Where in the World?

Tuesdays are special days in our class. Tuesday means 'Tuesday Newsday'. And 'Tuesday Newsday' means that we have to come to school prepared to share with the rest of the class, an item of real news, which we have recently heard on the radio, read in the newspaper, discovered on the Internet or watched on the television.

With our current unit in mind, this week we also tried to tell 'Where in the World' our news happened.

Here are some of the things we learned from our friends:

Max told us that in Japan, a female driver became the first woman to win an 'Indy' car race. He added that instead of making excuses for losing, the men drivers were all very impressed by how good she was! "She passed me fair and square," commented one of the men she beat.



Michelle found out that a scientist who was studying monkeys in the continent of Africa felt hungry and he used a stick to try to get some fruit from a tree; but he was unable to get any. A monkey saw him, grabbed some fruit from the tree and then gave it to the man!



Fiona's news story was about hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean. The hurricane season is just getting under way, she explained; experts say that these days, hurricanes happen twice as often as they did 100 years ago. Some people think this might be because of Global Warming; that the seas are getting warmer.



Which is interesting, because Evangeline wasn't sure whether her news was good news or bad news! She told us that in Scotland, even though there is supposed to be Global Warming right now, (Max explained that Global Warming is where the Earth's temperatures are rising) instead of warm Spring-like weather, it is snowing and people are enjoying being able to ski at the 'wrong' time of year. Good news or bad news I wonder.



Tanmay told us news of the first South Korean astronaut who was on the capsule that was supposed to land back in Russia but missed the target by 400km. As he explained, that would be like heading for Geneva but instead, ending up in Zurich! Luckily, everyone on board was OK.



Next, Chris took us to Sweden, where they have discovered the world's oldest living tree; a spruce tree that is nearly 10,000 years old. It was discovered in 2004 and its age has been determined by American scientists using Carbon Dating (Max explained to us that this is a complicated way of using something - 'radioactivity' - to tell the age of something).



Now, let's head to Bath in the south west of England with Dangi; where surprise surprise, we find a European tree frog that has survived for days trapped inside a bag of spinach in the refrigerator! No wonder they called him Popeye! We think he had a lucky escape.



And finally (and excuse me for saving my favourite story until last) let's head with Per to America to the poor confused male emu, who is trying hard to hatch a green plastic ball.



Emu eggs are green, so when a green ball accidentally got thrown into the pen where the emu lived, he started sitting on it. He won't even leave the 'egg' for food. He hasn't yet been there for 40 days (which is how long it takes an emu egg to hatch) and the owners plan to remove the ball from him before then, so he shouldn't go hungry for too much longer.



Now, do you think you could use a map to find 'Where in the World' our stories happened? Ask a grown-up to help you.