Uncle John’s Facts to Annoy Your Teacher Bathroom Reader for Kids Only! (15 page)

10
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TOUCH

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VISION
VISION

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VA DERS

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CLOUD
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STEP
SPETS
SPETS

Tongue twister: I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.

People have been imagining themselves as paper pilots ever since the first trees were pressed into paper. Here is how to make a simple, classic paper airplane.

1.
Start with a piece of rectangular paper. Photocopier paper seems to work best…but your old homework may work, too.

2.
Fold the paper neatly in half, lengthwise. Open it up again, and lay it flat.

3.
Fold each of the top two corners in to meet the center crease.

4.
Now you’ll narrow the plane by folding in the edges at the top to meet the center crease. Keep the point sharp, and make sure the creases are neat.

5.
Fold the plane in half lengthwise so it looks like a triangle.

The ancient Chinese called eggplants “mad apples,” believing they caused insanity.

6.
Fold down one top edge to create a wing. Repeat on the other side.

7.
Hold the paper horizontally and open the wings so they stick out flat on either side.

8.
Hold the body of the plane and give it a gentle toss. Now you’re flying!

DID YOU KNOW?

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A paper airplane flies because your throw gives it power. It speeds up because of kinetic energy—that’s the energy or force an object gets as it accelerates. After that, your airplane’s wings keep it airborne by pushing the air around them backward and down. This is a lot like what makes a real airplane fly.

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In space, because there’s no air for it to navigate through, a paper airplane would just float in a straight line until it ran into something.

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Longest paper airplane flight: 27.6 seconds.

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Longest distance: 193 feet.

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Largest paper airplane wingspan: 40 feet, 10 inches.

Rough ride: A “corduroy road” is a road made of sand-covered logs.

Tired of watching your dog chase his tail?
Then check out these beastly games.

B
EETLE WRESTLE MANIA

Rhinoceros beetles are huge insects. They can grow to be up to six inches long and have a tough outer shell and horns. And for their size, they are the strongest animals on earth—they can lift more than 850 times their own weight. (An elephant can lift only about 25 percent of its body weight.) They’re popular pets in Japan, so to give the beetles a workout (and have some fun in the process), kids enter their big bugs in local tournaments. The rules go like this: two rhino beetles fight each other in a 20-inch-wide ring, and one emerges victorious when he throws his competitor out of the ring…or the competitor walks out by himself.

WHAT A LOVELY CAMEL YOU HAVE

People say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and that’s definitely true in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Every spring, camel breeders from all over the Middle East bring their beasts to the UAE’s capital city of Abu Dhabi to compete in a…beauty contest. Camels have been an important part of Middle Eastern culture for thousands of years because they’re perfectly suited for life in the desert. They can go for months without drinking water, can carry heavy loads, and are a source of milk and meat. So as a way to honor them, the UAE’s government organized the first Abu Dhabi Camel Festival in 2002. Today, more than 10,000 camels compete each year to win a variety of prizes—about $9 million and 100 new cars. One judge says, “It’s just like judging a beautiful girl. You look for big eyes, long lashes, and a long neck—maybe 39 or 40 inches.”

No matter the weather,
Alice in Wonderland
author Lewis Carroll always wore gloves which he frequently misplaced.

If you lived in the Australian Outback between 1950 and 2005, you might have gone to school on the radio.

O
UTBACK SCHOOL

In Australia, most of the people live along the coast. That’s because the country’s interior is mostly open desert and rocky rangeland. Only about 10 percent of Australia’s entire population lives in the dusty interior, which is known as the Outback.

The folks who do live there mostly work on sheep or cattle ranches. Their nearest neighbors can be 100 miles away, and roads are rutted dirt. It’s so isolated that, until 1950, kids who grew up in the Outback had to attend boarding school if they wanted to get an education—there weren’t enough people living out there to build schools. But in 1950, a woman named Adelaide Miethke came up with the idea of using airplanes and radios to link kids throughout the Outback with teachers in large towns.

THANK THE FLYING DOCTORS

In 1928, the Australian government set up an airplane ambulance service for people living in the Outback. Each home had a two-way radio that people could use to call for help in case of an emergency. A doctor would fly in on a small plane and either treat the victim right there or take him to a hospital in one of the cities. It was called the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

In Thailand, it’s considered rude to cross your legs in front of other people.