Author: Lisa Mungovan

Let’s learn about penguins, for World Penguin Day. Emperor penguins can grow to nearly 4 feet tall, while little blue penguins only reach 16 inches. No penguins live at the North Pole! Except for Galápagos penguins on the equator, all penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere, and not one of those 17 species can fly!

Today is, Malaria Day? The disease is nothing to celebrate. Malaria is spread by infected mosquitoes, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. That’s one reason why mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal, killing 750,000 people a year! Birds and bats love to eat mosquitoes. Since it’s also Zucchini Bread Day, I’ll eat that instead!

Spring brings lots of flowers, and plenty of weeds. But some of those weeds, could make a great salad! You can eat dandelions, plantain, purple dead nettle, wood sorrel, burdock, chickweed, garlic mustard, and so many more plants, that grow wild. Flowers like violets and marigolds, will make your salad even more beautiful!

Global Big Day is coming. On May 8th, take 5 or 10 minutes to watch birds, and record your observations at eBird online, or on the eBird Mobile app. It will help the study of world bird populations. Prepare today, by celebrating Go Birding Day. Bring binoculars, and make a list of the birds you see.

Frogs are amazing amphibians. It’s fascinating to visit a pond, and watch tiny tadpoles, grow bigger and develop legs. Frogs are an indicator species, meaning land and water pollution, really affect their health. Frog populations suffer, when environmental health declines. Today is Save The Frogs Day, so let’s help all 2000 species.

Did you know it’s Scream Day? Have a screaming contest with your family, to see who’s the loudest. Find a place that echoes, to hear yourself scream back. Look at photos from the Screamotron3000, created by photographer Billy Hunt. In New Jersey, texting the Scream Truck, will bring an ice cream truck to you!

Here’s a fun experiment to try, since it’s Sense Of Smell Day. Hold your nose, then eat something. Could you taste it? The nose and mouth connect through the same passageway. That’s why sometimes when your nose is stuffed-up, you can’t taste anything. Now you know how to eat the yucky vegetables you hate!

SpaceX is taking recycling to the next level. They recycled a rocket, to carry 4 astronauts to the International Space Station. The Crew-2 mission blasted off Friday morning, re-using both a Falcon 9 rocket, and the Crew Dragon capsule. After the launch, Falcon 9 returned to Earth, landing on a drone ship, ready for another trip.

Ecologists in the Netherlands, invented a fish doorbell. Utrecht’s canals are controlled by locks, which are gates that open, for boats to pass. Fish also need to pass, so an underwater live-streaming camera lets people watch for fish gathering at the gate. When anyone rings the virtual doorbell, the lock-keeper lets the fish through.

The next full moon, coming on Monday, is called the Pink Moon. It’s also a supermoon, which occurs when a full moon coincides with the moon’s perigee. The perigee is the point when the moon’s orbit brings it closest to Earth. Since it’s closer than normal, it makes the moon look huge!