Kids News - Articles for Grade 7

Hanukkah is one of the most anticipated and joyous of all Jewish festivals. Although the celebration always begins on the 25th day of Kislev, the ninth month on the Hebrew calendar, that date can fall anywhere between late November and late December on the Gregorian calendar. This year, the eight-day festival will begin at sundown on December 22, 2019, and continue through December 30, 2019....

It is often said that "a picture is worth a thousand words." That is certainly true of the mesmerizing images of fleeting moments of nature submitted by international ecologists and students for the British Ecological Society's (BES) annual photography competition. Here are a few of 2019's winning entries, announced on November 28, 2019....

On December 7, 2019, David Datuna was admiring the modern and contemporary works of art on display from 200 of the world's leading galleries at Miami's Art Basel, when hunger pangs hit. Fortunately for the New York-based artist, there was a ripe banana just waiting to be eaten. The only problem? The tropical fruit stuck to the wall with duct tape was no ordinary banana — it was an art installation that had just been sold by Perrotin, an international art gallery, for $120,000!...

The low percentage of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers is often attributed to men being believed to be better at the sort of thinking those fields require. Though several studies have debunked the myth, they have largely been based on results acquired from various standardized tests. Now, researchers from Pennsylvania's Carnegie Mellon University have found evidence that is hard to overlook: brain scans proving that young girls and boys use the same mechanisms and networks in the brain to solve math problems....

Venice, which is built on 118 small islands in the middle of the Venetian Lagoon at the tip of the Adriatic Sea in Northern Italy, is no stranger to floods. The picturesque city experiences water surges from the rising tides at least four times a year, usually during winter....

Few American holidays are as anticipated as Thanksgiving. Observed annually on the fourth Thursday of November, the secular holiday, which marks the start of the festive season, is credited to a harvest feast shared by the early European settlers, or Pilgrims, and Native Americans in 1621. Though food remains the centerpiece of the celebration, many fun traditions have been added since. Here are some fun Thanksgiving tradition facts to share with family and friends as you enjoy the delicious meal on November 28, 2019....

Though thousands of adventurers have scaled Mount Everest, the highest and most famous of the world's 14 tallest mountains, only 40 climbers have conquered them all. Located in Asia's Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, the "eight-thousanders" each stand over 8,000 meters (26,247 feet) tall, above the so-called "death zone," where the amount of oxygen is insufficient to sustain human life for an extended period....

On November 10, 2019, nine agile mini cheetah robots, built by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), were let off their leash to demonstrate their superior athletic abilities. The four-legged machines, controlled by their human creators, began with a warm-up run across the field in full formation. They then took turns maneuvering a soccer ball. As often happens in games, a couple of the team members got into a skirmish and jostled with each other until they both fell onto their backs. Fortunately, they reconciled for the grand finale — a perfectly synchronized backflip, one that would make even a world-class gymnast like Simone Biles proud!...

Endemic to the forests of south and southeast Asia, the silver-backed chevrotain, or Vietnamese mouse-deer, is one of the world's most elusive animals. The rabbit-sized critter is only known to science through five specimens, four of which were recorded by researchers in 1910. The fifth was killed by a hunter and donated to scientists in 1990. Since then, there have been no recorded sightings of the animals, leading many to fear they had gone extinct. Now, thanks to the efforts and persistence of a team led by biologist Andrew Tilker, the species has not only been rediscovered but also photographed in the wild for the first time!...