Kids News - Articles for Grades 4-5

On Thursday, May 31, 14-year-old Karthik Nemmani stunned the world when he beat crowd favorite and veteran competitor Naysa Modi to win the coveted Scripps National Spelling Bee championship. His winning word? Koinonia, an obscure word of Greek origin, which means “an intimate spiritual or Christian communion.” The Texas eighth-grader’s opportunity came unexpectedly in the first championship round after Naysa mixed up the single and double “s” in bewusstseinslage, a German-derived word which means “a state of consciousness or a feeling devoid of sensory components.”...

Pesky as they may be, ants are truly incredible creatures. In addition to talents like predicting earthquakes and morphing into rafts to save themselves from drowning during floods, the industrious insects go all out to protect their own, often carrying wounded comrades back to the nest to heal. Now, researchers have discovered ants who explode and sacrifice themselves to save their colonies from predators....

The quest to discover life outside of Earth has spanned decades and a multitude of galaxies. However, while breakthroughs like the discovery of liquid water on Mars and “Earth-like” exoplanets have raised hopes about the existence of alien life, the distance has made it hard to prove. Now, scientists believe the extraterrestrial life we have been seeking for so long may be on the planet closest to us — Venus....

While Fridays are always the best day of the week, June 1 promises to be even more special. That’s because it also happens to be National Donut Day, which means it is your civic duty to consume one, or even a dozen, of the delicious fried treats! Surprisingly, the holiday was not established by donut manufacturers to boost sales, but by the Salvation Army to help raise much-needed funds for the needy....

Few people can resist the lure of a delicious ice cream scoop or two, especially on a hot day. The only thing that spoils the fun is that the treat is hard to savor slowly, like one would a piece of candy, without ending up with a sticky, melted mess. Now, researchers from Colombia's Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana may have found an unlikely ally to help solve this age-old problem — cellulose fiber extracted from banana plant waste....

Commemorated annually on the last Monday of May, Memorial Day is a federal holiday set aside to honor the brave men and women of the United States Armed Forces who have sacrificed their lives in the line of duty. This includes everyone who has served in the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, National Guard, Air Force, and the Coast Guard....

On Saturday, May 19, 2018, 600 invited guests, and more than 13 million television viewers worldwide, witnessed the fairytale wedding of Britain's Prince Harry to American actress, model, and humanitarian Meghan Markle in Windsor Castle’s St. George's Chapel. Though all weddings are magical, this trans-Atlantic whirlwind royal romance, which began with a blind date in July 2016, was powerful enough to melt even the most jaded hearts....

After successfully banning plastic bags, officials around the world are turning their attention to something we are all guilty of using for only a few minutes and disposing of without a second thought – plastic straws. According to ecostraw.org, over 500 million straws, enough to fill 127 school buses, are used just in the US, each day! Too small to recycle, they choke sea creatures, clog coral reefs, and eventually disintegrate into tiny microbeads which enter our food chain through fish. This means that every single straw ever produced in the world still exists in some form today. Now, thanks to social media campaigns such as #TheLastStraw and #TheFinal Straw, the urgency to ban plastic straws is finally gained momentum....

In 2015, the Internet became divided over a dress that some thought was blue and black, while others believed it was white and gold. Now millions of listeners are arguing over a single word uttered in a three-second audio clip. Some hear it as a deep male voice saying “Yanny,” while others maintain it’s a higher-pitched sound saying “Laurel.” Posted on Reddit by 18-year-old student Roland Camry, the meme became an overnight sensation after YouTuber and social media influencer Cloe Feldman shared it to her Instagram and Twitter on May 15, 2018, inquiring: “What do you hear — “Yanny” or “Laurel?”...