make ice. As a result, much less pollution wascaused.

Beijing did so much more to save energy. Beijing built thenew sporting places with green materials. As for the old ones, Beijing used newglass walls to take the place of traditional walls

tolet more natural light in. 70% of the waste heat was also reused to keep warmand dry. And a large number of new energy cars were used at the Beijing 2022Winter Olympics

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is the first to trulyachieve carbon neutrality(碳中和), and it has set new standards in green technologies. Somenewspapers say China has set an example for the world in environmentalprotection and green development.

More than 1,000 schools across the UK have signed up (报名) to a project with the aim of helping schools become carbon neutral (碳平衡的) by 2030. Carbon neutral means cutting down carbon emissions (碳排放) to zero or balancing them out in other ways. Carbon emissions are gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) that come out into the atmosphere, where they make climate change worse. This has also caused the temperature rise.

Emissions are caused by all sorts of human activities, such as burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas) to make energy, cutting down forests and some types of farming. Becoming carbon neutral includes cutting the amount of carbon emissions a school produces and balancing those that are left by taking some carbon out of the atmosphere.

The project also shows how small changes can make a big difference. These might include thinking carefully about energy use, cutting waste, growing food closer to where it's eaten and walking or cycling to school if it is possible. Ways of balancing out the carbon emissions that a school still makes include planting trees and plants that take in CO₂ as they grow.

Ysgol Bro Dinefwr Secondary School in Wales has promised to run entirely on renewable (可再生的) energy (such as wind and solar power) within the next three years. At Down High School in Northern Ireland, the students are looking after their own bees. So when flowers and crops produce food, that helps. Other schools have projects to cut food waste by weighing it after each meal to know how much is not being eaten. Some put the waste into a system that can turn this waste into useful things. They will be put on the garden to help plants grow.

Climate change is seen as a major global challenge. We can see it all around us. So join together, find out ways your school can put efforts to, and talk to a teacher about signing up.

It's commonly known that greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO₂) causes global warming. The whole world has made great efforts to improve the situation. Especially, the trees planted in China are playing an important role.

A report published in Nature shows that CO₂ absorption (吸收) in two new forest areas in China is more than we thought. The two areas are located in China's southwestern and northeastern provinces. They make up over 35 percent of China's carbon sinks. Carbon sinks are natural systems that absorb and store CO₂ from the air. The main natural carbon sinks are trees and other plants.

According to Paul Palmer, these provinces have been working on rapid forestation (造林) in large areas. Over the past 10 to 15 years, the forest areas have kept increasing by 400-4,400 square kilometers per year.

China is one of the world's biggest countries of human-produced CO₂,   ▲   . In 1978,

China began a national-level forestation project. Many trees have planted in the areas of northern China to act as windbreaks. For example, about one third of the Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia is now covered with trees. In 2019, Alipay's Ant Forest program planted 122 million trees and won the UN Champions of the Earth award for helping 500 million people live low-carbon lives.

China's goal is to reach carbon neutrality by 2060. Carbon neutrality refers to removing as much CO₂ as one puts into the air. If China's goal is achieved, it will lower global warming by around 0.2 to 0.3 C alone, according to Climate Action Tracker (CAT).

64-year-old Zhang Guimei is a teacher. She has spent about 40 years helping young girls from poor families in Yunnan to receive a higher education. Her school, Huaping Girls High School in Lijiang City, is the first full-tuition free(学费全免的) high school for girls from poor families in China.

Zhang moved to Lijiang at the age of 17 to teach in the middle school in Huaping County. Once, she got badly ill but had no money for the treatment(治疗). With the help of the people there, she was able to get the necessary treatment. "From then on, I told myself that I must do something for those people who helped me," Zhang said.

Slowly, a dream of setting up a free high school for girls in Huaping County emerged in Zhang's heart. From the year of 2002, she began a six-year journey to look for funds(资金). In 2008, Zhang finally set up Huaping Girls High School at the foot of the Shizi Mountain in Huaping.

Until now, Zhang's school has sent more than1,600 girls to universities. "I'm very thankful to her. She made us girls from poor areas able to go and see the world outside, "said Yang Qian, a graduate(毕业生) from Zhang's school.

Zhang's story moves many people. To help her, the Yunnan Normal University planned to send 46 future graduates as teachers each year to her school.

    These days, short videos have gotten millions of views (关注) online. Many people create and share short videos on popular video apps like Douyin and Kuaishou. You can even add music and special effects (特效) to your videos. The videos are 15 seconds to a few minutes long. They show people doing activities like cooking, exercising and singing.

    Teenagers especially enjoy these videos. More than 50 percent of students in Grade 7 and Grade 8 said they enjoyed watching these short videos. About 47 percent have posted their own videos, according to a recent report.

    The videos let teenagers see funny and exciting things they wouldn't usually see. Many teens like to share the fun things they do with others as well. For example, a 12 year—old user named Xiao Qianyu has posted videos showing her learning jazz dance. This has won her many fans.

    However, the videos can also cause trouble. Some students spend too much time watching them and not enough time studying. Some videos have vulgar content that is not good for teenagers.

    To deal with this problem, Douyin added a new function (功能) in April, 2018. It locks the app if someone uses the app for over two hours a day. In the same month, the government asked companies to control these apps and get rid of bad videos.

    These days, short videos have gotten millions of views online. Many people create and share short videos on popular video apps like Douyin and Kuaishou. You can even add music and special effects(特效) to your videos. The videos are 15 seconds to a few minutes long. They show people doing activities like cooking, exercising and singing.

    Teenagers especially enjoy these videos. More than 50 percent of students in Grade 7 and Grade 8 said they enjoy watching these short videos. About 47 percent have posted their own videos, according to a recent report.

    The videos let teenagers see funny and exciting things they wouldn't usually see. Many teens like to share the fun things they do with others as well. For example, a 12- year -old user has posted videos showing her learning jazz dance. This has won her many fans.

    However, the videos can also cause trouble. Some students spend too much time watching them and not enough time studying. Some videos have vulgar content that is not good for teenagers.

    To deal with this problem, Douyin added a new function(功能 ) in April,2018. It locks the app if someone uses the app for over two hours. In the same month, the government asked companies to control these apps well and get rid of bad videos.