Page Type: Elementary

Ilia Malinin doesn’t just ice skate. He flies! Malinin can jump off the ice, rotate (turn) his body four and a half times, and land on one foot. This type of jump is called the quadruple (quad) axel. In September, 17-year-old Malinin became the first figure skater ever to land a quad axel in a competition. 

Malinin, who is American, landed the jump at a skating competition called the U.S. International Classic. He said he had done the quad axle many times during practice. But he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do it during a competition, with so many people watching. 

“When I’m practicing [the quad axel], it’s pretty easy for me to figure out how to get the right timing and everything…,” Malinin told reporters. “To do it in competition is a different story because you have nerves and pressure…. So I have to treat it like I’m at home, and it feels pretty good.”

Figure skaters have been landing quadruple jumps for many years. But the quad axel is the most difficult of all the jumps. Why? Most kinds of quad jumps require the skater to rotate their body four times. With the quad axel, the skater takes off moving forward and lands moving backward. That means the skater has to rotate their body four and a half times!

At the 2022 Winter Olympics in February, Japanese skater Yuzuru Hanyu tried a quad axel. Hanyu had been able to complete the jump in practice, but he fell when he tried it in the competition. Malinin was impressed that Hanyu tried the jump. It made him want to try it, too. 

Skating fans are excited about Malinin. He won the silver medal at the U.S. National Championships last season. He’s also a junior world champion. Could the 2026 Olympics be next?

November 10 will be a big day for people who love toys. That’s when the Strong National Museum of Play will choose which toys to put in its National Toy Hall of Fame!

The museum, which is located in Rochester, New York, is all about play! There’s a giant game board, a pinball machine room, a butterfly garden, and a ropes course. 

The museum is also home to the National Toy Hall of Fame. Toys that are selected to go into the Hall of Fame must be among the best of all time. Some were first sold many years ago and are more likely to be familiar to parents or grandparents. Others are newer. You might recognize some of them!

Seventy-seven toys are already in the Hall of Fame. Here are a few:

• LEGO
• American Girl dolls
• Monopoly
• The Atari 2600 video game system
• Sand
• The teddy bear

So far this year, the Hall of Fame has chosen 12 toys as finalists for the Hall. The games on the list include bingo, Catan, Phase 10, and Rack-O. The toys include Lite-Brite, Breyer Horses, Masters of the Universe action figures, piñatas, Nerf toys, Pound Puppies, Spirograph, and the spinning toy known as “the top.” 

Out of these 12 toys, only three will be chosen for the Toy Hall of Fame. The public voted for their favorites. (Voting ended on September 21.) A special committee (group of people) will make the final choices, which will be announced on November 10.

Which toys should win?

A school in Georgia coated its playground with a type of coating that reflects sunlight. Now, the playground doesn’t get as hot—making it much more fun to use!

The idea to paint the playground came from an experiment. Students at a school called SAE knew that their school’s playground and parking lot were covered in black asphalt. Asphalt gets very hot because it absorbs (takes in) the Sun’s heat. The students wanted to see if the special coating would make a difference. So they covered one spot in the parking lot with the coating. Then, they measured the ground temperature of that parking spot. They compared it with the temperature of the rest of the parking lot. The parking spot was 12 degrees (Fahrenheit) cooler! 

What made the coated parking spot cooler? The coating the students used reflects sunlight. That means the Sun’s heat bounces off the paint instead of soaking into it. This gave the students the idea to put the coating on their playground. 

“It’s been really cool to find out…the different temperatures you see different days,” eighth grader Paris Howard told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It’s definitely made me think more…of how our climate is changing.”

The people of the Muscogee Nation once called Georgia home. Now, a piece of land in central Georgia, with lush forests and green plains, may become a national park. 

Leaders from the Muscogee Nation are working with the U.S. government on a plan to set aside this land as Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve. Creating the park isn’t just a way to protect the forest and wildlife. It’s also a way to help keep Muscogee culture alive.

People have lived around the Ocmulgee River, which runs through the parcel of land, for 17,000 years. The Muscogee people lived in the area for hundreds of years. Then, in the 1820s and 1830s, the U.S. government drove them out. The government forced the Muscogee people to settle in Oklahoma (which was not yet a U.S. state). Today, the Ocmulgee is still a very important part of Muscogee history and culture.

“Our history is here,” David Hill, principal chief of the Muscogee Nation, told Voice of America. “Our ancestors are here. Our stories started here.”

Part of the area has been a national monument since 1936, but if the U.S. government approves the plan for a national park, more of the land will be protected. That means it won’t be built on. 

A national park would also attract visitors. They can go hiking, boating, and fishing, or just enjoy the land and wildlife. They can also learn about the history of the area—how American Indians, including the Muscogee people, lived on the land for thousands of years.

“This is lush, gorgeous land. The rivers are gorgeous here,” said Tracie Revis, whose Muscogee ancestors once lived here. “We believe that [our] ancestors are still here, their songs are still here, their words are still here, their tears are still here.”

Do you like cockroaches? You might become a fan, after reading this story!

Scientists say that roaches might someday be a big help to humans. They’ve invented an electronic roach “backpack” that could allow people to control the insect as it moves through areas that humans can’t reach.

A team of scientists in Japan created a thin, flexible device that fits on the body of a large roach. Scientists can send signals through the device to make the roach move in the direction they choose. The backpack is solar powered (powered by the Sun), so it never runs out of energy. Scientists say that the backpacks turn roaches into “cyborg roaches,” meaning it’s as if they’re partly roach and partly robot. 

Scientists hope to be able to send cyborg roaches into disaster areas to find people who are waiting to be rescued. They could also use the robotic roaches in hard-to-reach places to collect information on things like pollution. 

But the scientists aren’t quite ready to do that yet. First, they plan to make the backpacks even smaller and then add equipment, like thermometers or cameras, onto the backpacks. This type of equipment would allow the roaches to become true six-legged helpers.

Everyone has a favorite emoji. Some people love the red heart. Others go for the sparkles. 

Did you know that experts keep track of which emojis are used the most? Recently, experts revealed which emojis were most popular in the first half of 2022. Can you guess what’s on the list? 

Now that you’ve made your guesses, let’s count down the top five most-used emojis.

When Sonia Sotomayor was a kid in New York City, she watched a TV show about a lawyer and dreamed about working in a courtroom. Today, there’s a statue of Sotomayor in her old neighborhood. Why? She’s now one of the most important judges in the country! 

Sotomayor is one of the nine justices (judges) on the United States Supreme Court. That’s the most powerful court in the nation. Supreme Court justices are chosen by the U.S. president and approved by the Senate. The justices make decisions about whether laws are fair—and their decisions affect the entire country. When Sotomayor joined the Supreme Court in 2009, she became the first Hispanic justice on the court.  

Sotomayor grew up in the Bronx, which is part of New York City. In September 2022, Sotomayor returned to her old neighborhood to see the unveiling of a statue that was created in her honor. The statue is now on display in a shopping center that’s not far from her childhood home.

“[The statue is] quite amazing,” Sotomayor told the Associated Press. “Looks a lot like me.” 

Although Sotomayor now works in Washington, D.C., where the Supreme Court is located, she’s proud to be from the Bronx. 

“I love the Bronx. I love my community,” she said.

She’s still a huge fan of the New York Yankees, the baseball team that plays its home games in the Bronx. When she wasn’t watching baseball games, young Sotomayor watched Perry Mason, a TV show about a lawyer. The show made her decide she wanted to become a lawyer. It put her on a path that eventually led to the Supreme Court.  

“[Being chosen for the Supreme Court] was the most electrifying moment of my life,” she once told TV host Oprah Winfrey. “[It was] a moment in which you sit and realize that you’ve gone further than any dream you ever had, that you’ve reached something that never seemed possible.”

Dogs get very excited when their human families come home after a few hours away. They wag their tails. They jump up and down. A scientist in Japan recently found that some dogs may even get tears in their eyes. Tears of joy, that is!

Takefumi Kikusui is a scientist. He studies the relationship between humans and animals. A few years ago, Kikusui noticed that one of his dogs got teary-eyed as she was nursing her puppies. He wanted to find out if dogs shed tears when they are happy, like humans sometimes do. So he and other scientists measured the amount of tears dogs shed in two situations: when seeing someone they know and when seeing a member of their human family, both after being apart for a few hours. The dogs shed more tears when they were reunited with their family members than when they were reunited with other people. 

Kikusui knows that dog and human brains both make something called oxytocin in response to happiness. He found that when there is more oxytocin in a dog’s body, the dog’s eyes produce more tears. This led Kikusui to believe that dogs are shedding tears of happiness when they see their human family members after a long time apart.

It’s sweet to think dogs love their humans so much that they cry. But the tears may also help the dogs. Scientists have done studies showing that humans are more likely to give care and attention to a dog with teary eyes than a dog without tears.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom (U.K.) has died. She was 96 years old. 

The U.K. has had many kings and queens. Queen Elizabeth was the one who served the longest. She became queen when her father, King George VI, died in 1952. She was queen for 70 years. 

In the U.K., the monarch (king or queen) isn’t the head of the government. That job belongs to the prime minister. But the monarch has many duties. Queen Elizabeth traveled all over the U.K. and the world. She met with world leaders and attended events. She also supported charities—groups that help people who are in need.

In the summer of 1787, leaders from all over the United States met in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their goal was to write a Constitution for the United States. 

This was a big deal. America had been ruled by Britain for more than 100 years. Now, it was an independent country, free from British rule. The Constitution would say how the new nation’s government would work. Writing the Constitution took all summer, but on September 17, 1787, it was signed. Getting to that point wasn’t easy, though. Here’s a little more about the meeting in Philadelphia, which was called the Constitutional Convention.

Who was there?

Most states sent leaders (called delegates) to the Constitutional Convention. These leaders included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton.

Where did the delegates meet?

The delegates met at the Pennsylvania State House. They kept all the windows closed so no one outside would hear what they were saying. 

What was it like?

Since it was summer and the windows were closed, the building was very hot. The delegates wore coats, long-sleeved shirts, and breeches (a type of pants that went just past the knee) with stockings. Air conditioning hadn’t been invented yet. In fact, there was no electricity back then, so the delegates couldn’t even get a cool breeze from an electric fan.

What did the delegates talk about?

The delegates talked about how the new government should work. They didn’t agree on everything. Some thought the new national government had to be powerful. A powerful government could do things like make laws to protect the people and collect taxes to pay for important things. But others were worried that a powerful government could take away the people’s freedom. 

How did the delegates work things out?

Even after the Constitution was written, some delegates were still worried about the people’s rights. They felt there should be a list of rights, or freedoms, that the government couldn’t take away. This list was written down just a couple of years after the Constitution. It’s called the Bill of Rights.