News Bites - National Geographic Kids

Sesame Street's first episode aired on November 10, 1969. It was one of the first educational TV programs for kids. The idea behind Sesame Street was to help kids learn and to have fun while doing it. The show was specially directed towards inner-city kids who had fewer educational advantages. The Sesame Street set was designed to look familiar--it could be any street in New York City.

Today, 40 years later, kids are still watching Sesame Street, and in more countries than ever before. There are 140 different versions of Sesame Street broadcast around the world. Each edition is specially adapted reflect the lives and cultures of kids living in that area.

Do you watch Sesame Street, or did you when you were younger? Who is your favorite character?

Visit the Sesame Street website on PBS.

Learn more about Sesame Street around the world on National Geographic News.

Even Sesame Street is going green! Learn more on National Geographic News.


Photograph by Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Alamy

Photograph courtesy WFP/Rein Skullerud


Did you know that over one billion people suffer hunger in the world each day? That is about one-sixth of the population of the planet. The World Food Programme, part of the United Nations, helps feed people around the world and has created online resources to help kids learn about hunger and ways to help. The WFP blog for students and teachers called, Teaching Hunger, is a great way to learn more about how hunger affects people around the world. Another WFP blog, On the Road, features videos highlighting hunger issues. Check out the links below to visit the World Food Programme blogs on their website.

Visit the World Food Programme's Teaching Hunger blog.

Visit the World Food Programme's On the Road blog.

Learn how you can help others during the holidays this year on National Geographic Kids.

Hunger isn't the only problem in the world. Malaria is still a problem in Africa. Read more on National Geographic Kids.

Photograph courtesy Cotswold Wildlife Park


Did you get some good treats this Halloween? The lemurs and meerkats at the Cotswold Wildlife Park in the United Kingdom did, too! These pictures show some of the park's critters enjoying carved pumpkins as a tasty snack instead of decorations.

Photograph courtesy Cotswold Wildlife Park 


Visit the Cotswold Wildlife Park website.

Get the facts on meerkats in the Creature Feature.

Get the facts on ring-tailed lemurs in the Creature Feature.

Photograph by Lisa Poole, AP


Daylight saving time ends for most of the U.S. on November 1. But why do we change our clocks by one hour in the spring in the first place? "In the early 19th century ... localities set their own time," said Bill Mosley, a public affairs officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation. There was no standardized time until train travel became common. The U.S. railroad industry established time zones with standard times in 1883, and Congress made the railroad's system a law in 1918. The next year, the decision of whether or not to observe daylight saving time was left up to individual jurisdictions.

Some places, like American Samoa, Hawaii and most of Arizona, don't mess with Father Time. For those places that do observe it, though, the law says that people must set their clocks back to standard time at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November. This Sunday, the sun will set an hour earlier. The switch to daylight saving time again on the second Sunday in March "adjust[s] daylight hours to when most people are awake and about," Mosley said. During daylight saving time months, there's less light in the morning and more light in the evening. Although more light in the evening isn't helpful to everyone (like farmers), research shows that longer daylight hours decrease traffic accidents and crimes.

When updating legislation in the 1980s, Congress noted that daylight saving time has many benefits, including "more daylight outdoor playtime for the children and youth of our Nation."

Read more about daylight saving time on National Geographic News.

Read about atomic clocks on National Geographic News.

Spend your extra hour this weekend reading a book! Get recommendations from other kids on the DogEared Books Blog.

Read about an invention that wakes you up with bacon on National Geographic Kids.

Nephila komaci is the world's largest web-spinning spider. Or at least the female is! Her legspan can be as big as five inches (12 centimeters) wide. The males, however, is less than a quarter of the female's size. Males have legspans that are only one inch wide (2.5 centimeters). There are bigger spiders on the planet (think tarantulas like the goliath birdeater), but they don't spin webs.

Nephila komaci is a member of the golden orb-weaver family. All of these spiders are known to spin very big webs. They can be up to three feet (one meter) wide! The spider's habitat is limited--it lives in small areas in Madagascar and South Africa. Although the spider was first identified at a museum in 2000, scientists didn't know if it still existed in the wild until a field survey in 2007.

Read more about Nephila komaci on National Geographic News.

Put together puzzles featuring spiders on National Geographic Kids.

Get the facts on tarantulas in the Creature Feature.