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88-year-old Elsie Eiler is a one-of-a-kind figure in the country as the sole resident of Monowi, America's tiniest town.

Monowi was once a booming railroad town in the 1930s. It once had around 120 residents and a lively business community. However, as urbanization and technological developments attracted people away from labor-intensive farming and toward new opportunities i n larger cities, Monowi began to shrink. 

In 2004, Elsie faced a profound loss when her beloved husband passed away, leaving her as the last remaining resident of Monowi. Despite the loneliness, Elsie made a decision to remain in the town she called home. But don't mistake her loneliness for boredom or idleness. This strong-willed woman keeps herself remarkably busy. Elsie takes on multiple roles within the town, serving as the hotel owner, mayor, treasurer, clerk, secretary, and librarian. However, she ensures to take a well-deserved rest day on Mondays.

The Monowi Hotel, under Elsie's management, operates six days a week. Tourists from over 47 states and more than 40 countries, along with regulars from nearby towns, frequent the hotel for a bite to eat or a refreshing drink. Despite challenges posed by the pandemic, Elsie's hotel received stable support from locals, enabling it to endure while other small businesses struggled. In 2021, the town celebrated Elsie's impressive 50-year tenure (任期) as hotel owner, with friends, family, and neighboring townspeople gathering to honor her while playing cards and sharing fond memories.

Elsie's determination to preserve Monowi sets her apart as a devoted caretaker of the town's heritage. She single-handedly completes the necessary paperwork to maintain Monowi's corporation and has even elected herself as the mayor. Collecting $500 in. taxes annually, Elsie ensures the town's three lampposts are well-lit and its water supply is running smoothly.

Asked about the possibility of leaving, Elsie dismisses the idea outright. She states, "I'm happy here. I want to be here, or I wouldn't stay here." Elsie Eiler's devotion to preserving Monowi's identity and keeping its spirit alive makes her a true miracle.

If there's one fun thing you can do at night by the campfire, it's gazing at the stars with astronomy apps.

Star Walk 2

Star Walk 2 shows you the positions of various astronomical objects from your chosen location. It features solar system objects, deep sky objects and even satellites. It tells you each object's rising and setting times to help you plan your stargazing activity. If. you pay to upgrade to the superior version, you'll have access to more information and photos of these objects.

Stellarium Mobile

Stellarium Mobile has information on more than 1.4 billion stars, 3 million galaxies (星系) and even the majority, of visible man-made satellites. . Buttons don't crowd the screen, making it a lot more enjoyable to view the night sky in all its glory. There's also a Night Mode feature that enables to turn your phone screen red for easier use in the dark. You can use Stellarium Mobile for free. But if you want to control a telescope, view objects in 3D, you'll need to upgrade to a paid account.

Nightshift Stargazing

The app provides all the information you'll need to make the most out of your night. It tells you the weather conditions in your area, including cloud cover and rainfall. It will give you valuable insights, such as when the sun and moon will rise and set, what phase (月相) the moon will be in, how long it will be dark outside, which planets will be visible, what time you can observe each visible planet, and whether there will be any active meteor (流星) showers.

Heavens-Above

Heavens-Above contains the Sky Chart, which is a chart of the sky above you. It shows you the names of the planets and stars you can potentially see when you look up. To figure out the exact position of the planets and satellites, adjust your mobile device toward the sky, and a pointer on the Sky Chart will move accordingly. Keep moving the pointer to where your object of interest is to help you determine its location in real life. You can use the app for free, but you will have, to pay if you want to use the professional version. 

With travel and the environment in the news so much lately, you've probably heard the word ecotourism. As travelers become more aware of their effect on the planet and want to do their part to make a difference, ecotourism has really taken off.

What is ecotourism? The definition isn't as hard to determine as you might think. According to the International Ecotourism Society, it is defined as "responsible travel to natural areas that protects the environment and sustains the well-being of the local people." To be simple, it's travel that has a positive effect on a destination's ecology and economy.

Ecotourism lets travelers participate in activities that benefit the environment. For example, travelers can act as citizen scientists in places around the world, including national parks and dive sites, to help do research and collect data. Meanwhile, ecotourism helps local communities to do well and become successful and strong. That can happen in a number of ways, involving some type of financial aspect, from providing jobs to supporting local businesses. 

Being a responsible traveler, you'll have a much more satisfying and rewarding experience. Instead of simply visiting tourist attractions and eating at chain restaurants, you can get completely involved in a local culture and really get to know the people who live there. It enriches your own life and opens your mind to new ideas.

Ecotourism is an amazing way to discover the world. Nature is full of wonders everywhere. Being able to get out in a natural area that is protected and largely undeveloped offers a chance to connect with plants and animals you may never see anywhere else. Just be sure to leave it as you found it for future explorers to discover. Get your sneakers ready, pack your bags and head for nature. A big and beautiful world is waiting for you out there. 

注意：
1. 写作词数应为80个左右;
2. 请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。

Dear Ryan, 

……

Yours, 

Li Hua

Thanks to social media recommendations, Zibo barbecue has become  overnight hit, with large numbers of visitors  (pour) to the city on weekends. People joked that the last time this many people showed up in the city  (be) during the Siege (围攻) of Qi, a famous battle in the area in 284 BC. 

Taking advantage of the barbecue craze, Zibo has gone all out to promote local tourism resources, while working to ensure the  (safe) of visitors and the quality of tourism products. Many areas have been changed into dining halls for the massed crowds.  (ease) restrictions on the supplies of meat and grills, local banks have started handing out low-interest loans designed  (special) for barbecue-related industries. 

This barbecue fever in Zibo should be helping China recover from its zero-covid era. Since the end of zero-covid, many tourists have described (they) as "special-ops" travelers. This means dropping into a location, spending as little time and money as possible, then moving on to the next spot.

Zibo barbecue has been one of the top items to tick off from travel lists. People eat and drink at low tables with a small stove, (heat) by coal. The craze is about more than the simple food. people across the country are seeking out in Zibo is Shandong's big-hearted hospitality.

Imagine students in rural Kenya using computers and reading books! 4,000 students across 10schools are busy 1  their computer skills on 2  machines. They learn everything from basic typing to coding to robotics, and even take part in 3  classes with NASA scientists in the US. Before 4  these lessons, however, very few of the students even knew what a computer was. Not being 5  to computers, children lack basic technology skills, and do not have access to STEAM programs. 

TechLit Africa, was 6  by Nelly Cheboi, a 29-year-old software engineer who grew up in 7  in a Kenyan village, her single mother struggling to support the family. In 2012, she received a full scholarship to attend college in Illinois, where she discovered a love for 8  science. Upon returning to Kenya after 9 , she founded her own school, Zawadi, which became a launching pad for TechLit Africa. Her organization now 10  with American colleges and businesses to 11  the recycled computers. 

For Cheboi, TechLit Africa is about more than just adding 12 to children's life: she hopes the students will use the 13 skill to find professional opportunities.

"I see a 14 in Kenya and in the rest of the continent where kids are becoming really tech literate," Cheboi says. "Once you come to the Internet, you become 15 —and by being so, you can help the world."

It is commonly thought that productivity involves doing several things at once. Newport, the author of Deep Work, describes the benefits of focusing on one thing and doing it with excellence. He explains deep work as "the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively (认知地) demanding task."

According to Newport, deep work is an invaluable skill in today's economy. It allows you to learn difficult things quickly. Most people are distracted when they work, so if you learn to work without distraction, that gives you an advantage. Developing excellence in one's craft can be deeply satisfying.

It's important to schedule deep work into your day. Otherwise, it's easy to let your time fill up with shallow work. Newport recommends doing deep work as your first task of the day. Shallow work does need to get done, but if you save it for later in the day, you can get your deep work done, too.

Because deep work is by definition cognitively demanding, you won't be able to do it all day. Beginners can usually only focus on deep work for approximately an hour, and even experts have trouble going more than four hours. If you really focus, you'll be surprised at how much you accomplish in a few hours.

A. So set reasonable goals for yourself.

B. Concentration is an increasingly valuable skill. 

C. That way you get it done before distractions build up. 

D. But the secret to success is the opposite of multitasking. 

E. Without smartphones, you fall into deep work more easily. 

F. It also enables you to produce to the best of your ability and acquire new skills quickly. 

G. It differs from shallow work, which consists of simple tasks performed while distracted. 

We don't think with a pen and paper. We "think" with Google. We don't even have to complete the search question ourselves. Google's auto-complete function takes that burden off our shoulders by telling us what we should be searching for and what we should be thinking. We then sort through selected results to find the answer to life, the universe, and everything. This process gives us the false impression of thinking—when, in reality, we've lost touch with one of the most basic of human experiences.

Thinking for yourself isn't just about reducing external inputs. It's about making thought an intentional practice and thinking about an issue before researching it. It's about forgetting the habit of immediately looking to others for answers and instead becoming curious about our own thoughts.

Deep thinking requires time. It's only by concentrating on the problem or question long enough that you'll dive deeper and locate better insights. Most of us resist setting aside time for deep thinking because it doesn't produce immediate obvious results. But ideas, as the filmmaker David Lynch puts it, are like fish: "If you want to catch little fish, you can stay in the shallow water. But if you want to catch the big fish, you've got to go deeper."

After you've gone deeper on a question by thinking about it yourself, turn to reading what others have written about it. But don't pause your own thinking. The goal of reading isn't just to understand. It's to treat what you read as a tool-a key to unlocking what's inside of you. Some of the best ideas that come up when I'm reading a book aren't from the book. An idea I read will often knock out a related thought in me that was previously hidden. The text will act as a mirror, helping me see myself and my thoughts more clearly.

Breakthroughs lie—not in absorbing all the wisdom outside of you-but in uncovering the wisdom within you. 

Tree-planting, intended to help draw down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, has become a synonym (同义词) for climate action. In our constant focus on trees, we've developed a fixed understanding: Trees absorb carbon dioxide, end of story. The reality is that trees don't grow well alone. They exist within complex communities, helped along by each other as well as the animals they coexist with. The woodland isn't nature's only carbon sink: Grasslands and oceans also help reduce the carbon level and rely on a healthy amount of biodiversity.

That's what the paper, published in Nature, wants to get across. Co-author Oswald J. Schmitz, a professor of ecology at Yale University, said trees might not be able to do their carbon-uptake job efficiently without the right animals in their ecosystem. That's because animals animate the carbon cycle through their behavior and roles in the ecosystem. He added that the very presence of wild animals could cause feedback effects that change the ecosystem's capacity to absorb, release, or transport carbon.

In Serengeti, for instance, the sharp decline in wildebeest (角马) population s during the mid-20th century allowed grass to grow wildly, eventually promoting wildfires that consumed 80 percent of the ecosystem annually and led to a net release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. When disease management and bans on illegal hunting helped animal populations recover, a greater share of the carbon stored in plants was consumed by wildebeest and released as waste, keeping it in the system and restoring the grassland as a carbon sink. 

Researchers rarely consider wildlife conservation as a strategy to increase an ecosystem's carbon storage capacity, said Schmitz. "They think that animals either aren't important enough or that you can't take up carbon and conserve animals at the same time," he said. "Our message is that you can and should. It can be a win-win for both biodiversity conservation and carbon uptake." We need a full picture-with both trees and animals-to explore nature's full potential.

Earth Day falls on April 22 each year to inform people about environmental problems and inspire them to act. It first came into being in 1970, followed in 1972 by World Environment Day. It has been celebrated ever since, slowly but surely picking up steam. Interestingly, it remained a grassroots affair for 20 years before spreading out to 140 countries in 1990. Now, it is celebrated around the world. Humans still face many challenges, such as climate change and plastic pollution. But we can all make a difference. 

When Claire was in the seventh grade, she learned about plans to expand and modernize her middle school. As a follower of Earth Day, she wanted to help. Claire asked the school board to add solar panels to the project because, she explained, clean energy would contribute to a truly modern school, and help her school pursue sustainable development. 

The board liked the idea but said it could contribute just $25,000, one-fifth of the cost. So Clarie turned to the community, looking for a solution. Her friends and neighbors shared her enthusiasm. Soon Claire organized a group of kids and adults, who set to work raising the rest. They wrote grant (拨款) requests, put on a talent show and asked for donations, even going door-to-door for them at Halloween. And they appealed to charitable foundations too. One donated more than half the cost! 

After two years of hard work, the group paid for the solar panels, which now supply one-fourth of the school's electricity needs, saving the district thousands of dollars. "My favorite part about this project was that one person could start something small and then the project could grow and have a big impact on the community," Claire said "There are always going to be barriers and hard parts. When there's a challenge presented to you, use it as a learning moment and an opportunity to overcome it."

You can be a hero for the environment, so find out what can be recycled where you live.