第一階段「書」情寫意創作比賽 佳作共賞

1C姚諾廷

書名：《十萬個為什麼》

寫作主題：閱讀一本生活常識類的圖書，講述一項令你印象深刻的冷知識，並寫上原因。

原來每張紙幣上都有些小圓點，方便盲人分辨面值和真偽，之前我沒有察覺到。只要我們細心觀察，日常生活有很多專為盲人而設的設施。例如：過馬路的紅綠燈有不同的聲響，電梯中的層數按鈕有些小突點，大家平時有沒有留意到呢？除了盲人，香港還有為其他有需要人士提供各種不同的設施，我們生活在一個關愛的城市，真是幸福極了！

5B林喆

書名：《細說心語》

寫作主題：心靈與健康

健康有許多種，其中我覺得心靈健康最為重要。

現在都市人壓力極大，從作家阿濃的書——《細說心語》中，讓我明白到閒談是一種減輕壓力的好方法，因此我們要多跟好友談天說地、互訴心事。。

都市人因逃避壓力，遇困難時容易放棄，書中的一句話：「只要我們積極地走我們的人生路，就該滿足了，給我們值得深思的提醒。」

除此之外，都市人的另一種壓力來源，是因死去的親人而哀哭。其實，只要明白死是人生的一部份，是我們必須面對的現實，用平常心看待，就不會受過份的打擊。

這本書讓我學到許多人生道理，剛才所說的只是這本書的一鱗半爪，還有更多精彩的內容供你細閱。

6C Justin Travis Chan

Title: Time

Topic: Read a book about facts of everyday life and explain how you have been enlightened by the book.

What does time mean to you? Do you use it well, even though you can’t feel it, see it or touch it? Also, have you ever imagined what the world would be like if we did not measure time? This book introduces you to the world of time and how measurements of time were invented.

In Ancient Egypt, farmers noted that the Nile River flooded every summer, and they planted their crops after the flood. From their observations, they knew that the flood occurred about every 365 days, so they made that their year. This was one of the first origins of the calendar.

The Egyptians also developed one of the first clocks. They used sunlight together with shadow to measure time. When the sun is low, the shadows are long. As the sun rises, the shadows become shorter. This founded the basis for the sundial, the first clock ever invented.

Moreover, scientists can now determine the age of an ancient fossil through carbon-dating, which was developed in the 1940s. All living things constantly take in carbon, from activities like photosynthesis to eating plants and meats. When the organism dies, it stops taking in new carbon, and some of the carbon (carbon-14, which is radioactive) in its system begins to decay. By measuring the percentage of carbon-14 remaining in a fossil, scientists can determine approximately how many years have passed since the organism died.

Another fascinating area of the book was jetlag. When Earth orbits the Sun, the planet is spinning in a clockwise direction and the Sun only shines on one side, leaving the other side in the dark. As the earth spins each hour, sunlight falls on different parts of the world. To mark the time in each part of the Earth, the planet is divided into 24 imaginary lines running from the North Pole to the South Pole, called meridians. Since the headquarters of this research was in Greenwich, scientists marked Greenwich as the Prime Meridian. As an example, if the time in Greenwich is one o’clock, and another city is two meridians away, in that city it is three o’clock. Your body has an inner clock that is tuned to your home city’s time. When you travel, it may be 7am at your new city, but it may only be 3am at your home town. Your body would not yet be ready to wake up at 3am, so you would feel very tired for a few days, until your inner clock had time to catch up with your new city. This is called jetlag.

This book has taught me that since the ancient times, we have observed and learned different ways to measure time so we can better understand how nature works, and how to manage it.