Our mission here at News Bites (a monthly children’s newspaper) is to Engage, Inform, and Inspire by bringing news, STEM, sport and entertainment to young people in a language they understand and in a manner they can easily relate to.
Get in touch by emailing hello@newsbitesmedia.com Hello, everyone! And welcome to this month’s issue of News Bites. As always, we hope you enjoyed last month’s issue, where we unearthed some of the most famous historical finds from the last century or two. It really is amazing what lies beneath us, and what these discoveries can teach us about our past. In this month’s issue, we’ve turned to nature in the most hilarious way possible – and we have the guys behind the Comedy in Wildlife Photography Awards to thank. This annual competition is growing more popular every year, and you can see why. From real-life angry birds to a dancing monkey and gossiping raccoons, this side-splitting celebration of Earth’s wildlife is not to be missed. Check out our top picks…
COP26: The World is Watching In November 2021, more than 200 world leaders will meet for COP26, to discuss climate change. ‘COP’ stands for ‘Conference of Parties’ - in other words, a meeting that involves groups of people working towards the same goal. And why 26? It will be the 26th meeting of the ‘United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change‘ (UNFCCC). The first meeting was held in 1994, when many world leaders joined the UNFCCC and agreed to combat global warming. Since then, there has been a meeting every year. COP26 is hugely important for the future of the planet. A recent United Nations report showed that the world is warming more quickly than scientists expected. Slashing greenhouse gas emissions by at least half before 2030 is vital to…
Space Movie Magic Many movies are set in fictional space locations. But now a Russian feature movie has actually been filmed in space! A Soyuz spacecraft led by the veteran Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov recently carried a movie crew to the International Space Station. Director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild were aboard for several weeks to film scenes for the new movie Challenge. Shkaplerov will also play a part in the movie, along with two other cosmonauts, Pyotr Dubrov and Oleg Novitskiy. In fact, Novitskiy will play the part of a crew member who must be treated for a serious heart problem while in space. Although appearing in a movie was a steep learning curve for the cosmonauts, that was nothing compared to what Shipenko, the director, and Peresild,…
Feathered Friend Michael Smith, a 55-year-old retired builder from Worcestershire, England, spotted an injured jackdaw chick lying on the roadside back in May. He picked up the tiny bird and took him home. Michael made him a little nest, fed him scrambled eggs and named him Patch. Now recovered, and about six months old, Patch is an excellent flier, but comes back to Michael when he is called. They have become best friends, and Patch even sits on the handlebars of Michael’s bike when he goes cycling. Michael feeds Patch mealworms, and fruit like cherries and grapes, but the healthy bird also catches moths, wasps and flies for himself. Patch lives in an aviary that Michael built in the garden. He also comes in for play dates and sleepovers in…
Happy Birthday Can you believe that Minecraft is only 10 years old? It seems like the block-building game has been around forever! So, to mark this landmark anniversary, we’ve been mining to unearth our News Bites Top 10 Minecraft Facts. Enjoy building … er, we mean reading! 1 Minecraft was created by Swedish video game designer Markus ‘Notch’ Persson in 2009. 2 The very first version of Minecraft took just six days to complete. 3 While early test versions of the game were available to play in 2009 and 2010, Minecraft -the official versions – was released on November 18, 2011. 4 Minecraft was first called Cave Game. Its name was then changed to Minecraft: Order of the Stone. This was eventually shortened to Minecraft before its release in 2011. 5 Markus…
FACT? SCIENCE FACT OR FICTION? OR FICTION? STATEMENT: There are more trees on earth than stars in our galaxy. Would you believe that there are an estimated three trillion trees on earth?! That is a three (not tree) with twelve zeroes after it: 3,000,000,000,000! This total is more than the number of stars in our galaxy (estimated at somewhere around 150-250 billion) and many times more than the number of cells in a human brain (around 100 billon)! That said, there used to be six trillion trees on earth – before humans came along and started cutting them down. This is just one example of how human activity can have a negative impact on the environment. TRUE or FALSE? Trees are able to communicate and defend themselves against attacking insects.…
