Author: Lisa Mungovan

Sometimes it takes a village to raise a bird. Potthakudi in India, only has 120 homes and 35 streetlights. When a robin built her nest in the village’s main lighting switchboard, the residents decided to go without lights until the eggs hatched, and the hatchlings grew up. The town’s kindness gained them a happy robin family.

Millions of years ago, a huge flightless bird called a mihirung roamed Australia. Known as the demon duck of doom, they weighed 1000 pounds and had gigantic beaks. To make room for the big bill, they had flattened skulls and squished brains. They stuck around for 25,000,000 years, going extinct 20 to 50,000 years ago.

At 8:30 pm today, turn off all your lights for Earth Hour. People around the globe will participate at 8:30 in their time zone, creating a wave of darkness sweeping across the Earth. Earth Hour was created to bring attention to each person’s part in protecting our planet. What will you do to help?

Here’s a fun activity to do with someone, for Scribble Day. Each person draws a scribble on a piece of paper. Now exchange papers, and turn the line into a drawing! Scribbles can become works of art. Just look up the famous artist, Cy Twombly, for inspiration. Time to scribble a masterpiece!

Josephs, Joeys, Josephines, get ready: today is National Joe Day. Joe is also a nickname for coffee. It’s Quirky Country Music Song Title Day too. “My T-Rex Ran Away With My Legos and All I’ve Got to Drink is This Cup of Old Joe,” would be a great song. Now YOU make one up!

The Canadian nickel has a picture of a beaver, so Canadians see beavers all the time in their change. Real-life beavers aren’t as common, especially in cities. Yesterday in Toronto, a beaver wandered into the subway station, looking lost but healthy. Animal services helped return the beaver, nicknamed Nickel, to the Humber River.

The Suez Canal is a passageway through Egypt, that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea. A giant cargo ship called the Ever Given, got stuck sideways across the canal. It’s blocking all shipping traffic on both sides, until excavators can dig enough sand from the canal’s banks, to dislodge it.

50 years ago, NASA sent a golden disk into space. It contained drawings of humans, a diagram of our Solar System, and Earth’s galactic coordinates. If aliens discover it, they’ll have a map to visit our planet. An updated map has been created, that’ll be accurate for billions of years. Think anyone will visit us?

Every day of the year, is also some weird holiday. Did you ever wonder who makes them up? Today’s your chance to name the day, because it’s Make Up Your Own Holiday Day! I’m going to say it’s Talk Like A Robot Day, and also No Bedtime Day. How about you? Happy Whatever-You-Make-It Day.

Today is Spinach Day. Popeye used to eat it from a can, to get stronger, but it looks more appealing in a salad! It’s also Purple Day, started by 9 year-old Cassidy Megan, to increase epilepsy awareness. Epilepsy affects 65,000,000 people around the world. Wear purple to show your support!