Kids News - Social Studies for Kids

Researchers have long attributed the evolution of human intelligence to the size of the brain. It turns out that while a larger skull certainly helped, it was the extra blood sucked in by the brain that transformed humans into one of Earth’s smartest species. The surprising revelation that overturns the previous, long-standing theory comes from a team of scientists at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and the University of Adelaide in Australia....

Five years ago, Finland resident Rami Adham embarked on a mission to help the Syrian refugees in his former hometown of Aleppo. The father of six used all his savings to buy food and medicine. As he was leaving for Syria, his three-year-old daughter, Yasmin, offered to donate her toys, in exchange for a new Barbie doll. A deal was made, and the aid worker added 25 teddy bears and 36 Barbie dolls to his already heavy load....

On September 10, 2016, a meteorite weighing more than 30-tons (68,000 pounds) was unearthed in Argentina’s Campo del Cielo (Spanish for “Field of Heaven”) region. The space rock that is amongst the largest intact meteorites discovered thus far, is believed to be part of a massive meteor that disintegrated as it entered Earth's atmosphere approximately 4,000 — 6,000 years ago....

Three-year-old Bailey suffers from Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a medical condition that affects the spinal cord’s motor nerve cells. As a result, she is unable to sit, stand, crawl, or walk on her own. She also can’t swallow food efficiently or breathe without the help of a machine. But thanks to Surf Dog Ricochet (and some human volunteers), Bailey and a few other kids suffering from SMA recently did what most children their age only dream of — go surfing!...

Monday, August 8, was Earth Overshoot Day. Calculated annually by the environmental advocacy group, Global Footprint Network, it is the day when humanity has consumed all the natural resources — produce, meat, fish, water, and wood — that our planet can regenerate in a single year. This means that for the rest of 2016, we will be using natural resources that are impossible to replace....

Water, or rather the lack of it, is one of the most pressing issues of our times. Unprecedented droughts and growing populations have left many countries struggling to keep up with demand. Given that agriculture is the largest single user of freshwater, providing farmers with new conservation techniques would go a long way in alleviating our water woes. It turns out that a “miracle” powder has been helping drought-stricken Mexican farmers do exactly that for over a decade!...

In July 2016, much to the dismay of environmentalists and the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) — the federal government body in charge of the nation's waterways — granted the final permits to allow construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). When completed, the 1,172-mile-long, $3.8 billion USD pipeline that snakes through four states will be able to transport up to 500,000 barrels of crude oil from the Bakken Formation area of North Dakota to refineries in Illinois, daily. The builder, Dakota Access, LLC, a subsidiary of Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners, asserts that the underground pipeline is a more direct, cost-effective, safer, and environmentally responsible way to transport crude oil....

Shortly before the school year ended in June, 1,700 American kids got to do what most students can only dream of — play video games in class. No, the 100 educators that allowed this were not slacking off. They were helping Microsoft beta test a new Minecraft Education Edition, which the company plans to offer to schools across the globe within the next few weeks....

At the end of the spring semester in May, students taking Georgia Tech’s online Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence course received some stunning news. Jill Watson, one of the nine teaching assistants (TA’s) that had helped them navigate the challenging course for the past five months was not a “she,” but an “it” — an intelligent robot to be precise!...