Page Type: Elementary

Electric vehicles (EVs) are getting more popular. One reason for this is they don’t pollute the air. But EVs aren’t always the best choice for long road trips. EVs need to be plugged in so their batteries can recharge, and plugging stations can be hard to find. That’s why a company called Aptera is making an EV that is solar powered. That means the car can run on power it makes from the Sun. 

Aptera’s new car, called the Launch Edition, has solar panels on its hood, roof, and back end. Just like solar panels on a house, the panels on the Aptera car capture the Sun’s energy. That energy is then used to power the car’s battery. Aptera says that on a sunny day, the car can drive for up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) using only the Sun’s energy. The car doesn’t need to be plugged in, so it uses less electricity than other EVs. 

What if it hasn’t been very sunny? That’s no problem. Like other EVs, Aptera’s Launch Edition car has a plug, so drivers can power their battery with electricity. A fully charged car can go for hundreds of miles before it needs to be plugged in or sit in the Sun for a while.

Aptera says it plans to start selling its Launch Edition later in 2023. However, making the cars will cost a lot of money. If Aptera can raise the money, these unusual-looking cars might be coming to a road near you!

Straws are a big problem. Most of them are made of plastic, which is harmful to the planet. A new company called The Ice Guys is aiming to solve the straw problem. They invented a straw that’s made of ice.

The Ice Straw is the first straw that’s all ice. It keeps drinks cool and then melts away, just like an ice cube.

The Ice Guys don’t actually sell straws made of ice. What they sell is a mold. To make ice straws, you just fill the mold with water (or juice) and put it in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. The mold is shaped so that the liquid freezes into straws.

Ice Straws can be used instead of plastic straws. Every year, people throw away millions of tons of plastic. This includes straws, wrappers, bags, bottles, and other containers. Plastic lasts for a long time. And a lot of it ends up in oceans, where it is harmful to ocean life. Experts say plastic straws are a very small part of the plastic problem. But anything we can do to use less plastic will help keep our planet cleaner and safer.

Many types of straws can be used instead of plastic. Some people use metal or glass straws. And some people decide not to use straws at all!

Imagine rowing a boat across an ocean. That’s just what a woman named Miriam Payne did. And she did it in less than two months!

Payne, who is 23, rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in 59 days, 16 hours, and 36 minutes. She did this as part of a race called the Talisker Challenge. People in the race can do it solo (alone) or in teams of up to five people.  The race starts at the Canary Islands, which are off the coast of Africa. Rowers travel west to Antigua, which is an island in the Caribbean Sea. The race is 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) long!

During the race, rowers must do everything themselves. They take their own food and water, and if anything happens to their boat, it’s up to them to fix it. (Two ships follow along, in case a rower or rowing team needs to quit the race.) Rowers do take breaks. Their boats have sleeping cabins, and special equipment that lets them know their location in the ocean. 

Payne said rowing under the hot Sun made her very tired. The last 10 miles (16 kilometers) were the toughest, even though she knew she was near the end of the race. 

“I was so tired. I just wanted to get to the end of the race so I could stop rowing,” she later told the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). But as she got close to Antigua, she could hear her family and friends cheering. They were waiting to greet her! This gave Payne the energy she needed to finish the race.

Payne arrived at Antigua on February 10. As she arrived, people in the crowd called out, “Way to go, Miriam! That’s it, you’ve done it!” Payne had finished the Talisker Challenge faster than any solo woman ever had before.

Kids in Australia are finding hidden treasures! Thousands of books have been hidden all over a town called Braidwood for anyone to find.

The books are hidden in places like trees, bushes, and shop windows. They’re placed inside a plastic bag with a note that says, “You are the lucky finder of this book. Read it, enjoy it, and then re-hide it for someone else to enjoy.” 

Kids who find a book are asked to write their name inside the front cover before hiding it again. Then it’s easy to see how many people found and enjoyed each book.

Scientists found a rock from space in Antarctica! The rock, called a meteorite, is one of the largest ever found in that part of the world. 

Scientists found the meteorite during a trip to Antarctica in January 2023. The meteorite is about the size of a cantaloupe, which is a kind of melon. But since the meteorite is made up mostly of metal, it’s very heavy for its size. In fact, it weighs almost 17 pounds (8 kilograms)!

Meteorites are rocks that fall from space and land on Earth’s surface. Along with the planets, many other objects orbit the Sun. Some of them are pieces of rock. Sometimes a small rock gets close to Earth’s atmosphere and falls to Earth. That’s a meteorite. Scientists think the one they found fell to Earth tens of thousands of years ago.

Scientists often look for meteorites in Antarctica. That’s because Antarctica is a very dry place. In fact, it’s a desert! Most meteorites are found in deserts because there’s very little rain or snow to damage them. So they can sit in one spot and remain unchanged. Plus, Antarctica is frozen. Since meteorites are dark colored, they’re easy to spot on the white ice. So far, scientists have found about 45,000 meteorites in Antarctica. They think there might be 300,000 more!

When bees get sick, it can cause big problems for people. In 2023, scientists said they created a vaccine that can help honeybees stay healthy. It’s the world’s first vaccine for honeybees.

A vaccine is something that is put in an animal’s body to help protect the animal from a certain disease. There are vaccines for humans and many other species of animals. The vaccine that scientists made for honeybees protects them against a disease called foulbrood. Foulbrood can kill off entire hives of honeybees. 

Honeybee health is very important to people. That’s because honeybees are pollinators. They fly to plants that have flowers to collect pollen and nectar. The pollen and nectar are food for all the bees in the hive. When bees visit flowers, they end up spreading pollen from flower to flower. If plants aren’t pollinated, they can’t grow seeds to make new plants. And all the fruits and vegetables we eat come from plants. Without pollinators like bees, we wouldn’t have a lot of our food.

So, the bee vaccine isn’t meant to help just the bees. It’s meant to help humans, too, by protecting our food supply.

Many vaccines are given by needle, but bees are way too small for that. The bee vaccine is fed to the queen bee—the bee that lays all the eggs for the hive. Once the queen bee is protected from the disease, all the eggs she lays will be protected from the disease as well.

A new Barbie doll has been created to celebrate the life of a talented pilot named Bessie Coleman. Coleman was the first Black woman in the United States to earn a license to fly a plane.

The Bessie Coleman doll is dressed in a green aviator suit. (Early pilots were often called aviators, which means “fliers.”) Gigi Coleman is Bessie Coleman’s grandniece. She worked with Mattel, the company that makes Barbie dolls, to create the Bessie doll. 

“We hope through this doll more people will discover Bessie’s story and be inspired,” Gigi Coleman said.

You can make sculptures out of many materials, including clay, wax, and marble. But some people are really good at sculpting with snow! That includes a team of snow sculptors who took home the top prize at the 2023 World Snow Sculpting Championship in Stillwater, Minnesota.

First prize went to the House of Thune, whose team members included Dusty Thune, his sister Kelly Thune, and David Aichinger. The team is from Minnesota. They defeated 11 other teams from around the world. 

The winning sculpture is called “Journey.” It shows two people who are unhappy and tired. But the sculpture’s story isn’t totally sad. Dusty Thune says his team wanted to show that people can go through hard times and then pick themselves up and put themselves together again. 

Each team was given a giant block of snow to work with. They had 72 hours to sculpt whatever they wanted—and anyone was allowed to come and watch. The House of Thune team had tools that were made especially for sculpting snow. 

Unlike sculptures made of clay or marble, the snow sculptures won’t last long. Even though Minnesota winters are usually cold, “Journey” will eventually be gone forever. But new snow will fall—and new sculptures can be made!

What would you make out of a big block of snow?

Molly Sampson has always loved fossils, especially fossils of shark teeth. In December 2022, Molly, who is 9, spotted one of the biggest shark tooth fossils you can find. The 5-inch (13-centimeter) tooth had once belonged to a giant shark species called megalodon. Megalodons lived millions of years ago. Today, megalodons are extinct, meaning they have all died out. 

Molly discovered the megalodon tooth on a beach in Maryland. She and her older sister were wading in the Chesapeake Bay and using tools called fossil sifters. With the sifters, they were able to sift through sand and see if there were any fossils in it. The sisters hoped to find shark teeth, but they had no idea what was waiting for them. Standing in water up to her knees, Molly spotted the amazingly large tooth.

“I went closer, and in my head, I was like, ‘Oh, my, that is the biggest tooth I’ve ever seen!’” Molly told National Public Radio (NPR). “I reached in and grabbed it, and dad said I was shrieking.”

About a week later, the family took the fossil to a museum. Experts at the museum studied the fossil and said Molly was right. It was a real megalodon tooth!

Are snowflakes really as beautiful as everyone thinks? The answer is yes! We know this thanks to a man named Snowflake Bentley, who spent his life studying and taking photos of snowflakes. Now, these photos can be seen online!

Bentley, whose real first name was Wilson, was born in 1865 in Vermont, where winters are very snowy. Luckily for Bentley, he loved snow. 

When he was a teenager, Bentley started looking at snowflakes under a microscope, which is an instrument that makes small objects look bigger. Bentley was amazed when he noticed that each snowflake seemed to have its own special design. He felt as if snowflakes were beautiful art. There was just one problem—snowflakes melt, and the art is lost forever. So Bentley decided he needed to capture pictures of snowflakes before it was too late. He started by trying to draw snowflakes, but that took too long. So, instead, he began to photograph the flakes.

Over the course of his life, Bentley took more than 5,000 photos of snowflakes. He never found any two that were the same. In 1899, the Natural History Museum in London, England, bought 355 of Bentley’s photos. The photos are now online so that anyone can look at them. 

Bentley and his hobby were also celebrated in a 1998 picture book called Snowflake Bentley.

If you live in a place where it snows, see if you can catch a few snowflakes. You’ll never see the same design twice!