Caroline Solomon was on her high school's swim team. But at times she could not go into the creek（小溪）near her home. It was simply too polluted. "I decided I wanted to do something about it，"she recalls. So she studied environmental science and public policy at Harvard University in Cambridge. Later，she went to graduate school. Some of her classes could be challenging，though，since she couldn't hear her teachers. "I've been deaf since I was 15 months old，"Solomon notes.

Today she teaches biology at Gallaudet University in Washington，DC. She has no trouble communicating with her students. They，too，are primarily deaf or hard of hearing. That's why all classes at Gallaudet are taught in American Sign Language. Solomon also has an active life outside the classroom. She especially enjoys hiking，biking and other activities with her family.

Her research takes her to the Anacostia River. "It is very close to Gallaudet，and I easily bring my students there，"she says. Water running through local forests and marshes drains into this river，so does water running off urban streets，golf courses and industrial sites." The river's watershed（流域）kind of concentrates all the things that happen when humans mess with the natural landscape，"she explains. Not surprisingly，this river has developed a reputation for being quite polluted.

Solomon has been focusing on how pollutants affect tiny organisms that form the base of the river's food web. "I am now looking at the bacteria population，" she says，"to see what types there are."

Solomon wants to see more students who are deaf or have other disabilities make a difference in environmental science and other fields. As she often says, "If I can do it, you can do it."

I left home at 18 and pay my own way through college. In the past 20 years, I have worked for everything I needed. So it shocks me what some people in their 20s, still get their life supported by our parents. Some of these parents have difficult supporting their families.

It’s true that the job market is much more harder these days. Therefore, there are certainly some ways to make living on our own. Even if our parents is nice enough to pay for our college, we shouldn’t burden them at our problems. We should be financially responsible adults, made our parents proud of us.

   Facial expressions carry meaning that is determined by situations and relationships. For example, in American culture (文化) the smile is in general an expression of pleasure. Yet it also has other uses. A woman’s smile at a police officer does not carry the same meaning as the smile she gives to a young child. A smile may show love or politeness. It can also hide true feelings. It often causes confusion (困惑) across cultures. For example, many people in Russia consider smiling at strangers in public to be unusual and even improper. Yet many Americans smile freely at strangers in public places (although this is less common in big cities).Some Russians believe that Americans smile in the wrong places; some Americans believe that Russians don’t smile enough. In Southeast Asian cultures, a smile is frequently used to cover painful feelings. Vietnamese people may tell a sad story but end the story with a smile.

Our faces show emotions (情感), but we should not attempt to "read" people from another culture as we would "read" someone from our own culture. The fact that members of one culture do not express their emotions as openly as do members of another does not mean that they do not experience emotions.

Rather, there are cultural differences in the amount of facial expressions permitted. For example, in public and in formal situations many Japanese do not show their emotions as freely as Americans do. When with friends, Japanese and Americans seem to show their emotions similarly.

It is difficult to generalize about Americans and facial expressiveness because of personal and cultural differences in the United States. People from certain cultural backgrounds in the United States seem to be more facially expressive than others. The key is to try not to judge people whose ways of showing emotion are different. If we judge according to our own cultural habits, we may make the mistake of "reading" the other person incorrectly.

   “Can I get a light?”This question is the commonest among smokers. What if this question is to come from an unusual source? The National Health Promotion Foundation uploaded an anti-smoking advertisement onto YouTube. The anti-smoking ad has quickly been known as the“most powerful anti-smoking ad”.

The anti-smoking video, called the “Smoking Kid”, features children walking up to adult smokers asking for a light. The children in the ad are actors but the adults smoking are unsuspecting participants in the project.

The video begins with the statement “Adults know that smoking is harmful, but don’t remind themselves of this fact”. Once a “smoking kid” approaches the adults, every adult asked is shocked that the child with a cigarette in his hand is asking for a light. The first adult starts by saying “I’m not giving it to you” and the video goes on to state “every adult filmed said no and reminded the children that smoking is bad”.

Before going away, the kid hands each adult a booklet after being turned down for a light. The booklet says, “You worry about me, but why not about yourself?”Each adult looks around for the child as their faces are filled with confusion and discomfort.

The video shows that a few of the smokers quickly throw away their cigarettes or put their cigarettes away, showing that this experiment was effective at that moment.

The most influential element in the ad isn’t the use of children or the responses from the smoking adults. It comes down to something much simpler than that. Why is it that we worry about other people, forgetting to worry about ourselves?