Student Articles

Cats forces aeroplane to cancel trip

By Editor - Kiwi Kids News March 16, 2021 0 25

A scheduled flight from Sudan to Qatar was forced to return because of a different passenger decided to take a fight, little cat.

The ferocious feline, who had been hiding in the cockpit, decided to attack the pilots and crew.

After struggling to contain the cat, it was decided to turn around the Boeing 737 back to Sudan’s capital, Khartoum.

It is not known how the turbulent tabby got onto the plane, but it is suspected it sneaked onboard while the jet was in a hangar overnight.

There were no injuries, and it isn’t known what happened to the cantankerous cat afterwards.

By Nat Jarden

Everest increases in height

By Editor - Kiwi Kids News February 21, 2021 2665 3

Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world, officially increases 86cm (about the length of a cricket bat) in height.

This is slightly more than Nepal’s previous measurement and about four meters higher than China’s.

The mountain sits on the border of these two countries, who agreed on the new height at the end of last year.

To measure it, last year, a Nepalese team set up a satellite navigation marker on Everest’s peak to gauge its exact position via GPS satellites.

A Chinese team undertook a similar mission this spring, though it used the Chinese-made Beidou constellation of navigation satellites, along with other equipment.

I Martin – Aquinas College

Kiwi students tackle modern slavery

By Editor - Kiwi Kids News September 28, 2020 0 Post a comment

At Matamata Intermediate we were focusing on the Sustainable Development Goals.

These goals are the guidelines set by the United Nations to make our planet more sustainable. We decided to focus on goal 8, which is the goal to have decent work and economic growth. Our teachers showed us the SDGs and helped us to follow the inquiry process. We went to workshops that were topics about different SDGs such as No poverty, Zero hunger and Gender equality, we went to different classes for the workshops and the teachers there did different tasks so we could see what was happening around the world. This is what sparked our minds to start this inquiry.

We are wanting to inform Kiwi Kids that modern slavery is still going on around the world and thousands of people are effected by it. With the help of our classmates (Indie & Carter), we created this ad in the hope to tell the world about the effects of slavery.

Everybody should try and help raise awareness about this and come up with a plan, try not to buy products that were produced under free labour. But what if you dont know what slavery is, begin a learning pathway as to why slavery is bad and why we should eradicate it from the earth. As a whanau come up with solutions and see what you can think of.

We are the next generation that is why we should make our time count. We can solve modern slavery which can then get us on the road of world peace. If we get rid of it, it can help us abolish poverty. NZ has made a lot of great accomplishments over the years and now it’s our turn as a new generation to achieve a goal. Get out there kiwi kids make us proud!

What is an election?

By Monique July 28, 2020 0 2

In New Zealand our government is a representative democracy. A representative democracy is when all the eligible people in New Zealand elect representatives to Parliament to speak for us on government issues.

This means that the adults of New Zealand get to vote on the different parties’ and people in parliament. These people in parliament decide who the prime minister is.

But to have a representative democracy, New Zealand must have elections. To elect someone means to choose them for a specific position by vote. In New Zealand, we use MMP (meaning mixed-member proportional) as our voting system. MMP is what we use to choose people and parties who will represent us in parliament.

Under MMP, adults get two votes, we will focus on the first vote- the party vote. The party vote determines how many seats (members of parliament) each party with take up in parliament. Say a party gets 27% of the party votes in New Zealand, they take up around 27% of seats in parliament.

A party must have at least 5% of New Zealand’s party votes to get seats in parliament unless somebody from their party wins an electorate seat- (which is determined by the second vote under the MMP system).

Man breaks 256 walnuts with his elbow in one minute

By Editor - Kiwi Kids News April 1, 2020 112 9

On March the 30th a martial arts expert named Muhammad Rashid broke a Guinness World Record in India.

He used his elbow to crush 256 walnuts in only one minute.

This former World Record was set by Indian martial artist Prabhakar Reddy who had smashed 229 walnuts.

Guinness World Record said Muhammad Rashid smashed 256 walnuts during his December 2019 attempt.

Rashid has set multiple Guinness records before such as breaking walnuts with his head, smashing beverage cans with his elbow and coconuts with his head.

by Milli Banbury

COVID-19 Shuts down sport around the world

By Joshua Stewart-Becroft March 22, 2020 136 4

There is almost no sport to watch at the moment. Anyone who loves football, cricket, tennis, hockey, and more, have nothing to watch for at least another 3 months. Though there is some sport still going on, and if you love watching the NRL, or A-League football, you are in luck.

The Warriors have decided to stay in Australia to play the season out, although they said that if circumstances change they may have to come back to NZ. A-League football is also going ahead, but the Phoenix have had their next game postponed as they have to isolate themselves for 14 days, the new rule when entering NZ. Their next game is on the 4th of April against Adelaide United, being played in Wellington.

Coronavirus has also had a big effect on money in sports, and many football clubs have lost millions of dollars, and some even, like Manchester United, have lost close to a billion.

For all sport-lovers, it is going to be a boring next few months.

Premier League Update – Liverpool finally lose

By Joshua Stewart-Becroft March 3, 2020 27 7

This week included some great matches including comebacks, upsets, and more.

The first match was on Saturday between Leicester and Norwich, Norwich beating the top 4 side 1-0 in a close game.

Another few exciting games was Chelsea vs Bournemouth, which ended 2-2 with Marcos Alonso scoring late to get a point for his team.

The big upset was finally, Liverpool losing in the Premier League! Watford played brilliantly and beat the leaders 3-0 to end Liverpool’s unbeaten streak.

The last game of the week was a great game, with Wolves beating Tottenham 3-2 in a great game to go up to 6th in the table, equal with Man United in 5th.

Next week are the second legs of the Champions League, and we can see who progresses into the quarter-finals.

Rugby Legends beat Cricket Legends

By Editor - Kiwi Kids News February 2, 2019 7 Post a comment

The NZ cricket players versus nz rugby players T20 cricket match (The Black Clash) was amazing to watch last Thursday.

Past and present sports stars came together to play a great match. Kieran Read captained the rugby side, and Stephen Fleming captained the cricket side. Famous sportsmen such as Richie McCaw, Brendon McCullum, Beauden Barrett and Grant Elliot played on the same field.

The managers of the teams were Scott Robertson, who coached the cricket players, and Sir Graham Henry, who coached the rugby players.

The cricket players batted first and scored 168, Grant Elliot top scoring with 42 and Jordie Barrett getting 2 wickets.

The rugby players then blew the cricket players away with Brendon McCullum (somehow deemed to be a rugby player as his last sports match on NZ soil was a club rugby match) scoring 48, and Jordie Barrett with a solid 42, which won the rugby boys the game.

The overall man of the match was definitely Jordie Barrett, with 42 runs and 2 wickets.

Hopefully, there will be more competitions like this in the future as I’m sure everyone enjoyed it.

Article written by Joshua Stewart-Becroft

Cancer information website created

By Editor - Kiwi Kids News May 10, 2017 5 16

Two amazing Kiwi students have developed a new website for explaining all about cancer.
Regan (10) and Samantha (10) from Opiki School near Palmerston North really wanted to help people. They have both lost someone in their family to cancer. For inquiry at school they decided to make a website that is kid friendly and informative.
“All the websites we looked at had heaps of big words that us kids don’t understand” said Samantha. ”
So we made our own website to help other kids understand about cancer” said Regan.
To check out the site – CLICK HERE

Ocean rubbish bin invented

By Editor - Kiwi Kids News January 21, 2016 9 30

Have you ever been in the Ocean and got really annoyed because of the rubbish?
This new invention could help you.

Some surfers have invented a sea rubbish bin which floats on the surface of the sea.

It wont only help the surfers it will help marine life like turtles, whales, dolphins and sea birds.
All of these animals are at risk because of so much rubbish in the sea.

The inventors hope that the bin can protect the environment. Studies show that an average 8 million tonnes of rubbish is thrown into the sea every year.