Page Type: Elementary

Do hedgehogs have a superpower? Not quite, but the adorable animals do have very good hearing. Researchers say European hedgehogs’ hearing could be the key to saving the species.

Sounds travel to our ears in vibrations called sound waves. Sound waves that humans can’t hear are called ultrasonic. Dogs have famously sensitive ears. They can hear far more sound waves than humans. Hedgehogs can hear even more. In fact, researchers at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom have found that hedgehogs can hear at least twice as many ultrasonic sound waves as dogs!

Scientist Sophie Lund Rasmussen led the hedgehog research. Rasmussen, who has become known as “Dr. Hedgehog,” believes her discoveries could help European hedgehogs, which are often hit by cars.

“I thought perhaps we could try and make sound repellers for cars so the hedgehogs would avoid crossing the roads when the cars were running,” Rasmussen told the Associated Press.

Does it really matter if the metal and plastic we use gets recycled? Two stories—one from the United States and the other from the United Kingdom (UK)—prove that thoughtful recycling can change lives.

In the UK town of Solihull, 13-year-old Ryan Hulance has raised thousands of dollars for charity. He did it by recycling over a million cans.

The United Kingdom is one of many countries where scrap metal companies pay money for used cans. The companies recycle the metal so that it can be used in other products.

In 2023, Ryan started calling businesses and asking them if they had any used metal cans. He was soon collecting hundreds of cans per week. Since then, he has recycled enough cans to raise $20,000 for food banks and other charities.

Schools all over the United States and Canada teach reading, spelling, and math. But there’s one skill that has become less common: cursive writing. Now, some U.S. states are bringing cursive back into classrooms. But is it worthwhile?

Cursive is a form of writing in which the letters are connected. It’s different from print handwriting, where each letter stands on its own. 

Cursive writing used to be taught in elementary schools in both the United States and Canada. For years, many teachers required their students to use cursive when they handwrote their assignments. Writing in cursive usually takes less time than using print handwriting. Learning cursive was valuable at a time when people wrote a lot by hand. But things changed as computers and texting became more common. Many schools stopped teaching cursive because it was no longer considered necessary.

Today, some people argue that cursive needs to make a comeback. Experts say that practicing cursive writing helps kids develop daily movements called motor skills. Some believe that learning to write words and sentences in cursive and then practicing them improves kids’ spelling and thinking skills. 

“The more that young writers, beginning writers, are using their hands…[that] helps them to think more about the words that they’re writing,” Shelley Stagg Peterson told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Peterson is a professor of education at the University of Toronto.

An empty field can become many things. Plant some seeds, and you may end up with enough food to feed a village! 

Growing up, Michel Éprinchard loved to explore his family’s land in the French town of Clussais-la-Pommeraie. But when he grew up and the land became his, he didn’t know what to do with it. It grew nothing but weeds. Then he got an idea. Why not give the land to the town and ask that it be used to grow food for the community?

Éprinchard made a deal with the town government. He would give the land to the town if the government turned it into a garden and orchard that all the residents could use. The project would cost about $12,000. 

“The first [requirement] is to create a garden with specific varieties of fruit trees,” Éprinchard told Franceinfo. “The second [requirement]…is that the entire community can benefit from it, shared among all.”

Town mayor Étienne Fouché accepted the deal. Planting began last year, with many residents volunteering to help transform the field into an orchard—a place where fruit trees grow. By early 2026, there were 50 saplings, or baby trees. Eventually, there will be nearly 100 trees, plus flowers and more. There will even be an area where people just hang out and enjoy the fresh air.

“There are apple trees, pear trees, and plum trees,” Mayor Fouché said. It will take about four years for the trees to start bearing fruit. In the meantime, the town is working hard to keep them healthy, knowing there will eventually be a sweet reward.

 “Now we will let them grow,” said Mayor Fouché. “We will monitor the diseases, we will take care of the soil, and then people will come to pick their own apples or make jam.”

Peering into the universe can be a bit like traveling back in time. Recently, a powerful space telescope gave us a view of a galaxy that’s millions of light-years away. The telescope’s image of the galaxy shows light that began traveling to the telescope not long after the dinosaurs roamed Earth.

Looking Back in Time

The image of the galaxy, which is called NGC 5134, was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. NGC 5134 is 65 million light-years away from the Webb telescope. What does that mean? A light-year is a measure of distance. One light-year is the distance light travels in one year. That means the light from NGC 5134 takes 65 million years to reach the telescope. 

In other words, the image from the telescope shows the NGC 5134 galaxy as it looked 65 million years ago! At that time, the dinosaurs had only recently become extinct, and it would be tens of millions of years before humans appeared. 

It’s almost time for April Fools’ Day! Taking place each year on April 1, April Fools’ Day is the perfect time to play harmless pranks, or tricks, on people. Pranksters have been coming up with April Fools’ tricks for hundreds of years. Back in 1698, people in London, England, became convinced they were going to see some local lions get bathed. 

It happened on April 1, of course. That day, several people were invited to a city landmark called the Tower of London to see the lions get “washed.” The Tower, which still stands today, was famous for many things. Mostly, it was known as a prison. But at the time, the tower was also home to a collection of animals owned by the king of England, including tigers, elephants, snakes, and lions. The idea of washing the lions may have seemed weird since lions can bathe themselves. More important, lions can be dangerous! Even so, many people fell for the prank. When they got to the tower, there was no bathtime to watch.

What did people eat for dinner back in the Stone Age? You might picture a big piece of meat cooking over a fire. But a new study shows that Stone Age dining wasn’t always that simple. In fact, meals were carefully planned.

Researchers studied cooking pots that were used 5,000 to 8,000 years ago in 13 different parts of Europe. The people who used these pots were hunter-gatherers, which means they hunted for animals and gathered plants. Even after all this time, these pots held bits of food too small for us to see with our eyes. Researchers used microscopes to find out what the food was.

Many people believe that Stone Age humans mostly ate meat, but their cooking pots show that they ate plants as well. The researchers focused on the bits of plants in the pots, including leaves, seeds, grasses, and berries. The microscopes allowed them to look at the cells of each plant to determine which plants the Stone Age people were eating. 

A dog named Marnie has finally had her day. The 8-year-old terrier mix was named Family Crossbreed Dog of the Year at this year’s Scruffts, a competition for dogs that are a mix of more than one breed.

Scruffts is part of a bigger dog show called Crufts, which has taken place in the United Kingdom nearly every year since 1891. But Scruffts is different from the main Crufts competition, which is limited to purebreds (dogs of only one breed). Crufts dogs are judged on things like their behavior and their movement. Judges also compare each dog to its “breed standard,” or what its breed is supposed to look like. Scruffts dogs aren’t judged by a breed standard because they aren’t only one breed.

Hundreds of dog owners entered their furry pals in the 2026 Scruffts contest. On March 7, 2026, judges selected 24 semi-finalists and then narrowed them down to four finalists. Click through the slideshow for photos and names.

Imagine being able to build a new city from the ground up! It’s happening in Australia, where planners are constructing the nation’s first major city in over 100 years. 

Bradfield will be located in eastern Australia, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) west of the center of Sydney. The new urban center, or city, won’t just be a nice place for people to live. It’s designed to meet the needs of everyone and everything that lives there, including humans, plants, and animals. 

If everything goes as planned, the new city will have up to 10,000 homes, plus schools, offices, stores, hotels, and doctors’ offices. All those businesses will need workers, so the new city will provide thousands of job opportunities. There will also be parks, including a large park in the middle of the city called Green Loop, and many trees throughout the city. Plants will even be grown on rooftops.

City areas with lots of plants are often called “green spaces.” City planners say green spaces are important for many reasons. Plants absorb harmful pollution, and spending time in nature can help improve physical and mental health. Trees and other plants also support wildlife by providing food and shelter. 

“We set out to create a precinct where nature and [city] life are intertwined,” said Kevin Lloyd.  Lloyd is an architect who is helping to design Bradfield.

It’s important to city planners to balance the hustle and bustle of the city with the quietness of nature. Bradfield is being built on land where Aboriginal peoples lived for thousands of years before Europeans arrived in Australia. (Aboriginal peoples are the native peoples of Australia.) Aboriginal peoples believe in respecting nature and taking natural resources, like trees, water, and animals, only when they are needed.

The city planners are working with Aboriginal leaders to make sure Bradfield is developed in a way that respects Aboriginal history, culture, and beliefs. 

Bradfield won’t be built overnight. The process will take years. If there are no delays, Australians can expect their new community to start looking like a city in about 2030, when Stage 1 is completed. By then, Bradfield will have its first 1,400 homes and several buildings. 

Banana Ball, a fast-paced form of baseball with an emphasis on fun, officially began its 2026 season in February with three games in Tallahassee, Florida. Fans packed the stands for all three games, showing just how popular Banana Ball has become in the short time since it was created.

The history of Banana Ball dates to 2015, with the formation of a team of college baseball players. The team had two main goals. One was to bring baseball back to Savannah, Georgia, a city that had recently lost its minor league team. The other was to put more fun into baseball, which is traditionally a slow-paced game with many pauses. 

At first, there wasn’t much interest in this new team. But once the players named themselves the Savannah Bananas and people heard about their unusual approach to baseball, things heated up. The first Bananas game in 2016 was completely sold out. That day, the fans were treated to more than just baseball. The baseball players performed choreographed (planned) dances. So did a troop of senior-citizen dancers called the Banana Nanas. 

Eventually, Bananas owner Jesse Cole developed a form of baseball for his team called “Banana Ball.” Banana Ball is similar to traditional baseball, but some of the rules have been changed to make the game more entertaining for the fans. For example, no game can be longer than two hours. Whichever team gets the most runs during an inning “wins the inning” and gets a point. And if a fan catches a foul ball, it’s an out. Players still dance, and there’s plenty of other on-field entertainment throughout each game.

Today, six Banana Ball teams make up the Banana Ball Championship League. Those Tallahassee games took place on the first stop of a U.S. tour. Between now and October, the league is scheduled to play in nearly every state. If you’re in the United States but can’t catch the fun in person, some of the games will be broadcast on ESPN or shown on YouTube.

The slideshow below has more great Banana Ball photos!