Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2019 i Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children

The biggest island, the largest cave, and the most massive ball of twine—our world is full of huge places and things. Here are five fun facts to get you started. 1. Blue whales are the largest creatures to inhabit the earth. They are bigger than even the largest dinosaur. They can grow to almost 100 feet long and weigh up to 200 tons. 2. The world’s largest gathering occurred in Prayagraj, India, earlier this year, when 150 million people celebrated Kumbh Mela. This Hindu festival includes bathing in a sacred river. Participants could only remain in the water for less than one minute to accommodate all the people who had gathered. 3. The 2.2 million square mile area known as the Coral Triangle (located between Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and…

The world’s largest human gathering drew about 150 million people to the Indian city of Prayagraj in 2019. They were there to celebrate a Hindu religious festival called Kumbh Mela. Kumbh Mela takes place about once every three years. The exact date and duration of the festival varies and is determined by astrology. This year’s festival began on January 15 and lasted 49 days. Depending on the year, it is held in one of four different cities in India. Hindus believe it was at these four locations that drops of sacred nectar fell to the ground from a pitcher carried by Lord Vishnu (one of three supreme Hindu deities). According to ancient mythology, these drops fell when demons tried to wrestle the pitcher out of Lord Vishnu’s hands. No one…

Beneath the azure waters lies a lost colony. What was once a community teeming with marine life is now a deserted ruin. Skeletal remains are all that’s left where there once stood towering mountains filled with thousands of inhabitants. Dolphins, sea turtles, and a myriad of fish once called these underwater gardens home, but now the city has crumbled. There is no more shelter, no more food. These aren’t the fabled ruins of Atlantis, but the remains of a once thriving coral city. Underwater Wonders Coral is not a plant, but rather an animal. Whole colonies make a cay, or a reef. These reefs provide food and shelter for marine life, from the smallest fish to the largest sharks. The Coral Triangle (an area between Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and…

One of the fun parts of any road trip is finding strange and interesting things to stop and see along the way. All over the world, roadside attractions can be the biggest, the funniest, or the strangest objects you’ve ever seen. Fasten your seat belts as we take you on a tour of some of them. The Great Buddha of Thailand If you find yourself in Thailand, visit the Great Buddha, also called the Big Buddha, found at the Wat Muang temple in Ang Thong Province. This giant buddha, seated in a position called Maravijaya Attitude, is made of concrete painted gold. He towers 300 feet (92 meters) high and is 210 feet (63 meters) wide, and sits on the roof of the temple building. The Big Buddha cost more…

Jumbled here you will find a quote attributed to naturalist John Muir. The letters are directly below the column in which they fit, but they are mixed up within the column. It is your job to determine where each letter goes. Answers to the right on this page. Picture Credits: Mazur Travel/Shutterstock.com: inside front cover; ricardo cohen - rcview/Shutterstock.com: 2-3; Andrzej Kubik/Shutterstock.com: 4 (top left); Atomic Roderick/Shutterstock.com: 4 (top right); Patrick Foto/Shutterstock.com: 4 (center left); RomanSlavik.com/Shutterstock.com: 4 (center right); Baturina Yuliya/Shutter-stock.com: 4 (bottom left); Harvepino/Shutterstock.com: 4 (bottom right); TaLyDes/Shutterstock.com: 5 (top left); Kame Rhienmora/Shutterstock.com: 5 (top right); Frontpage/Shutterstock.com: 5 (bottom left); dikobraziy/Shutterstock.com: 5 (bottom right); Arterra Picture Library/Alamy Stock Photo: 7 (top); Gherzak/Shutterstock.com: 7 (bottom); ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo: 8; RealyEasyStar/Daniele Bellucci/ Alamy Stock Photo: 9; PACIFIC PRESS/Alamy Stock…

Largest Land Animal: The African elephant is the world’s largest animal, and weighs more than 200 pounds (91 kg) at birth. Once fully grown, these elephants weigh an average 12,000 pounds (5,445 kilograms). African elephants have the longest gestation period (the time between conception and birth) of any animal. It averages 95 weeks in length. Largest City/Population: China’s Shanghai is the world’s most populated city and is home to more than 24 million people. The world’s busiest port, fastest train, and largest underground metro system are also found in Shanghai. The city is the financial and commercial center of China. Largest Living Creature: Blue whales are the largest creatures to inhabit earth. They are bigger than even the largest dinosaur. Blue whales can measure almost 100 feet (30 meters) in…

It sounds like it might swallow up large parts of a major city, but Pando isn’t going to hurt anyone. It has long been considered Earth’s oldest living organism (somewhere between 14,000 and 80,000 years old) and its heaviest (weighing in at 13 million pounds). Pando may also be earth’s largest (visible) organism. And . . . it’s dying. Pando means “I spread” in Latin, and it’s a name that makes sense. It is a clonal colony of trees that are all growing from the same root system. Located in Fishlake National Forest in Utah, these trees easily create a colony because their roots produce offshoots. With the network of roots, the whole clonal family can share water and nutrients. Pando’s other name, the quaking aspen (or Populus tremuloides) also…

Scientists from the British Cave Research Association were exploring a national park in Vietnam in 2005 that was already known for its amazing caves stretching into the jungle-covered limestone mountains. They had been told by a local man that there was another large cave there. What the researchers found was a cave that was 19 miles long, the longest one ever found in the Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park. The scientists found such beautiful stalactites and stalagmites in the cave that they named it Thien Duong, or “Paradise Cave.” Thien Duong is the largest complex of interconnected caves in the world and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thien Duong is a dry cave, meaning that a river eroding the rock and soil did not form it, as many caves…

The Sahara Desert is the largest hot desert in the world. It is more than 3.5 million square miles in area. The desert spans ten different countries: Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Western Sahara, Sudan, and Tunisia. “Sahara” comes from an Arabic word for ‘desert,’ sahra. One of the rarest animals in the desert is the Saharan cheetah. There are fewer than 250 adults left in the wild. The rolling sand dunes can get as tall as 180 meters (almost 600 feet). The highest air temperature ever recorded was on September 13, 1922. It was 136˚ F in El Azizia, in the northern Sahara. The Sahara has some of the oldest rock art in the world. Some is more than 12,000 years old. Fewer than 2.5 million people…

What comes to mind when you think about the biggest organism on Earth? A huge animal, like an elephant or a blue whale, perhaps? Or what about towering trees like the mighty sequoias in California? It turns out that the largest organism on Earth is neither plant nor animal. It is a fungus called the honey mushroom, or honey fungus. The many different species of fungi commonly called honey mushrooms have a yellow cap and sweet, fruity bodies that will not harm animals that eat it. The species given the title of “Largest Organism in the World” is Armillaria solidipes. It has large clumps of yellow-brown mushrooms above ground that are the “fruit” of the much larger organism that spreads across tree roots for miles below the surface. Scientists define…

You probably haven’t seen marionettes like those of the Royal de Luxe performing arts company of Nantes, France. The idea of giant marionettes doing street performances began in the early 1990s, with Jean-Luc Courcoult. The puppets called “giants” are REALLY BIG, averaging about 40 to 50 feet tall. The puppeteers and engineers are called “Lilliputians” because they are the little people when they stand next to one of these marionettes. The Lilliputians use a mixture of hydraulics, mechanisms, ropes, and pulleys to make the giants’ eyes, heads and legs move and their chests to go up and down. About 30 to 100 people are needed to make the giants move their heads, arms, and legs to “come alive” as they walk down a city street. The Royal de Luxe has…

“Tar-nation,” uttered Paul Bunyan as he saw the geese flying backwards in the morning sky. “Dag-nabbit!” He knew by the smell of the air and the taste of the clouds that the deep cold was on its way. “We’d best prepare.” Paul combed his hair with a field disk harrow, jumped into his boots, and set off for the camp kitchen. The camp cookery was a hurricane of action. Paul was the calm eye of the storm as he ate his breakfast—sloshing, slurping, crunching, and gulping, along with other unsettling sounds. Steaming black coffee was poured from barrels into slanticular log sluices directly into Paul’s chipped-enamel tin cup. A squad of loggers strapped slabs of ham to the soles of their boots. They skated round and round the cast iron…

Artists across the world have taken on very large projects. The largest sculpture in the world is the Spring Temple Buddha in Henan, China. It is 420 feet high. That is nearly three times higher than the Statue of Liberty. The largest painting was done by artist David Aberg and is 86,000 square feet. It is titled Mother Earth and depicts a woman holding a peace sign. It took more than 100 tons of paint to complete the project. The largest art lesson took place in the Philippines on February 24, 2018 with 16,692 students participating. In 2014, students from Duke University created the largest cardboard castle using 3,500 boxes. The largest art project for a charity is something pretty special. A Swedish organization travels to different parts of the…