Room to read is an organization that is opening schools and libraries across the developing world for the poorest of the poor hundreds of schools, thousands of libraries so that every child everywhere is no longer denied an education because they were born in the wrong place at the wrong time. John wood is an amazing guy. He used to be a big executive at microsoft until he went on vacation in nepal. Thats when he saw the desperate need for books and libraries. He changed the course of his own life to change the lives of children all over the world. When i was growing up in pennsylvania, we had actually a bookmobile that came to our town. And we think of this kind of as a nepalese yakmobile. Weve got our yak loaded with books, and were about to head off to go to a secondary school here to deliver about 500 books to help them start their first library. When john arrives with his yakmobile, just look at the reaction. Reading isnt just fun. Its a way for them to connect to the world beyond their isolated community. What does shirash like . He likes ice cream. He likes ice cream. What do annie and onnie like . What do annie and onnie like . They like chicken curry. [ laughing ] they like chicken curry. Do you like chicken curry . Yes . Okay. In nepal, children express gratitude with flowers and the traditional namaste. Namaste there are also grateful children in africa. Cambodia. India. And laos. Since it started, room to read has reached more than 1,600 schools, and built 15,000 libraries libraries filled with books published in the local language. This is made possible by donations of all sizes, including help from american teens. Students throughout america have gotten very involved in room to read. We have a movement called students helping students. So, students pick a goal, they pick a country, and we dont dictate to them, heres what you need to do. Heres how you need to do it. We say, heres the menu. You can decide. You decide on a project. You decide on a country. Well tell you how much its going to cost, and then well report back to you on how the money was spent. It costs 30,000 for room to read to open a school. Thats a lot for teens to collect. Whats great about this is that no one individual probably is going to raise enough money to build a school. But if 20 or 30 or 50 or 100 students come together and make it a project, theyre going to do it together, and its going to give them a great feeling of saying, when they hear about poverty, when they hear about global issues, theyre going to be able to say, you know what . I did something. By just raising 250, you can sponsor a scholarship for a girl. In many parts of the world, girls are not able to go to school. When you think about the fact that over 100 Million Girls in the developing world woke up this morning and did not go to school, that to me screams opportunity. Its an opportunity to get out there and make positive change in the world and to say no longer should we live in a world where any child, boy or girl, is denied education. If youre looking for a Great Service project, read my lips room to read. To find out how you can help, theres a link on our website. Stay with us. Theres a lot more coming up on teen kids news. Well be right back. This report is brought to you by a grant from the Connecticut Tobacco Health trust fund. [ pop thud ] [ pop pop ] many towns and cities have laws preventing people from smoking in Public Places that are inside buildings and restaurants. But what about Public Places that are outside, like parks . We asked some teens in connecticut what they thought. I think that smoking should be banned in connecticut state park and Public Places because it can be dangerous for other people that are in the parks. I feel like theres a lot of kids out there and families that can just be going to go out and enjoy the scenery and have a nice day, and they dont want to have to have that health risk of Secondhand Smoke or have to deal with that kind of as a nuisance. And if its something you do, you should kind of keep it to yourself, because its not something the public wants. I have asthma. I dont want to inhale it and it gets worse. So i think they should just ban it in general. I think it should be illegal to smoke in Public Places, like parks, because its really bad for the air and, like, surrounding animals, because it just really fogs up the air, i guess, with smoke, bad smells. I do think that banning all, you know, smoking in public parks and public areas is a good idea, because, you know, there are always people around smokers who dont really want to be a part of it. You dont know what the next person, you know, their health risks are. I mean, its more like, i guess, when youre smoking, its like a selfish thing to do if youre doing it in a public place. And especially Walking Around the city last night, i was actually in the city and it feels like, you know, on every corner, on every sidewalk, you can smell it, and you almost feel like at the end of the day that youve almost smoked a cigarette. Its pretty gross. Some of the teens we spoke with made the point that smoking in Public Places might make kids who are younger think smoking is cool. I think banning it would be a great idea, because it shows very bad examples for kids when they see other people smoking it. They see it, and they might mimic. You dont want to have the little kids seeing that and maybe think that its okay. But its really not. Then, theres the trash that smokers leave behind. And, like, it can also just, like, destroy the environment around you and make it kind of like a nasty place. When cigarettes are littered around the park. Yeah, i think littering is definitely one of the reasons, because you look on the ground everywhere, and its just like cigarettes all over the ground, wherever you walk. cause smokers usually just, like, throw them. They dont care, like, throwing them in the trash. Just, like, put them on the ground and, like, stomp on them. And thats not what a park is for. Its supposed to be somewhere that you can go and, like, play and hang out with people, and that just sort of ruins it. You dont want that in your park. But heres what may be the best reason of all for not allowing smoking in outdoor places like parks. It would encourage people to stop smoking if you couldnt do it in some places. Yeah, because it would limit where you could do it, so it might, like, take down the amount of people that smoke in public and in general. I think thats a really good idea, because it might help people stop smoking, and it also stops secondhand smoking, as well. If youre looking for a service project, heres a suggestion organize your school, club, or community to take a stand on this issue. You can convince local officials to ban smoking in parks and other outdoor Public Places. And that will clear the air for all of us. For teen kids news, im emily. Most of us know that gas prices are in the stratosphere. So are Carbon Monoxide emissions. By going green, you can save money and freshen the air. Make it a family project to figure out how to use one less gallon of gas every week. Experts say if every family did that, Greenhouse Gases could be reduced by a million tons. Before you drop that dollar in the school vending machine, check out my story. Your favorite snacks could be hurting the environment. Foods you probably eat every day are threatening the lives of animals like orangutans and tigers. Alexa reports on how some students are fighting back. These are teens with a mission. Theyre working to save the rainforests in indonesia and malaysia and the endangered animals that live there. We really need to take a big part in helping our environment. This became their battleground. They fought to remove some snacks from their school vending machine. But it wasnt easy. The biggest challenge i faced was other students and teachers liking the products in the vending machines that we were taking out, and they didnt want them removed. Those products all had one particular ingredient in common. The entire rainforest ecosystem is endangered because of palm oil. Palm oil is used to produce many things makeup, biodiesel fuel for cars, and, yes, even some of our favorite snacks. In fact, the World Wildlife fund says 50 of the packaged foods found in Grocery Stores are made with palm oil. The way they make, harvest palm oil is they cut down an area of rainforest they actually burn it and then they use that area to plant a palmtree farm, where they use the fruit of the palm tree to make the oil. To understand this issue, you need to understand some definitions. Sustainable Palm Oil Comes from farmers who are helping to protect the rainforests. Nonsustainable Palm Oil Comes from farmers who are hurting the ecosystem. Theyre destroying orangutan habitats and habitats of all the animals in the indonesian rainforest. Jordan started researching nonsustainable palm oil as a sixth grade Current Events project. He realized he wanted to do something about it. So he recruited his classmates. I helped spread the word. I did some online posters and banners. I was getting petitions signed by people. I wrote the petition, along with a couple of friends who helped me edit it. I wrote letters to congressmen and representatives. In most cases, the students get to a certain point, and then the project kind of dies down. But this group definitely went above and beyond what was expected of them. All that hard work got noticed. And got results. My group and i, we went to the assistant superintendent for business in the district, and we proposed to him our campaign and what we wanted to do, and we asked him if we could remove all the nonsustainable products from the vending machines. The recommendations that were presented were based on fact, on research, on concern for the environment, and thats what you want in our young population. Thats what you want in our students. Mr. Rubbo gave his okay to ban the offending snacks. Not wanting to anger powerful food companies, jordan doesnt want to reveal on tv the names of the products that were removed. But they included some popular choices. To find out if food has palm oil in it, you have to look at the ingredients list on the nutrition facts label on the side of the package. Then, if it says palm oil or palm kernel oil, which are two different ways of saying palm oil, you can go to our website to find out if its sustainable or not. That website is. And one more thing palm oil has a lot of unhealthy saturated fat another reason to watch what you eat. This Important Message is brought to you by the National Road safety foundation. [ sloop crash ] [ boing ] [ flies buzzing ] [ horn honking ] [ tires screech ] keeping fit is a challenge for all of us. Now imagine what its like if you are in treatment for cancer. If youre healthy, you probably take fitness for granted. Running and jumping and dancing no problem. But as rachel reports, kids recovering from cancer need help getting back in action. Every 39 minutes, an american kid is diagnosed with cancer. The good news is that survival rates are higher than ever. Ready . Set . Go but when kids get through treatment, they face a new challenge getting back in shape. While the kids have the heart and have the mind to get back into physical activity, their bodies sometimes just arent ready. A brain tumor and leukemia kept ryan on the sidelines, while his classmates were on the field. It was a little hard thinking, like, watching them do it and thinking that ill never be able to play football, maybe, like that stuff. Ryan is now working hard to lose the extra weight he put on during treatment. But kids like ryan risk injury if they try to do too much too soon. Thats why nationwide Childrens Hospital in ohio started a program called play strong. As a part of the program, the hospital even has a trainer to help kids get back on track. Lets not just get them better. Lets get them back to what they want to do. Lets get them back to the way they were before, and if we can, lets get them back better than they were before. And heres something to remember. Cancer survivors like ryan may not always be able to keep up with the rest of us. But when it comes to courage, theyre often miles ahead. This report is brought to you by the milk life campaign. Kids are headed back to school, and so its important to make sure that your family gets back into the backtoschool routine, and one of the best ways is to start with a healthy, nutritious breakfast, including a good source of protein. Protein is so important for kids to keep them fueled and feeling full throughout the day at school so they can really learn and concentrate. An easy way to ensure that your kids get the protein they need in the morning is with a glass of milk. Eight ounces of milk contains nine essential nutrients. These are nutrients that many kids dont get enough of, such as calcium, vitamin d, a, b12, potassium, phosphorus, riboflavin, and niacin. In addition, it has eight grams of protein. So i like to make sure that my children pair their breakfast with a glass of milk. We might also put milk in our oatmeal. My boys love wholegrain cereal. Scrambled eggs are another good source of protein. Sometimes i make them the night before and keep them in the refrigerator. You can quickly heat them up in the microwave and they taste just as good as when theyre fresh. In addition, fresh fruits and vegetables are also very healthy to ensure that kids get enough servings in the day to keep them fueled and nutritious. Many kids are picky eaters, and one of the best things you can do is role model good nutritious behavior for your children. Let them see you drinking a glass of milk. Let them see you eating scrambled eggs and fresh fruit and vegetables. Often with picky eaters, you want to get them involved. Take them to the grocery store, help the prepare the meals with you. You can offer them one or two choices, but dont be a shortorder chef. Make sure that you show them whats nutritious the glass of milk, the fresh fruit and vegetables, the whole grains and let them choose what they want to eat. For more information on how to keep your family eating healthy, nutritious meals, visit. Look around at your friends. In a few years, about half of them will no longer be part of your life. Social researchers report that we tend to lose about half of our friends every seven years. The good news is, theyre replaced with new friends. We are girl scout troop 2971. [ laughter ] and we are at the. Blaze every day its getting closer going faster than a roller coaster a love like yours will surely come my way hey, hey, hey every day its getting closer going faster than a roller coaster a love like yours will surely come my way hey, hey, hey babies arent fully developed until at least 39 weeks, which means babies born even a few weeks early can have breathing, feeding, and learning problems. If your pregnancy is healthy, wait for labor to begin on its own. A healthy baby is worth the wait. If every halloween you carve the same old face on your jackolantern, listen up. Carlys about to shed some light on a whole new world of creative carving options for when october rolls around. Welcome to the great jackolantern blaze. Its held every fall at Van Cortlandt manor. This historic location is not far from where washington irvings legendary headless horseman chased ichabod crane. [ horse whinnies ] [ man screams ] we are in the midst of Sleepy Hollow country. This is the home of the American Heritage of halloween, and weve always had fantastic halloween events in this area, and this is probably one of the best. More than 4,000 pumpkins are used to create all sorts of clever and spooky scenes. For some displays, artificial pumpkins are needed. But most are real. We are in front of our Jurassic Park installation, where we have giant, lifesized dinosaurs that are constructed of, in some cases, more than 100 pumpkins. We sketch them from anatomy books and create them so that theyre accurate. Each pumpkin represents a specific bone on the dinosaur. Everywhere you walk, you see imagination at work. I think this is definitely one of our most impressive exhibits. This is a huge spider web, 50 foot around, and youve got a mother spider on the web, youve got little baby spiders along the ground, and its just a really fantastic arachnoid exhibit. [ laughs ] i dont like spiders, but this is really cool. These are kind of fun spiders, you know . I think people even who dont like spiders will enjoy this exhibit just cause its so impressive. And if youre wondering how all these jackolanterns get lit, help arrives just before sundown. Girl scouts fr local troops are among the many volunteers who take on the task. Well, me and my partner, maggie, we lit 60 pumpkins. I did 67 with my partner, sophia. Usually as girl scouts we do a lot of trips together, and last year we did this, and we loved it so much that we decided to do it again this year. Your partner holds the pumpkin back just a little bit, so then the wind does not blow the candle out. And then you flick the lighter on, and then you light the candle, then you put it back down. The man behind these scenes spends months coming up with new ideas. Then he works with local artists to bring them to life. I draw inspiration from the landscape. I get a lot of ideas from the actual history that took place here. But not all the inspiration is local. You may have heard of stonehenge in england you know, the place with all those ancient stones . Well, here they have pumpkinhenge. By the way, those things floating outside pumpkinhenge arent dementors. Theyre druid ghosts. Could you carve a pumpkin as well as these people did . No way. Thats, like, impossible. And also, while youre Walking Around, take a look above, and look and see if you can find king kong perched on a building. I think its really cool how, like, theres so many different designs. Theres, like, sunflowers and caterpillars and, like, spider webs. I think its just really cool how they carved them. Could you tell me a little bit about this exhibit . Sure. This is perhaps my favorite exhibit here. This is a buzzing beehive, and you can see all the little bees that are buzzing around the hive. And this is something that was created first time last year, and i just think its fantastic, and im glad we brought it back. I think its very cool. This is our first time here, so were really enjoying it. I think its pretty impressive, because to carve all those pumpkins, it must take a lot of time. Its so creative with all the pumpkins everywhere. Its so much fun. I think it was fantastic. It was pretty cool seeing all the faces on the jackolanterns. The blaze includes a display featuring celtic designs from ireland. Its a way of paying tribute to the people who brought us their craving for carving. Jackolanterns actually came to america as part of an irish tradition, where the irish used to carve faces out of turnips. And when the immigrated to america, pumpkins are native to north america, and we began to carve pumpkins, and thats where jackolanterns came from. I got to tell you, this is really cool. The blaze is different every year. To find out more, check out the link on our website. For teen kids news, im carly. That wraps up our show, but well be back soon with more teen kids news. Thanks for joining us, and have a great week. Heres a shoutout to pr newswire for including teen kids news on their big screen in times square, new york city. Tures brought to you by seaworld and Busch Gardens for more than forty years working to preserve the world we share. A big fish in a small pond. Not hardly. Its the biggest fish in the sea. Hi, im jack hanna, here at my base camp, Busch Gardens, tampa bay. Welcome to animal adventures. If you had the chance to see. Firsthand