Author: Lisa Mungovan

Grab your buckets and shovels, because today is Play In The Sand Day. Make a sand castle at the beach, or a construction zone in the sandbox. If you’d rather stay home, you’re in luck. It’s also Global Kinetic Sand Day. The squeezable sand, was originally mixed with beeswax, to make it less messy.

It’s World Calligraphy Day, celebrating the artistry of writing. You can use a fountain pen, a wide-tipped marker, a brush, or a feather quill and ink. Look up calligraphy styles, and practice writing each letter carefully. Even a shopping list can look like a fancy wedding invitation, when written in calligraphy!

The latest world report on climate change, shows that Earth is in crisis right now. It’s necessary to keep global temperatures from rising. A difference of less than 3 degrees Fahrenheit, can still cause ice caps to melt, sea levels to rise, coral reefs to die, and major droughts, heat waves, and extreme weather.

The planet needs to stop warming, but how? The biggest change, is cutting out new coal, oil, and gas operations. Existing fossil fuel energy sources, need to be replaced with green energy like solar or wind power. Vehicles need to be electric. The environment needs to come first, no matter how difficult it seems.

A harmless looking plant found in wetlands, on the west coast of North America, is actually carnivorous. Triantha occidentalis, depends on pollinators like bees and butterflies to survive, but it also has sticky hairs near the flowers, to trap and eat insects. Luckily, the hairs are only sticky enough to trap teeny tiny bugs.

Today is World Lion Day. The “King of the Jungle” actually inhabits grasslands. A lion’s roar can be heard for 5 miles! They live in groups of about 15, called prides, with a male as the leader. The mane of hair around his neck gets darker with age. Lion populations are shrinking. Let’s save the lions!

Today is Skyscraper Appreciation Day. The world’s tallest building is over half-a-mile high, in Dubai. Could you climb to the top? Maybe not today, since it’s also Lazy Day. See if you can sleep 16 hours, like a lion! When you wake up, make s’mores around a fire. S’mores Day celebrates the chocolate-marshmallow-graham cracker treat!

NASA is looking for Martian-wanna-bees. They’re taking applications for a future year-long simulation, of life on Mars. During the mission, called Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, 4 people will live in a 3-D recreation of a Mars habitat. Mars Dune Alpha will be mentally challenging, and help NASA prepare for the real thing.

A huge pterosaur was soaring through the skies over Australia, 110,000,000 years ago. With a 23-foot wingspan and a mouth full of sharp teeth, the newly-discovered pterosaur is the largest ever found on the continent. The dragon-like creature, called Thapunngaka shawi, looked like a skull on a long neck with wings. Awesome!

Today, the United Nations celebrates International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. There are over 476,000,000 indigenous people living around the world, in 90 countries. The people that were native to a land, before invaders or explorers came, are trying to preserve unique cultures, languages, and traditions. Research who originally lived in your region.