NG Kids
Scientists have recently discovered two new moons orbiting the dwarf planet Pluto, bringing the total up to five. SETI scientists are asking people to send in their name ideas for the newly-discovered moons. The names must come from Greek or Roman mythology and have something to do with Pluto/Hades and the underworld. The three moons that already have names are called Charon, Hydra, and Nix.
Learn how to submit your ideas for names on National Geographic’s News Watch blog.
Why is Pluto called a dwarf planet? Play Pluto’s Secret and find out!
Lijah Hanley, a member of the 2009 Hands-On Explorer Challenge expedition to Peru, has won the grand prize in the National Geographic Student Expeditions Photo Contest! His love for photography began before he entered the 2009 contest, and he has continued to learn and grow as a photographer since the Peru expedition.
Lijah’s winning photo, called “No Boundaries,” can be seen above. “There is nothing more thrilling than taking the car out on the road and exploring new places. Unfortunately, being a new driver, my parents have set a lot of boundaries that limit how far I can go. I made it as far as the Columbia River Gorge, and it was a perfect crisp clear night for stargazing. So we removed the top of our car, sat on the roof, and gazed into the endless universe. Exploration is not bound by how far your car can take you, but by how far your imagination can take you into the stars,” Lijah says.
See the winning photos from the National Geographic Student Expeditions Photo Contest.
National Geographic Explorer, Enric Sala will spend the next month exploring the Desventuradas Islands off the coast of Chile. He will lead the Pristine Seas Project, which aims to find, survey and help protect the last wild places in the ocean.
Sala, a marine ecologist, is dedicated to finding ways to reduce human impacts on sea life. Between February 8th and March 7th, he will look for ways to preserve one of the last pristine environments left in South America.
During the trip, the team will use a submarine that has 360-degree vision and spherical glass drop cameras to film depth up to 4,000 meters (2.5 miles)!
How good are Adelie penguins at fishing? Amazingly good, according to new footage taken with cameras mounted to the backs of 14 penguins. The penguins never missed their prey on their recorded dives. The Japanese researchers who worked on the study found that the penguins could catch two krill per second, and could catch as many as 14 fish every 20 seconds.
Watch a video of Adelie penguins fishing on National Geographic Kids.
National Geographic Kids magazine is on its way to claiming two Guinness World Records! 30,914 people helped take the title for most people running 100 meters in 24 hours, on October 26, 2012. NG Kids hopes to set the title for largest of collection of shoes to recycle.
This morning, NG Kids staff emptied over 50 gigantic boxes of shoes and laid them all out heel to toe at National Geographic Society’s headquarters, and then the official count by Guinness World Records began. Guinness World Records officials will be on hand to announce the number of shoes collected at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, February 5.
All of the used sneakers were collected from families and kids who wanted to help make a difference. However a few of those sneakers came from the likes of Taylor Swift, One Direction, Eli Manning, Danica Patrick, and Amanda Beard!
The athletic shoes will be sent to the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe program which recycles shoes into Nike Grind. This is a material used in athletic surfaces like basketball courts and running tracks. The record will not be known until the shoes have been delivered to Nike for recycling.
NG Kids has set five other Guinness World Records in the past including longest line of footprints, largest collection of plush toys, longest chain of shoes, most items of clothing collected for recycling, and most people doing jumping jacks in 24 hours. We can’t wait to add two more to the list!
Please be patient while we create certificates for those of you who had 100 participants or more in running events.
Be sure to visit Run for the Planet to find out the total number of shoes collected!
Is Spring on the Way? Ask a Groundhog!
Saturday, February 2, is Groundhog Day! According to legend, if a groundhog sees his shadow, we can expect six more weeks of wintery weather. If there’s no shadow, spring is on the way! The most famous groundhog is Pennsylvania’s Punxatawney Phil. There are other weather-predicting groundhogs too, such as Raleigh, North Carolina’s Sir Walter Wally (pictured above) and Washington, D.C.’s “National Groundhog” Potomac Phil.
What is your prediction? Will we have six more weeks of winter?
Learn more about Punxatawney Phil on National Geographic News.
Do you want to help change the world? Google is encouraging young researchers, innovators, and inventors from around the world to share their projects in the third annual Google Science Fair. If you are between the ages of 13 and 18, all you need is an idea to get started!
If you are chosen as one of the 15 global finalists, you will get to go to Google’s headquarters in California to present your idea in front of a group of panelists including two National Geographic Explorers. Not only do you get a chance to share your great idea on how to change the world, you’ll also be competing to win the grand prize: a National Geographic Expedition to the Galapagos Islands!
Just because you’re a kid doesn’t mean you can’t help change the world. Thomas Edison, who invented the light bulb, was just 14 when he got his start. Albert Einstein was 16 and his fascination with magnets led to his famous E = mc2. Google’s Science Fair can help you develop your science or engineering ideas on how to better our world.
The Google Science Fair launches January 30, 2013 and will be accepting applications up through April 30, 2013. This is the largest online science fair in the world. What are you waiting for? Start submitting your great ideas today; it’s your turn to change the world!
Learn more about the contest on the Google Science Fair webpage.
The winners of the 2012 International Photo Contest for Kids winners have been announced! The grand prize winner is Isabella Barbaro, 11, from the United Kingdom. She has won a trip to Washington, D.C. and a tour of National Geographic headquarters.
Kids submitted more then 13,500 photos to this years contest from countries all over the world.
How did Holly the housecat find her way back to her home 200 miles away? Scientists aren’t sure. “Any animal that comes back to the right place after a long travel, or comes back to the same place again and again following a major movement, is amazing,” said Martin Wikelski, a migration expert at the Max Planck Institute.
There are plenty of animals who are very good at finding their way. The European eel, which travels thousands of miles from the place it was born to spawn. Mexican free-tailed bats fly up to 40 miles away from their home caves while they’re hunting for dinner, and are able to find their way back home.
Read about more amazing animal navigators on National Geographic News.
Get the facts on your favorite animals on National Geographic Kids.
If you like to do hands-on science activities, you’ll want to visit the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, Texas. The museum opened its doors in early December 2012, and has already had nearly 200,000 visitors! Some favorite exhibits are been the hands-on robots in the Bio Lab, and the Rose Hall of Birds, where you can have a 3-D flying experience.
Visit the Perot Museum website to learn more.
Get ideas for science experiments to try at home on National Geographic Kids.
January 13 marks the 125th anniversary of the National Geographic Society! Back in 1888, 33 men founded the Society at a meeting held at the Cosmos Club in Washington D.C. Since then, the National Geographic Society has grown to be one of the world’s largest scientific and educational organizations. To celebrate, we are planning events throughout the year, and will look back on all of the amazing discoveries and adventures, as well as look ahead to the exploration that is still to come!
How are you going to explore the world this year?
Learn more on our 125th anniversary page.
Meet National Geographic’s explorers in our interactive mural!
Paleontologists in Nevada have discovered a Triassic-era sea monster that is the size of a bus! It lived about 244 million years ago during the Triassic era. The creature is called “lizard-eating sovereign of the seas,” or Thalattoarchon saurophagis. T. saurophagis was an early ichthyosaur, a giant reptile that lived in the oceans.
The fossil was partially excavated in 1998, and National Geographic explorer and T. saurophagis study co-author Nadia Fröbisch and her colleagues excavated the rest of the fossil in 2010. The complete fossil has a huge skull and big, sharp teeth that may have been used to eat prey the same size as T. saurophagis.
Learn more about Thalattoarchon saurophagis on National Geographic News.
Hi HOEC fans,
We’re sorry to report that there won’t be a 2013 Hands-On Explorer Challenge.
2013 is National Geographic’s 125th anniversary, so we’ll have lots of other fun projects and programs coming your way.
If you’re in 9th – 12th grade, you still have time to enter the student photo contest to win a prize to National Geographic Student Expedition London Photography Workshop. Otherwise, keep us posted about all your adventures by posting your pictures on My Shot.
Keep an eye on this space for announcements, contests, records, and ways you can help save animals and explore our planet!
Keep exploring!
You may know that some dogs like to bury bones, but did you know that they can also be trained to find bones? Gary Jackson, an Australian dog trainer with Multinational K9 has trained Migaloo, a black lab, to find bones! Now Migaloo helps archaeologist search for bones that are hundreds of years old.
Migaloo locates the bones, but she is not allowed to dig them up–that’s up to the human archaeologists!
Learn more about Migaloo on National Geographic News.
What other jobs can dogs do? Find out on National Geographic Kids.
NASA has taken some amazing pictures from space that show the amount of artificial light generated on Earth. The lights are brightest in the big cities where most of the population lives.
The photographs were taken from a satellite using a powerful new sensor, according to NASA. It’s sensitive enough to capture the light from a ship on the ocean!
See more pictures of the Earth at night on National Geographic News.
What’s the best way to look at the stars in the night sky? Find out on National Geographic Kids.
Image courtesy NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC
The birds-of-paradise of Australia and New Guinea are visually stunning and have amazing courtship dances. A new exhibit at the National Geographic Museum highlights all 39 species of these incredible birds with photography and video.
The exhibit is open now and will be at the National Geographic Museum through May 12, 2013.
Read more about the exhibit on the National Geographic Events website.
Get the facts on birds and more of your favorite animals on National Geographic Kids.
Photograph by Tim Laman, National Geographic
Although lions are known as the kings of the jungle, their numbers have been dwindling due to a loss of habitat and prey. Humans have been encroaching on the lion’s home turf by cutting down trees to create farmland and other developments. This causes the lions to lose both their home and favorite foods.
Ask your parents if you can donate to National Geographic’s Big Cats Initiative!
Any amount will do, but five dollars can buy a lion guardian to protect the big cats.
Photograph by Beverly Joubert
Boost Your Happiness: Help the Planet!
After much observation and research, scientists have found some easy ways to make you feel happier. Make a difference! You’ll get an ego boost and feel better about yourself knowing you’ve done something nice for someone else. Or how about being nice to Mother Earth? By taking shorter showers, recycling, or organizing a clothing swap, you can help the planet and make a difference! Try making a change for the better in your community, school, or home. Then enjoy those happy feelings. Who knew being green could make everyone so much happier?
Photograph by LittleMissMagic, NG Kids My Shot
Welcome to Passport to Roam’s New Look!
Welcome to Passport to Roam’s new look! If you already have a NG Kids blog account, click “Login” to the right, and then “Lost Password” to get your new account password.
Welcome to News Bites’s new look! If you already have a NG Kids blog account, click “Login” to the right, and then “Lost Password” to get your new account password.
Welcome to Green Scene’s new look! If you already have a NG Kids blog account, click “Login” to the right, and then “Lost Password” to get your new account password.
Welcome to the Hands-On Explorer Challenge Blog’s new look! If you already have a NG Kids blog account, click “Login” to the right, and then “Lost Password” to get your new account password.
Welcome to DogEared’s new look! If you already have a NG Kids blog account, click “Login” to the right, and then “Lost Password” to get your new account password.
Passport to Roam is Getting a New Look!
In a few days, Passport to Roam will be getting a whole new look! The commenting will be turned off for a few days while we move into the new design. Thanks for reading Passport to Roam!
In a few days, DogEared will be getting a whole new look! The commenting will be turned off for several days while we move into the new design, but you can still read all the great posts about books. Thanks for reading DogEared!
