Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2021 i Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children

Exercise is a big part of a healthy lifestyle. Through time, games and sports have been modified to make them safer and more accessible to all. Here are five fun facts to get you started. 1 A kidney specialist at the University of Florida invented the world’s most popular sports drink in 1965. Gatorade was created to help hydrate the school’s football players who suffered heat-related illnesses. 2 Ulama is believed to be one of the world’s oldest sports. First played by the Olmecs of Central America, the sport was played with a rubber ball made from raw latex harvested from the jungles of Central America. 3 Before 1972, high schools and colleges were not mandated to fund sports for girls and women. Title IX changed that. As part of…

Do you like to play chess or soccer? Did you know that both games are very, very, very old? And that both began far away from the United States? Just as food, music, and dance move from one country to another, so do games. For centuries, as people traveled, they took their games to faraway places. They also brought back new games from their travels. Although no one knows where carrom came from, it is popular in India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. People play different versions of carrom in Fiji, Israel, Latvia, Estonia, the Philippines, and Australia. In 1996, the first U.S. Open International Carrom Tournament was held in Raleigh, North Carolina. Weiqi, the encirclement game, was played in China as early as 4 B.C.E. some think it was created…

It’s important to wear a helmet when you are participating in sports that could result in head injuries. They are great at cushioning falls and protecting against flying balls and swinging sticks. They prevent the skull from cracking open and causing truly catastrophic damage. But they can’t prevent all injuries. They do very little to protect against concussions, in which the harm is mostly inside the brain. Take a look at protective headgear from different sports and activities. Can you guess the sport that each helmet is associated with?…

Christopher Columbus brought rubber balls to Spain from Hispaniola in the New World in 1493. A royal historian reported, “I don’t understand how when the balls hit the ground, they are sent into the air with such incredible bounce.” Years later, the royal court of Spain’s King Carlos V sat spellbound as they watched a rubber ball ricochet (bounce) between two teams of Aztecs who were demonstrating their native game of ulama (oo luh MAH). They did not use their hands or feet, but volleyed the ball back and forth with their hips, knees, and buttocks. Unlike the lifeless leather balls filled with hair, feathers, and air that early Europeans used to play tennis and football, the rubber ball bounced between the players like a pinball. Of all the riches…

The year is 1970. You’re a girl in high school, or a woman attending college, and one of the things you really want to do is to play a competitive sport. Maybe you’re an amazing basketball player. Perhaps no one can beat you when it comes to scoring goals in soccer. Every time you go skiing with your friends, you’re the first one down the mountain. When you go swimming, your butterfly stroke is the envy of everyone. Your biggest wish is that you could play on a school sports team. But there’s a big obstacle standing in the way. There is a long-held idea that women can’t play competitive sports. Many people, including experts, believed that women were not capable of strenuous physical activity. They could participate in recreational…

Unified Sports was a natural spin-off of the Special Olympics—a program that is the epitome of what an inclusive, team-oriented, and safe sports organization should be. The Special Olympics began as a day camp created in 1963. Eunice Kennedy Shriver (the sister of President John F. Kennedy) formed Shriver’s Camp for children with physical and intellectual disabilities. At the time, these students had very few opportunities to participate in sports. Shriver’s Camp inspired many universities and organizations to hold similar events. Groundbreaking research by Dr. James N. Oliver and Dr. Frank Hayden revealed that there is a link between persons with disabilities’ physical activity, happiness, and academic performance. This paved the way for the establishment of the Special Olympics. Its main mission is to foster a worldwide community of inclusivity…

Scamps are mischief-makers, and dolphins cause plenty because they are among the most playful, intelligent animals on the planet. They have big brains and an ability to learn and solve problems. Although they live in the water, dolphins are mammals, not fish. They breathe air from the surface, give birth to live young, and feed their calves milk. They travel in groups called pods of five to 1,000 dolphins and are very social. Description Dolphins have long snouts, which contain about 100 teeth. Blowholes on top of their heads are for breathing. They need water to live, but they get it from the animals they eat, not by drinking it from the ocean. These communications experts interact through chirps and whistles. They even call for each other, using individual names…

Can you guess what the most sentimental item in sports equipment is? The baseball glove. Nothing else has the same nostalgic and personal value. Maybe it’s the glove you made that great catch with, or maybe it’s a glove that’s been handed down from one generation to the next. It’s filled with memories. Originally, baseball was played without gloves. Balls were homemade, ranging from wound twine covered with leather to a cotton sack stuffed with rags. These soft materials were easier on the hand when the ball was caught. In the late 19th century, the rules of baseball changed—overhand pitching and balls and strikes were instituted into the game. Baseballs were then being constructed by machine and were standardized across the United States to be wound tighter and harder. As…

If you play chess on your computer, the computer might win. How did a machine get so good at playing chess? The computer hasn’t always been this smart. In 1949, Claude Shannon, a mathematician, developed a way to program a computer to play chess. At first, humans could easily beat these computer programs. The computers took five to 12 minutes to make a move. Scientists spent years trying to program a computer that could beat human beings. On May 11, 1996, Deep Blue, a supercomputer, made history. It became the first computer to win a match against a chess Grandmaster. Deep Blue beat chess champion Gary Kasparov. How does a computer do it? Unlike human beings, a computer cannot think on its own. A computer needs specific, step-by-step instructions. The…