Author: Lisa Mungovan

Are you going to go apple picking this season? Find an apple orchard nearby, and stock up! See how many varieties you can eat, while you walk around collecting the perfect apples. Many orchards also sell hot apple cider. Make sure you bring enough apples home to also make a pie or some applesauce!

Today is Banana Split Day, so here’s what you need to do. Scoop 3 flavors of ice cream into your bowl, slice a banana lengthwise and put half on each side, then add chocolate, pineapple, and strawberry sauces, whipped cream, nuts, and a cherry. Now eat it all up! The banana makes it healthy!

Today is Park Service Founders Day, marking 109 years since the National Park Service was formed. Everyone can help protect the parks. One kid returned a rock, apologizing for taking it from the Smokey Mountains. Park rangers thanked her for understanding, that if all visitors took a souvenir, 11,000,000 rocks would disappear every year!

Scientists have found that white, heat-reflecting paint, helps cool cities and buildings, by reflecting the Sun’s rays. But what if you want a nice blue house instead? Lightweight plasmonic paint, has a bottom layer that reflects 80% of mid-infrared light, which is usually absorbed as heat. The top layer is filled with colored nanoparticles.

On Pluto Demoted Day, we remember when Pluto was officially downgraded in 2006. Its status was changed to dwarf planet. Now the 8 planets in our Solar System are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, while the 5 known dwarf planets are Pluto, Ceres, Makemake, Haumea, and Eris. We still love you Pluto!

Today is Vesuvius Day. Mount Vesuvius is the volcano in Italy, that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD. Create your own volcano and make it erupt, while listening to unusual music for International Strange Music Day! You can make music from anything. Today is also Waffle Day. What’s your favorite flavor, blueberry or chocolate chip?

A Mexican festival, included breaking 3 world records. The La Discada Festival in Guadalupe used the world’s biggest frying pan, at 23 feet in diameter, to cook the world’s largest stir-fry, containing 5,331 pounds of meat and vegetables, and serve it in the most tacos in one hour. 10,000 people ate 13,215 tacos!

On your next trip to Alaska, how would you like to stay in a plane? Flight instructor John Kotwicki has taken old planes from his flight school, and created an airplane amusement park. You can stay in luxury aircraft b-n-b’s, stargaze from a runway control tower, and visit the airplane parts museum.

Although more than 83,000 meteorites have been recovered on Earth, only 390 of them originated on Mars. When large rocks hit Mars, chunks of the planet’s surface are ejected from the impact crater, and sometimes fly towards Earth. Scientists found that 200 meteorites, have come from just 5 different craters on Mars.

Today is Buttered Corn Day, and there’s nothing like biting into an ear of buttery sweet roasted corn. What’s the best way to cook corn? Look it up on the World Wide Web, because it’s also Internaut Day. An internaut is someone who knows all about how to use the internet.