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Newsela | It’s a girl, girl, boy, girl! Baby boom at zoo partnership

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Zoos in New Orleans, Louisiana, and San Diego, California, have partnered to save endangered African animals.

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Newsela | Chicago animals could face fight for survival

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Newsela | A Lego wheelchair is helping this injured turtle heal at the Maryland Zoo

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When a Maryland Zoo employee brought in an injured turtle, veterinary staff made him a wheelchair out of Legos.

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela | Endangered Species: The giant panda

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The few giant pandas that still exist in the wild live only in forests in China where they can find plenty of bamboo to eat.

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela | Good with a joystick? One university gives scholarships to video gamers

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Robert Morris University Illinois offers athletic scholarships to video gamers. Its teams have sponsors and coaches. They play in the eSports arena. Its two varsity teams are undefeated.

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Newsela | Goodbye lonely video gaming, multiplayer games are the new thing

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The gaming world has come a long way, with players these days forming on-screen bonds.

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Newsela | Student Opinion: Video games are rotting kids' brains

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Newsela | Zoo stands by decision to kill gorilla to save child who fell into exhibit

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Newsela | Arthritic elephant finds relief in a pair of enormous Teva sandals

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Newsela | Fiona the baby hippo, or how animals go viral

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America has fallen in love with Fiona, a baby hippo born at the Cincinnati Zoo.

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Newsela | Instructional Content Platform

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Newsela | Young cubs: So cute, but you no longer can hold them

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture acquiesces to pressure from animal welfare groups to stamp out the use of cubs as entertainment for people who pay sizable sums to meet the animals.

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Newsela | SeaWorld tanks or sea pens? Dispute over which is best for orcas continues

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Newsela | SeaWorld to stop orca breeding program, shows featuring killer whales

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Newsela | Ending "Shamu" stunts isn't enough to protect whales, activists say

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Newsela | Washington state steps up its whale-protection efforts

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Newsela | It's getting harder for polar bears to act naturally, even in nature

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Polar bears in the zoo do the same thing over and over, like swing their heads. Some say it's because they're confined. It's no picnic for those in the wild either, their habitat is shrinking.

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Aquariums support conservation and promote education through meaningful encounters
By Bruce Carlson
I am seated in front of a massive window that holds back 6.3 million gallons of sea water at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. It's a Thursday afternoon and about 125 people are in this gallery, including several dozen children seated on the floor, mesmerized by the amazing creatures just on the other side of the glass. We are watching two whale sharks being fed while a narrator explains that they are plankton feeders. The kids are enthralled; not only by the whale sharks, but also by the thousands of other animals they have access to in these exhibits. During the past five years, more than 11 million people have had this same experience. I am certain that more than just one of the millions of children who have been here will decide to dedicate their lives to marine biology and conservation as a result of their trip to the aquarium.

Scuba Diving readers are among the lucky few who have seen and interacted with the magnificent creatures that live in the ocean. An even smaller group has had up-close encounters with the largest animals in the sea: whales, dolphins, whale sharks and manta rays. These encounters are unpredictable and brief, yet they are experiences that make a lifelong impression on the people who have them. And not only does the sport of diving require specific training and physical prowess, the trips to dive in the places where these most interesting creatures live cost a considerable sum. Airfare, boat charters, gear rentals and more make these encounters a luxury many people cannot afford. But thanks to places like the Georgia Aquarium, the thrill of seeing a whale shark or a manta ray is no longer an exclusive experience, but rather an accessible encounter for the masses.

What aquariums and zoos do best is help bring people and animals closer together. And the more we learn about animals, the more we care about them and their environments. So how could a place like this not encourage people to be active in the conservation of these creatures? As I write this, I can see the impact of this tremendous educational and empowering experience in the eyes of these young children.

But the impact goes beyond education. The revenue generated from guest attendance at many zoological parks and aquariums around the world is used to support research and conservation. For instance, the Georgia Aquarium has provided research grants to scientists in the U.S. and Mexico to document the aggregation of whale sharks that appears each year off the town of Holbox on the Yucatan peninsula. From 2003-2010, more than 700 whale sharks were tagged and photographed, and over many years this data will give us a good understanding of population dynamics of whale sharks in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. Aerial surveys funded by the aquarium have also contributed valuable data on where to establish boundaries for the new Whale Shark Biosphere Preserve created in Holbox in 2009. The new preserve will help protect whale sharks from possible exploitation and ensure that their food supply -- plankton and fish eggs -- is not endangered from pollution.

This is just one example of how aquariums give back to nature. Over from 2005-2010, aquariums and zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums provided nearly $89 million to more than 3,700 conservation projects all over the world. These programs for species ranging from tiny Banggai cardinal fish in Indonesia to great white sharks off California to beluga whales in Alaska are giving the animals a better chance to thrive in the wild.

When people ask me whether or not large animals, like whale sharks, should be kept in aquariums or zoos, I tell them to ask the children at the aquarium that day. I am sure they would give you a resounding "yes." The awe they are feeling will turn into appreciation and respect for living creatures they might otherwise have never known.
Bruce Carlson was the Chief Science Officer at the Georgia Aquarium from 2002-2011. A diver since 1967, he is also the former Director of the Waikiki Aquarium in Honolulu.
Large Marine Animals Do Not Belong in Bath Tubs
By Kim McCoy
Captive marine animals are often referred to as "ambassadors for their kind," as though they have some choice in the matter or this is somehow a noble pursuit. My question is always: What did these innocent beings do to deserve the extreme trauma of a potentially lethal wild capture (yes, these still happen routinely around the world) followed by a life sentence in a liquid prison that is unnatural in every conceivable way; an environment rife with stress, boredom, frustration of natural instincts, forced human interactions, increased mortality rates and decreased quality of life? Wouldn't they be much better ambassadors in the wild?

With startlingly few exceptions, most aquariums worldwide (and certainly entities such as casinos and marine "abusement" parks) exist exclusively for the purpose of generating profits through commercial exploitation. Animals are regarded as expendable commodities, high death and illness rates are anticipated costs of doing business, and the underlying message is that confinement of animals for profit and human entertainment is acceptable.

While nearly all aquariums attempt to justify this exploitation under the guise of conservation, education and research, only a tiny percentage actually conduct legitimate conservation programs. Even then, the money spent on conservation represents a fraction of the overall income generated off the backs of these animals and begs the question: Wouldn't the money spent finding ways to keep animals alive in artificial environments be better spent solving conservation issues in their natural habitats in the first place?

The standard argument is that aquariums are necessary because they educate people and create awareness of the plight of wild animals, resulting in a call to action. But there is no solid evidence that viewing captive animals translates directly into any sort of practical conservation action. To the contrary, viewing animals in unnaturally small, often chlorinated enclosures desensitizes people to the cruelty inherent in their removal from the wild. It encourages the false notion of animals in isolation that are dependent upon humans for survival, rather than integral elements of ocean ecosystems that are fully competent to care for themselves. More important, it discourages the correct view of marine animals as sentient beings with their own intrinsic value, deserving of the right to live their lives free from human interference.

Aquariums and the research conducted therein teach us nothing of migratory or foraging patterns, actual life spans or complex natural behaviors exhibited by large marine animals in the wild. How, for example, is a young child supposed to learn, by looking into a concrete and Plexiglas enclosure only 30 feet deep, that whale sharks routinely dive to almost 5,000 feet? That child sees an animal swimming in endless circles. Whale sharks can live for up to 150 years in the wild, yet we applaud facilities that can keep them alive for three to 10 years in captivity, as if that is somehow an accomplishment.

No man-made enclosure can adequately simulate the tides, the biodiversity, or the sheer vastness and freedom of the open ocean in order to meet the complex physical and psychological needs of large captive animals. Enclosures are designed for human convenience and comfort, not the animals' well being, and even the best-designed enclosures frustrate and confuse critical senses relied upon in the wild for navigation, danger avoidance or locating prey, such as dolphin echolocation or a shark's ability to detect and interpret vibrations and electrical activity.

While it is legitimate to conclude that some facilities are more or less damaging than others, the lives led by large captive marine animals are so contrary to the natural experiences of their wild counterparts - and the purported benefits of confinement are such a stretch - that it is simply unforgivable to keep these animals in captivity.

Wouldn't we all be much better off funneling the billions of dollars spent supporting commercial captive enterprises into learning about our oceans through more compassionate and accurate means, such as observation in the wild (with responsible operators), virtual reality simulations, books, DVDs and/or IMAX theatres? Don't we owe it to our children, to the animals and to our planet to move forward in a way that inflicts no harm?
Kim McCoy is the Executive Director of Big Life Foundation, and was the Director of Campaigns for Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a nonprofit organization specializing in international ocean wildlife conservation, from 2007-2009. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com Editor's Note: This story was originally published in Scuba Diving magazine in 2010.

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Should big marine animals like killer whales and whale sharks be kept in aquariums or at parks like SeaWorld? Two experts debate the pros and cons.

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Aquariums and marine mammal theme parks like SeaWorld, the Miami Seaquarium, and Canada's Marineland are part of a billion-dollar industry built on the suffering of intelligent social beings who are denied everything that's natural and important to them.

Wild orcas and other dolphins live in large, complex social groups and swim vast distances every day in the open ocean. In captivity, they can only swim in endless circles inside tanks that, to them, are the equivalent of bathtubs and they're denied the opportunity to engage in almost any natural behavior. They are forced to perform meaningless tricks and are often torn away from family members when they're shuffled between parks. Many die far short of their species' natural life expectancy.

Families Torn Apart

Countless marine animals (even the original Shamu) were taken from their rightful ocean homes and placed in tanks. Tilikum, the orca who lashed out and killed SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau and two other people, died in a concrete prison 33 years after he was taken away from his Icelandic family. Lolita, torn away from her family when she was just a baby, has spent half a century in the same tank at the Miami Seaquarium. Some countries continue to capture wild dolphins and whales.

Captivity's Tragic Consequences

Frequently housed with incompatible tankmates, dolphins, whales, and other marine mammals are often drugged in order to manage stress-induced aggressive behavior and relieve the endless monotony of swimming in circles. They break their teeth chewing on the metal bars and concrete sides of their tanks and are forced to perform tricks for tourists in exchange for food-all in the name of entertainment.

While wild female orcas can live to be more than 100 years old, orcas at SeaWorld often die by the time they reach their teens and rarely approach even the average life expectancy of wild orcas. More than 40 orcas have died at SeaWorld from causes such as bacterial infections and fractured skulls. More than 300 other dolphins and whales along with approximately 400 pinnipeds have also died at the parks.

While Marineland can no longer breed whales and dolphins or confine new ones-thanks to Canada's recent ban on their captivity-it's still imprisoning the animals currently languishing there. Dozens of dolphins, whales, and walruses have died there-including a walrus named Apollo who recently suffered a heart attack. An orca named Kiska-who was abducted from her family in the ocean as a baby 40 years ago-is confined in isolation and can do nothing but swim in endless circles inside her cramped tank.

The Trouble With 'Interactive' Programs

Touch tanks as well as "swim with dolphins" and "paint with dolphins" programs allow the public to pet, kiss, paint with, or even ride these animals. Such programs invade their already diminished worlds and are intrusive, stressful, and even dangerous for them, as well as being risky for human participants.

Animals in "petting pools" are frequently exposed to foreign bacteria and other pathogens, and they can become anxious, frustrated, aggressive, and even neurotic as a result of being confined to shallow tanks and exposed to constant interaction with humans. Members of the public have been injured at SeaWorld's dolphin-petting pools.

Even programs that enable people to swim with dolphins in nature can be invasive. Boats and swimmers may chase, harass, and scare them, interfering with their natural feeding, resting, migrating, and playing behavior.

Poor Government Regulations

Captive marine mammals have some federal protections in the U.S., but enforcement is lax. There are simply too many animal exhibitors for the limited number of U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors-as of February 2020, there were 104 inspectors for 12,851 facilities. Even when exhibitors are cited for violating the federal Animal Welfare Act, they're rarely assessed fines or meaningful penalties.

Keeping Dolphins Free

In nature, orcas work cooperatively in search of food. They share complex relationships in a matrilineal society and-in some populations-rarely leave their mother's pod. They have group-specific food preferences and behavior. These attributes, along with their pods' unique dialects, are considered a form of culture that is unrivaled by any species other than humans.

Other dolphins, too, maintain dynamic relationships within a large social network. They live with up to a few dozen others in a pod and can swim as many as 60 miles each day and dive to depths of nearly 1,500 feet in nature.

The world is moving away from keeping intelligent, sensitive cetaceans in captivity. In the U.S., the National Aquarium is building the dolphins in its care a seaside sanctuary-a safe ocean cove in which captive marine mammals can be released into a protected area of the sea to dive deep, feel the ocean currents, and finally live like they should, all while still receiving care, food, and veterinary support. Two whales have been moved from a marine park in China to a seaside sanctuary in Iceland, and The Whale Sanctuary Project just announced plans for a seaside sanctuary for rescued orcas and belugas in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Governments around the world are also recognizing that dolphins (including orcas) and other cetaceans do not belong in tanks. Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, and Croatia have all banned the practice of keeping cetaceans in captivity. In 2013, India's Ministry of Environment & Forests banned the practice of keeping dolphins captive for public entertainment. Other countries, including Brazil, Luxembourg, Nicaragua, and Norway, have highly restrictive standards that make it nearly impossible to keep cetaceans in captivity. The last dolphinarium in the U.K. closed more than 20 years ago.

What You Can Do

Please don't visit marine parks, and never buy tickets to roadside zoos or aquariums that keep ocean animals in captivity. Encourage your local aquarium to create more space for rehabilitating (and releasing) injured wildlife by refusing to breed more animals.

You can also leaflet at local roadside aquariums or marine parks, pressure officials to avoid subsidizing these facilities with taxpayer money, write letters to the editor of local publications, and support legislation that prohibits the capture or restricts the display of marine mammals.
Please join PETA in urging SeaWorld and other marine parks to stop using animals and to relocate the orcas, bottlenose dolphins, and other animals to seaside sanctuaries, where they can thrive in the enrichment and diversity of the sea while still receiving the care that they require.

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Aquariums and Marine Parks are no safe havens for marine mammals like dolphins and whales. Learn more on how you can help animals and not support these facilities.

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California bill would ban orca shows at SeaWorld | CNN

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A California state legislator wants to ban the orca killer whale shows at SeaWorld, in the wake of CNN's controversial documentary "Blackfish."

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Newsela | Activists and SeaWorld debate the life spans of killer whales

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Activists say killer whales live longer in the wild. SeaWorld disputes that, saying its orcas live just as long in captivity. The numbers each side uses have come under criticism.

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Smart, Social and Erratic in Captivity (Published 2013)

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A film, a book and a trainer’s death have renewed debate among scientists and animal advocates on the wisdom and morality of keeping killer whales in marine parks.

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Scholastic Classroom & News Magazines | Subscribe Now!

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What Was the Apollo Program? (Grades 5-8) - NASA

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Apollo was the NASA program that resulted in American astronauts’ making a total of 11 spaceflights and walking on the moon.

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Explore Scholastic Teaching Tools for teaching resources, printables, book lists, and more. Enhance your classroom experience with expert advice!

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Fabien Cousteau is leading a team of scientists, educators, and filmmakers this month on the longest-ever expedition in a stationary habitat beneath the sea. The project, called Mission 31, aims to build awareness about the need to protect the ocean and honors a historic expedition 50 years ago by Cousteau's famous grandfather, explorer Jacques Cousteau.

Launched on June 1, Mission 31 is a 31-day, privately funded expedition at Florida International University's Medina Aquarius Reef Base.

The habitat lies 63 feet (19 meters) below the surface in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Windows look out on swimming fish and deep coral reefs. (See " Stunning Underwater Photos for World Ocean Day.")

The team is studying climate change, ocean acidification, plastics pollution, decline of biodiversity, and predator-prey relationships. Cousteau and his colleagues are also making a documentary film and have participated in more than 50 educational Skype sessions with schools, aquariums, and museums in the United States, Canada, Australia, Kenya, and the Czech Republic.

Guests who have dived to Aquarius for short visits with the Mission 31 team include National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle, Greg Stone of Conservation International, marine artist Wyland, actors Adrian Grenier and Ian Somerhalder, and retired NASA astronaut Clay Anderson.

"Jacques Cousteau was my hero, and I believe Fabien is following closely in his flippers," Wyland said in a statement. "Fabien is sharing the beauty of our undersea world with everyone and inviting artists, scientists, and all of us on this epic mission that will help us all have a better connection with our water world."

On June 11, Jacques Cousteau's birthday, Florida Governor Rick Scott called to wish the team well. The members also celebrated by wearing red caps, as Cousteau often did, and eating French pastries and "red cap" cookies.

Aquarius is the world's only underwater marine laboratory. It measures 43 by 20 by 16.5 feet (13 by 6 by 5 meters) and weighs approximately 81 tons. It has six bunk beds, hot water, a mini-kitchen, climate control, computers, and wireless Internet.

Fifty years ago, Jacques Cousteau led a 30-day expedition underwater aboard a habitat called Conshelf II in the Red Sea off Sudan. He and his team proved that "saturation diving," which means living and working at a pressure higher than on the surface, was possible for long periods. Mission 31 is 30 feet (9 meters) deeper than Conshelf II.

National Geographic spoke with Fabien Cousteau, as well as scientists Liz Magee and Grace Young, inside Aquarius via Skype. Magee is a research diver with Northeastern University; Young graduated in May from MIT with a degree in mechanical and ocean engineering, with a specialty in marine robotics.
What was the impact of Jacques Cousteau's Conshelf II expedition 50 years ago, and how did it inspire your current mission?
Cousteau: My grandfather was a pioneer in building underwater habitat. He and his team spent 30 days gathering scientific data, on both the ecosystems around their habitat and the physiological effects of working underwater. We are going one day longer than that expedition in a symbolic nod to honor them and to point the way toward future ocean exploration.

I grew up with a grandfather who was a visionary, a philosopher, and a wonderful storyteller. He was also very connected with young people. Being the oldest grandchild I got to live 30 years of my life with him. I've been on expeditions since a young age and have been immersed in that world.

Conshelf II has always been one of those legendary stories I kept in the back of my mind. When Sylvia Earle did her Mission Aquarius [in July 2012] to highlight the importance of ocean habitats, I realized I wanted to live the dream of becoming an aquanaut. And I realized what an amazing platform it is for education.
You are underwater in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, and President Obama just announced plans for a huge new marine sanctuary around remote islands in the Pacific. How important are these protected areas?
Cousteau: Being a third-generation explorer, it brings me a lot of hope to see that the U.S. is leading by example. The Obama administration is protecting swaths of ocean that really need protecting. I look forward to seeing it come about and being enforced.

We desperately need protected areas around the world so we can rebuild the natural bank account that we all need.

Magee: If more people were exposed to the wonders of the sea, then everyone would be all for protecting it. That's why part of our mission is exposing people who don't normally think about the ocean to how vital it is to our livelihoods and our lives.

Young: I find it incredibly frightening that we have the technology to completely destroy the ocean in my lifetime, but marine protected areas are hope spots, as Sylvia Earle calls them.
Now that the mission is more than half over, what has it been like to live and work underwater for days at a time?
Cousteau: Today [June 19] is day 19 of the mission, which makes it officially the longest mission that has happened in the Aquarius habitat. We have another 13 days to go.

It's now been a few days since Liz and Grace joined us. They switched out with Andy [Shantz] and Adam [Zenone], two students from Florida International University. They've become surface dwellers again. We also have a team of 36 people at the surface, both scientists and support staff.
What have you learned about the physiological and psychological effects of living long-term underwater, at high pressure and without the sun?
Cousteau: We wear bands that monitor light and our activity, and we are doing a survey of how we sleep. We're working long days down here. At first we got up at 4:30 every morning and went to bed at 11. Now things have slowed down a little bit, and we're getting up at 6 but still going to bed around 11. We're studying the effects of being down here.
How did the decompression go for the first team-Adam and Andy-that left after the first part of the mission?
Cousteau: The decompression process takes about 18 and a half hours; it's lengthy. But living at saturation allows us to go diving as long as we want.

Magee: When we were getting ready to go down, we saw Adam and Andy come up. They said they were sad that it was over, but they were really excited to see the sun.
How does the saturation diving work?
Magee: After 24 hours of being down here, we are considered fully saturated, or fully nitrogen loaded. So we have more nitrogen dissolved in our blood [because of the pressure from the surrounding water].

That means we can stay out in the water diving for up to nine hours. It's such a unique opportunity, and one of the things I was most excited about, to be able to dive for so long.

Cousteau: When astronaut Clay Anderson came down here, he could only stay for 45 minutes. In that case it is just like a normal 60-foot (18-meter) dive. If he had stayed longer, he would have had to go through decompression.
Do you think we are any closer to realizing Jacques Cousteau's vision of underwater colonies?
Cousteau: Technologically speaking, we're absolutely capable of doing it at this point; it's a matter of funding and willpower. On the flip side of that coin, there is a lot of technology now that my grandfather had only dreamed of: for example, the ability to talk to you on the surface [through WiFi]. Underwater habitats are a fantastic tool for science and education, and they provide a unique perspective.

Young: I could see myself having an underwater vacation house, but I'd miss my friends and family too much to live underwater permanently.
You have pointed out that we have explored only about 5 percent of the ocean. Why is it important to keep exploring?
Cousteau: I think it's paramount to learn more about the ocean, not just for science, which is incredibly important, but also for ourselves. We need to learn more about the interconnectivity of the ocean. This is our life support system. Otherwise, we are just a little brown rock in space like all the others. There's no such thing as healthy people without a healthy ocean.

We're polluting what's left in ways that are starting to affect us. It's leading to increased rates of cancer and all sorts of other diseases. We're basically using the ocean as a garbage can.

Young: I'm concerned we might destroy ecosystems in the deep sea before we even know they existed. Now we have the technology to mine the seafloor, overfish, and destroy coral reefs by changing acidity.
Your team has been studying ocean acidification. How have you been doing that, and what have you learned?
Magee: There are beautiful giant sponges right outside the habitat. Some could be thousands of years old. Some call them redwoods of the reef. And we're setting up sensors inside them to measure such variables as oxygen and temperature, so we'll be able to understand what happens with rising acidity of the water and its impacts on the sponges. It will also help us better understand the activity of these sponges.
What else are you studying?
Magee: We are using sonar to study predators and prey. The sonar mounts to the top of your helmet so you can visualize it. And Grace brought a high-speed camera.

Young: The camera came out just five weeks ago, and we got one of the first models. We had a housing built for it, and we are using it for the first time underwater. Last night we looked at Christmas tree worms. We hope to better understand how the creature moves.

Magee: A grouper fish releases a pulse of sound to stun prey fish. We hope to capture that with the high-speed camera. It's so fast that you wouldn't hear it if you were diving right next to it. The only way we can hope to capture it is by spending hours in the water, and the only way we can do that is by saturation diving. The only way to do that is by a habitat, so Aquarius gives us the gift of time.
When retired astronaut Clay Anderson visited you at Aquarius earlier today, did he find the habitat similar to being in space?
Cousteau: NASA uses Aquarius as a training ground for space because the parameters are very similar to living in space. In 2003 Clay Anderson came down here to train. It's also thrilling to have an astronaut here to explain why it is so important for exploration in general.

Young: In my background in robotics, I think of the ocean and space as similar environments.
What do you do for fun underwater?
Magee: Yesterday was really fun for me. I made a dive over five hours, my longest ever. It's really fun just being in the water.

Young: We can watch movies, but we haven't much-we have too much fun looking out the window.

Cousteau: We have playing cards, but they haven't been opened. Most of the time we're just looking out the window. It's so fascinating. It's a unique experience.

Magee: The fish are just as intrigued with us as we are with them. Last night we had a grouper that was staring in at our window. She was checking us out.

Cousteau: It's also neat how many people are watching us online. We have a constant video stream. My mom saw me blow my nose, and she emailed to ask if I had a cold.
What have been the coolest things you've seen on the mission?
Cousteau: One evening [while diving] I was waiting for the cameraman, and I looked over at a post [outside the habitat]. All of a sudden, it started smoking. I thought it might be an electrical fire or something. But when I got closer, I realized there were about 30 Christmas tree worms on the post, and they had started spawning all at once, so it looked like smoke. I also saw a giant tarpon swimming around close enough to touch. A few days ago we saw a grouper strike a barracuda. I've never heard of that behavior before.

Young: What amazes me is I'll look at a patch that looks like empty sand, but the more you look the more you discover. I saw a piece of sea grass and then saw it walking. I thought I was hallucinating, and then I saw it was a tiny crab.

Cousteau: For Mission 31 we have the goal of reaching 331 million people around the world, and hopefully we'll double that. We'll have a feature documentary, and we have many blog posts and information on our website. We've done many sessions with classrooms around the world.

We hope to continue the synergy that we're starting to see around ocean protection. It's critical so our children will be able to enjoy the ocean. When I first had the idea for the mission, I didn't know if we would pull it off, but my grandfather used to say only the crazy ideas succeed.

Young: It's been a splash.
This interview has been edited and condensed. Follow Brian Clark Howard on Twitter and Google+.

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Fabien Cousteau Leads "Aquanauts" in Record-Breaking Undersea Expedition

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Fabien Cousteau is leading a team of scientists, educators, and filmmakers this month on the longest-ever expedition in a stationary habitat beneath the sea. The project, called Mission 31, aims to build awareness about the need to protect the ocean and honors a historic expedition 50 years ago by Cousteau's famous grandfather, explorer Jacques Cousteau.

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Amitai Etzioni says there are bigger priorities than a new push for manned exploration in space

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Many people dismiss space exploration as a luxury, but this attitude is not only wrong, it's dangerous.

Satellite technology has revolutionized our planet in almost every way. Weather satellites help us track developing hurricanes, allowing meteorologists to warn people days in advance. That saves thousands of lives. Communication satellites allow us instant access to information all over the world using radio, television, and phones. Some people credit in part the fall of the Soviet Union to ease of information access; the people in those countries saw what the rest of the world was doing, accelerating the process of reform. GPS satellites allow us to track ships, airplanes, and even people who may be lost or in need of help.

Reaching outward into space has helped us in other ways as well. A fleet of satellites (YOHKOH, SOHO and others) study the Sun so that we can better understand it. Huge solar eruptions can damage satellites and cause power blackouts (like in Quebec in 1989), and the Sun directly influences our environment. Understanding the Sun is a critical use of space technology.

Exploring the other planets helps us put the Earth in context. Why is Mars dry, cold, nearly airless, and dead? Why is Venus covered in thick clouds and suffering a runaway greenhouse effect? Why do hurricanes on Jupiter last for centuries? All these questions (and thousands more) help us understand our own planet, and allow us to see how humans are affecting it. Certainly understanding asteroids is important-- we need to learn how to move them in case one is heading our way; an asteroid impact could wipe out all humans on Earth, so our very future is tied to space travel.

There are simple technological reasons for space exploration as well. Some estimates say that for every dollar invested in the Apollo program, more than 20 have been returned. That's a huge payoff! Computer tech, communications, rocketry, and many other fields have benefited hugely from space exploration.

And there is one more reason. Humans strive to learn, to explore, to push boundaries, to see what's around the corner. This is in many ways a fundamental need, and space exploration is a fantastic manifestation of that. The Universe is huge, beautiful, mysterious, and, ultimately, knowable. Even if the other reasons were not there, this alone should be enough for us pursue our exploration.

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Many people dismiss space exploration as a luxury, but this attitude is not only wrong, it's dangerous. Satellite technology has revolutionized our planet in almost every way. Weather satellites help us track developing hurricanes, allowing meteorologists to warn people days in advance. That saves thousands of lives.

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For centuries, people dreamed about leaving Earth and travelling to other worlds. Then, in 1957, the Soviet Union made the first small step into space by launching a small satellite, called Sputnik. The Space Age had begun.

Early space activities were dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union. However, as time went by, Europe and Japan also learned how to build their own satellites and rockets. Today, countries such as China, India, South Korea, Israel and Brazil are developing their own space industries.

During the last 60 years, unmanned probes have been sent towards all of the planets in the Solar System, as well as many satellites, asteroids and comets. Spacecraft have soft-landed on half a dozen worlds, while rovers have driven over the surfaces of the Moon and Mars. The Sun has also been explored in great detail by a fleet of spacecraft.

Many space observatories, such as the Hubble Space Telescope, have been launched to look at the distant Universe. They have sent back some amazing pictures taken in visible light. But they can also observe stars and galaxies at wavelengths that are invisible to human eyes - radio, infrared, ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. The flood of discoveries has changed the way we look at the Universe.

More than 500 people have also flown in space since Yuri Gagarin paved the way in 1961. 20 people have travelled to the Moon and 12 of them have walked on the Moon. Space stations have been built, and astronauts have learned to live and work in space for many months, or even years.

Last modified 26 January 2011

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For centuries, people dreamed about leaving Earth and travelling to other worlds. Then, in 1957, the Soviet Union made the first small step into space by launching a small satellite, called Sputnik. The Space Age had begun.

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I am convinced that if NASA were to disappear tomorrow, if we never put up another Hubble Space Telescope, never put another human being in space, people in this country would be profoundly distraught. Americans would feel that we had lost something that matters, that our best days were behind us, and they would feel themselves somehow diminished. Yet I think most would be unable to say why.

There are many good reasons to continue to explore space, which most Americans have undoubtedly heard. Some have been debated in public policy circles and evaluated on the basis of financial investment. In announcing his commitment to send the country back to the moon and, later, on to Mars, President Bush quite correctly said that we do it for purposes of scientific discovery, economic benefit, and national security. I've given speeches on each of those topics, and these reasons can be clearly shown to be true. And presidential science advisor Jack Marburger has said that questions about space exploration come down to whether we want to bring the solar system within mankind's sphere of economic influence. I think that is extraordinarily well put.

But these are not reasons that would make Americans miss our space program. They are merely the reasons we are most comfortable discussing. I think of them as "acceptable reasons" because they can be logically defended. When we contemplate committing large sums of money to a project, we tend to dismiss reasons that are emotional or value-driven or can't be captured on a spreadsheet. But in space exploration those are the reasons-what I think of as "real reasons"-that are the most important.

When Charles Lindbergh was asked why he crossed the Atlantic, he never once answered that he wanted to win the $25,000 that New York City hotel owner Raymond Orteig offered for the first nonstop aircraft flight between New York and Paris. Burt Rutan and his backer, Paul Allen, certainly didn't develop a private spacecraft to win the Ansari X-Prize for the $10 million in prize money. They spent twice as much as they made. Sergei Korolev and the team that launched Sputnik were not tasked by their government to be the first to launch an artificial satellite; they had to fight for the honor and the resources to do it.

I think we all know why people strive to accomplish such things. They do so for reasons that are intuitive and compelling to all of us but that are not necessarily logical. They're exactly the opposite of acceptable reasons, which are eminently logical but neither intuitive nor emotionally compelling.

First, most of us want to be, both as individuals and as societies, the first or the best in some activity. We want to stand out. This behavior is rooted in our genes. We are today the descendants of people who survived by outperforming others. Without question that drive can be carried to an unhealthy extreme; we've all seen more wars than we like. But just because the trait can be taken too far doesn't mean that we can do without it completely.

A second reason is curiosity. Who among us has not had the urge to know what's over the next hill? What child has not been drawn to explore beyond the familiar streets of the neighborhood?

Finally, we humans have, since the earliest civilizations, built monuments. We want to leave something behind to show the next generation, or the generations after that, what we did with our time here. This is the impulse behind cathedrals and pyramids, art galleries and museums.

Cathedral builders would understand what I mean by real reasons. The monuments they erected to the awe and mystery of their God required a far greater percentage of their gross domestic product than we will ever put into the space business, but we look back across 600 or 800 years of time, and we are still awed by what the builders accomplished. Those buildings, therefore, also stand as monuments to the builders.

The return the cathedral builders made on their investment could not have been summarized in a cost/benefit analysis. They began to develop civil engineering, the core discipline for any society if it wishes to have anything more than thatched huts. They gained societal advantages that were probably even more important than learning how to build walls and roofs. For example, they learned to embrace deferred gratification, not just on an individual level, where it is a crucial element of maturity, but on a societal level, where it is equally vital. The people who started the cathedrals didn't live to finish them. The society as a whole had to be dedicated to the completion of those projects. We owe Western civilization as we know it today to that kind of thinking: the ability to have a constancy of purpose across years and decades.

It is my contention that the products of our space program are today's cathedrals. The space program satisfies the desire to compete, but in a safe and productive manner, rather than in a harmful one. It speaks abundantly to our sense of human curiosity, of wonder and awe at the unknown. Who can watch people assembling the greatest engineering project in the history of mankind-the International Space Station-and not wonder at the ability of people to conceive and to execute the project? And it also addresses our need for leaving something for future generations.

Of course the space program also addresses the acceptable reasons, and in the end this is imperative. Societies will not succeed in the long run if they place their resources and their efforts in enterprises that, for whatever reason, don't provide concrete value. But I believe that projects done for the real reasons that motivate humans also serve the acceptable reasons. In that sense, the value of space exploration really is in its spinoffs, as many have argued. But it's not in spinoffs like Teflon and Tang and Velcro, as the public is so often told-and which in fact did not come from the space program. And it's not in spinoffs in the form of better heart monitors or cheaper prices for liquid oxygen for hospitals, although the space program's huge demand for liquid oxygen spurred fundamental improvements in the production and handling of this volatile substance. The real spinoffs are, just as they were for cathedral builders, more fundamental.

Anyone who wants to build spacecraft, who wants to be a subcontractor, or who even wants to supply bolts and screws to the space industry must work to a higher level of precision than human beings had to do before the space industry came along. And that standard has influenced our entire industrial base, and therefore our economy.

As for national security, what is the value to the United States of being involved in enterprises which lift up human hearts everywhere? What is the value to the United States of being a leader in such efforts, in projects in which every technologically capable nation wants to take part? The greatest strategy for national security, more effective than having better guns and bombs than everyone else, is being a nation that does the kinds of things that make others want to do them with us.

What do you have to do, how do you have to behave, to do space projects? You have to value hard work. You have to live by excellence, or die from the lack of it. You have to understand and practice both leadership and followership. You have to build partnerships; leaders need partners and allies, as well as followers.

You have to accept the challenge of the unknown, knowing that you might fail, and to do so not without fear but with mastery of fear and a determination to go anyway. You have to defer gratification because we work on things that not all of us will live to see-and we know it.

We now believe that 95 percent of the universe consists of dark energy or dark matter, terms for things that we as yet know nothing about. Is it even conceivable that one day we won't learn to harness them? As cavemen learned to harness fire, as people two centuries ago learned to harness electricity, we will learn to harness these new things. It was just a few years ago that we confirmed the existence of dark matter, and we would not have done so without the space program. What is the value of knowledge like that? I cannot begin to guess. A thousand years from now there will be human beings who don't have to guess; they will know, and they will know we gave this to them.

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Ambition, curiosity, and a reason the NASA Administrator admits has nothing to do with economic benefit.

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Help Save our Oceans! : A Groundbreaking Undersea Expedition with Fabien Cousteau

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Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1)

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Space may be called "the final frontier," but anyone who has seen a picture of a goblin shark or a vampire squid will agree that the ocean can be downright alien. Both realms are ripe for exploration, offer extensive potential benefits and come at a hefty price.

So which wins in a battle between the two for the title of the final frontier? Which area of exploration will result in the greater good for humanity? Dr. Paul Bunje, senior director of prize development and ocean health at the XPRIZE Foundation, and Alexandra Hall, senior director of Google Lunar XPRIZE, met on the Social Good Summit stage to duke it out on Tuesday.

Space has been the clear leader for a long time. $17.8 billion dollars is going toward space exploration in 2013, compared to the $5 billion dollars that goes toward oceanic exploration. This discrepancy has led to skewed results: While 500 individuals have been sent into space, only three have visited the deepest part of the ocean, the Mariana Trench.

We have better maps of the surface of Mars than we do of our own ocean floor, and we understand more about the dark side of the moon than ocean life. Despite centuries of ocean exploration, we've only covered about 5% of the ocean.

Bunje insists that this needs to change.

"In that 5% we have some of the most amazing things on this planet. We've got a mountain range, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, that has thousands of peaks taller than the Alps are, for instance," he said. "You've got, every time someone goes down, new species that are wondrous and unbelievably strange sometimes. And in reality, if you take all of the world's oceans, that's 99% of our living space on Earth, and we know almost nothing about it."

Bunje also said that there are three reasons why the oceans deserve more research love: food, jobs and oxygen.

The ocean produces 20% of the world's protein supply, and 3 billion people rely on the ocean for their livelihood. The ocean also produces 70% of Earth's oxygen. These statistics, to Bunje and other ocean activists, mean that dangers like ocean acidification and climate change need our attention.

Hall insists that the investment isn't as skewed as it seems. The simple fact that getting into space comes with a very large dollar sign must be taken into account when comparing the budgets. She insists that the reasons to explore space include economic benefit, national security and something that cannot be simplified down to a monetary amount: the satisfaction of our own curiosity.

Benefits of space exploration aren't just about walking on the moon anymore. Research to put astronauts into space has resulted in great advancements in technology and medicine, and has resulted in the creation of jobs and economic benefits.

Beyond that, Hall insists, is the more romantic reason to continue space exploration: Space is inspiring.

"Finding out about the origin of our planet Earth and the rest of the solar system is something that that we have a deep need to know about," she said.

Hall insists that space research benefits the planet as well. Seeing Earth from space created a concept of Planet Earth. NASA has more money in its budget to be used towards Earth sciences than should go towards planetary sciences, and it has resulted in significant breakthroughs, including information on the melting ice caps, climate change and ocean surface temperatures.

The good news, when it comes to space versus the ocean, is that it doesn't have to be one or the other. Both Bunje and Hall are working on million-dollar contests to increase research in space and in the ocean. Additionally, billions of dollars in government funding go toward research projects every year, in the hopes that some of these innovations can become a reality.

Which side are you on? You can continue the conversation online by using the hashtags #teamocean and #teamspace on Twitter and Facebook, or leave us a comment in the section below.

About Social Good Summit

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Ocean vs. Space: Which Is the True Final Frontier?

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Space may be called "the final frontier," but anyone who has seen a picture of a goblin shark or a vampire squid will agree that the ocean can be downright alien. Both realms are ripe for exploration, offer extensive potential benefits and come at a hefty price.

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For some, the irony is almost too much to bear. While Congress is eager to fund a $2 billion expedition to search for oceans beneath Europa, some 95% of Earth's oceans are unexplored. Given the role of oceans in regulating climate, and their untapped potential for food and health, is it time to rethink our priorities?

This debate has been going on for half a century. Even John Steinbeck wrote an impassioned plea in 1966 to create a NASA for the oceans:

While the lifeless rubbled surface of the inconstant moon becomes increasingly littered with the burnt-out bones of vehicles, the bathyscaphe has visited the deep and unknown places of the earth only a few times. There is never much argument about appropriations for space shots, but a recent request for money to explore, map, and evaluate the hidden places of our mother earth brought howls of protest from Congressional leaders and the inevitable question-is it really necessary?

We must explore our world and then we must farm it and harvest its plant life.....And we must mine the minerals, refine the chemicals to our use. Surely the rewards are beyond anything we can now conceive, and will be increasingly needed in an over-populated and depleting world.

There is something for everyone in the sea-incredible beauty for the artist, the excitement and danger of exploration for the brave and restless, an open door for the ingenuity and inventiveness of the clever, a new world for the bored, food for the hungry, and incalculable material wealth for the acquisitive-and all of these in addition to the pure clean wonder of increasing knowledge.

Steinbeck's arguments are still heard among oceanographers and self-described "ocean nerds" today. "As a scientist, I want to explore the great wonders our ocean has to offer," Conservation International's Greg Stone. "As a conservationist, I need to explore the vital human-ocean connection: how the ocean can provide for people and how our impacts affect the health of our oceans."

Likewise, Michael Conathan at the Center for American Progress :

In a time of shrinking budgets and increased scrutiny on the return for our investments, we should be taking a long, hard look at how we are prioritizing our exploration dollars. If the goal of government spending is to spur growth in the private sector, entrepreneurs are far more likely to find inspiration down in the depths of the ocean than up in the heavens. The ocean already provides us with about half the oxygen we breathe, our single largest source of protein, a wealth of mineral resources....

But even in a time of shrinking budgets, the priorities remain unchanged: NASA's exploration budget dominates the ocean exploration budget of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) by roughly 150-to-1.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

We are awed by the beauty and diversity of marine life, including exotic creatures that look more alien than anything we've seen in science fiction. We recognize the impact that environmental degradation of the oceans has on tourism and fishing industries. We express outrage over whale hunting. And with every passing week, we hear more dire news about the ocean's longterm health: massive "dead zones," accumulating plastic debris, the growing threats to coral reefs.

So, why does ocean exploration hold less appeal than the exploration of space?Conathan argues that part of this incongruity comes from :

No matter where we live, we can go outside on a clear night, look up into the sky, and wonder about what's out there. We're presented with a spectacular vista of stars, planets, meteorites, and even the occasional comet or aurora. We have all been wishing on stars since we were children. Only the lucky few can gaze out at the ocean from their doorstep, and even those who do cannot see all that lies beneath the waves.

And those exotic, deep-sea creatures? They often don't survive the trip to the surface. Decompression is usually fatal. Our ability to understand these animals remains limited, and we remain disconnected from deep ocean life.

And then, there's the harsh reality by Ryan Carlyle, a subsea hydraulics engineer - ocean exploration can be excruciatingly boring:

The vast majority of the seafloor once you get >50 miles offshore is barren, featureless mud. On face, this is pretty similar to the empty expanses of outer space, but in space you can see all the way through the nothing, letting you identify targets for probes or telescopes. The goals of space exploration are visible from the Earth, so we can dream and imagine reaching into the heavens. But in the deep oceans, visibility is less than 100 feet and travel speed is measured in single-digit knots....Sure, there are beautiful and interesting features like geothermal vents and coral reefs. But throughout most of the ocean these are few and far between.

We stare up at the stars and dream of reaching them, but few people look off the side of a boat and wish they could go down there.

Or, put another way, here is a typical view from an undersea probe:

And, here's a view from a rover on Mars:

Let's face it. When we see images from other planets, even the most mundane terrain captivates us, because we getting close-up glimpses of worlds where humanity has yet to visit. What's always been true about exploration remains true today: Nothing intrigues us like the blank spots on a map.

The Case Against Space

One of the most ardent proponents of shifting our exploration priorities is Amitai Etzioni, the director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University. In his 1964 book The Moondoggle, he said there was less to be gained in deep space than in near space - the sphere in which communication, navigations, weather, and reconnaissance satellites orbit - and argued for more investment in studying our own planet instead of the Moon.

Fifty years later, his views haven't changed; if anything he feels vindicated. In the most recent issue of the journal, Issues In Science and Technology, he updates his 1964 argument, saying that we need to choose the "fruitful frontier" over the "final frontier."

The entire article is worth reading in full, but here are some highlights of his case for bringing our exploration budget down to Earth:
Climate

NASA does make helpful contributions to climate science by way of its monitoring programs.... However, there seem to be no viable solutions to climate change that involve space.

By contrast, it is already clear that the oceans offer a plethora of viable solutions to the Earth's most pressing troubles. For example, scientists have already demonstrated that the oceans serve as a "carbon sink." The oceans have absorbed almost one-third of anthropogenic CO2 emitted since the advent of the industrial revolution and have the potential to continue absorbing a large share of the CO2 released into the atmosphere. Researchers are exploring a variety of chemical, biological, and physical geoengineering projects to increase the ocean's capacity to absorb carbon. Additional federal funds should be allotted to determine the feasibility and safety of these projects and then to develop and implement any that are found acceptable.

Food

Although aquaculture is rapidly expanding-more than 60% from 2000 to 2008-and represented more than 40% of global fisheries production in 2006, a number of challenges require attention if aquaculture is to significantly improve worldwide supplies of food. First, scientists have yet to understand the impact of climate change on aquaculture and fishing. Ocean acidification is likely to damage entire ecosystems, and rising temperatures cause marine organisms to migrate away from their original territory or die off entirely. It is important to study the ways that these processes will likely play out and how their effects might be mitigated.

On the issue of food, NASA is atypically mum. It does not claim it will feed the world with whatever it finds or plans to grow on Mars, Jupiter, or any other place light years away. The oceans are likely to be of great help.

Health

While NASA has claimed that its space exploration "benefit[ted] pharmaceutical drug development"....Ocean research, as modest as it is, has already yielded several medical "spinoffs." The discovery of one species of Japanese black sponge, which produces a substance that successfully blocks division of tumorous cells, led researchers to develop a late-stage breast cancer drug. An expedition near the Bahamas led to the discovery of a bacterium that produces substances that are in the process of being synthesized as antibiotics and anticancer compounds. In addition to the aforementioned cancer fighting compounds, chemicals that combat neuropathic pain, treat asthma and inflammation, and reduce skin irritation have been isolated from marine organisms....[Yet] up to two-thirds of all marine life remains unidentified.

To Boldly Go

Furthermore, for years scientists have been fascinated by noises originating at the bottom of the ocean, known creatively as "the Bloop" and "Julia," among others. And the world's largest known "waterfall" can be found entirely underwater between Greenland and Iceland, where cold, dense Arctic water from the Greenland Sea drops more than 11,500 feet before reaching the seafloor of the Denmark Strait. Much remains poorly understood about these phenomena, their relevance to the surrounding ecosystem, and the ways in which climate change will affect their continued existence.

In short, there is much that humans have yet to understand about the depths of the oceans, further research into which could yield important insights about Earth's geological history and the evolution of humans and society. Addressing these questions surpasses the importance of another Mars rover or a space observatory designed to answer highly specific questions of importance mainly to a few dedicated astrophysicists, planetary scientists, and select colleagues.

Etzioni argues that NASA's projects, especially those dedicated to exploring deep space and to manned missions, can readily be cut, with billions moved from distant planets to nearby oceans. Echoing that letter written by John Steinbeck nearly 50 years ago, Etzioni concludes, "The United States needs an agency that can spearhead a major drive to explore the oceans-an agency that has yet to be envisioned and created."

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Should We Be Exploring The Oceans Instead Of Space?

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For some, the irony is almost too much to bear. While Congress is eager to fund a $2 billion expedition to search for oceans beneath Europa, some 95% of Earth's oceans are unexplored. Given the role of oceans in regulating climate, and their untapped potential for food and health, is it time to rethink our priorities?

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This piece is a response to "The Modern Zoo" from the May 2008 issue of Teen Ink. I volunteer at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and have gotten to know its keepers, veterinary staff, and other workers. According to the writer of "The Modern Zoo," staff torture animals, do not provide adequate living space, and keep the animals merely to entertain. In my three years of volunteering, I have never seen, nor had any reason to suspect, any foul play at my zoo. The allegations in "The Modern Zoo" that all zoos are inhumane and cruel is false, I believe.

According to the article in Teen Ink, "Zoos claim to educate visitors. Yet we've all seen the one-sentence signs that describe monkeys. What can be learned from this? Certainly not enough to justify inhumane captivity." One-sentence signs are not the end of zoos' efforts to educate. At my zoo an entire department is devoted to educating the public about conservation of animals and our planet. If zoos didn't care about education, why would they have this? While exhibits may display signs with brief information, staff work daily at the zoo to educate visitors about conservation and other critical topics.

Some zoo employees visit schools and businesses to educate the public about how to be more responsible with our environment. This department even organizes conservation projects around Ohio, such as the community effort to remove waste from Big Creek. Volunteers spent a day restoring the creek to a more healthy ecosystem. The zoo is also part of a national conservation campaign called Year of the Frog, dedicated to saving amphibian species from extinction. Zoos put forth tremendous effort to educate people, and to say that they do not is just not true in my experience.

"Zoo animals endure inadequate living conditions with no space," claims the article. It's not fair to make this generalization. My own zoo, for example, is planning a one-of-a-kind, spacious exhibit for its elephants. The exhibit encompasses many acres, and will be large enough to support a breeding population. If zoos didn't care about adequate space for their animals, why would they waste time raising millions of dollars to build this type of exhibit? Also, my zoo cares a lot for its animals; it houses the second oldest hippo in North America and its polar bears are twice the age of those in the wild.

I witnessed a life-saving surgery on a 13-year-old wolf. Veterinarians worked for two hours to save his life. Thirteen is very old for a wolf. Zoos do care for their animals, and do what they can to keep them strong and healthy.

"These animals are simply meant to entertain," claims "The Modern Zoo." That too is false. At the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, animals are never forced to do anything for the sake of visitors' entertainment. We believe in positive animal/ human interaction. Zoo staff never force or coerce an animal due to this policy.

The author of "The Modern Zoo" is obviously very passionate in his opinion about zoos. I am also very passionate. I have not written this to personally attack him. Rather, I am simply stating facts. "The Modern Zoo" paints zoos as cruel, inhumane facilities, but it is both unfair and untrue to claim this about all of them. Many have state-of-the-art veterinary facilities and work hard to save endangered species.

I hope that readers will see that zoos seek to protect and save endangered species, as well as educate and encourage the public to do the same.

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This piece is a response to "The Modern Zoo" from the May 2008 issue of Teen Ink. I volunteer at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo and have gotten to know its keepers, veterinary staff, and other workers. According to the writer of "The Modern Zoo," staff torture animals, do not provide adequate living space, and keep the animals merely to entertain.

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/ CBS News

WASHINGTON - The National Zoo has a reputation as a leader in animal care, science and cute photo opportunities such as the naming of Bao Bao the baby panda earlier this month.

But a CBS News investigation has learned that behind the scenes, there are insider allegations of mismanagement involving animal care. Five sources with more than 35 years' combined experience at the National Zoo have raised concerns to CBS News about recent animal injuries, deaths and escapes.

The sources don't want to be identified for fear of retaliation. They say problems began last year when the zoo decided to double the population of the Cheetah Conservation Station, adding a half dozen new species but no extra space. Besides cheetahs, the CCS also houses zebras, gazelles and other species.

CBS News asked animal biologist and ethicist Marc Bekoff to look at the complaints. He was an independent reviewer of a 2005 National Academy of Sciences investigation of the zoo that found "systemic problems at the highest levels."

Of the newly raised issues, Bekoff said: "I call it 'fetch and pray.' You get the animals and then you pray that the project will work out."

The CCS' new animal mix didn't always work out. Issues identified by the zoo sources include two newly acquired hornbill birds that were kept in an indoor shack for seven months because their exhibit yard wasn't ready. Only after a volunteer complained were the birds allowed in an outdoor space. But the wallaby that had to share its yard with these new arrivals became frightened, according to sources, bloodied its nose and spent much of its time frightened and hiding.

One of two new red river hogs quickly became malnourished and died of an infection. The other hog, along with oryxes and sitatungas (two types of antelopes), sometimes became overly aggressive when mixed together, and some were injured in vicious fights.

It's not unusual for animals to spar, but the zoo sources say management failed to predict easily foreseeable conflicts between species and genders, and had ineffective backup plans for separating and protecting the animals when the conflicts arose.

"It's no surprise to me as a field biologist that so many of them do not work out," Bekoff told CBS News. "They're just too hastily put together and they're not well thought through."

Zoo spokeswoman Pamela Baker-Masson says the National Zoo meets the highest industry standards and the animals always receive the best care.

"We take great care in introducing our animals to these various habitats and transitioning them. Ideally, these things wouldn't happen, of course," said Baker-Masson. "I think my colleagues were very well aware and they know these species and they know how to take care of these species. ... Every single animal has a very specific course of action and a plan."

Bekoff says the zoo's plans appear to have been inadequate. "They should only be able to get the animals when it can be shown that they can properly house them and care for them."

Two animals in the CCS, a Dama gazelle and a pregnant kudu (another type of antelope), died when they got spooked on separate occasions and ran into barriers in their confined spaces, breaking their necks.

The gazelle death happened last month after a zebra attacked a veteran zookeeper. The commotion apparently frightened the gazelle, which is on the endangered species list. Zoo sources say it wasn't found for hours. The pregnant kudu died last June. Zoo sources say as the animal lay suffering with a broken neck, workers were unable to quickly locate necessary veterinary records.

Baker-Masson says Dama gazelles and kudus are skittish animals by nature and were housed in adequate spaces that met the requirements of the American Zoological Association, which recently re-accredited the facility.

As for the hornbill birds that were keep indoors for eight months, Baker-Masson says the space was "more than adequate and it gave the staff a very good amount of time to prepare and work with the hornbills" but "ideally they would have [had] access to their outdoor yard space more quickly."

Bekoff calls the lengthy indoor confinement "totally unacceptable."

"There's not one single excuse that I would accept," he said. "Basically this is a form of animal abuse and animal neglect. ...They get an 'F' in this project.'

Zoo sources also expressed concern about two escapes from the CCS: a vulture whose wings were allegedly not properly clipped and a red panda who managed to climb out of its exhibit. Both animals were later recaptured and zoo officials say the failures that allowed the escapes have been fixed.

CBS News has learned that the zoo convened a task force last summer to investigate the internal complaints about animal care at the CCS. The task force made findings last August and Baker-Masson says some of its recommendations are already being implemented.

Zoo officials refused CBS News' repeated requests to release the task force report even though, under public records law, it's considered public material.

As to why the National Zoo is withholding the information, Baker-Masson provided a number of rationales. First, she said that the task force report was still only a draft, four months after it was scheduled to be completed. However, when CBS News asked for the draft, she would not provide that either.

Later, in an interview, Baker-Masson said that the task force report is finished, but that the zoo isn't ready to release it.

"We're more than happy to [release the task force report]," Baker-Masson told CBS News. "But we have to do it in a thorough and process-oriented way that makes sense."

She acknowledged that some of the concerns investigated were founded.

"Absolutely," Baker-Masson said. "Anytime a concern is raised, it's looked at very seriously and we have to examine, you know, what changes are appropriate for that particular species, what changes are appropriate for the staff, what changes are appropriate for the facility itself. So yes, absolutely, some changes have been made."

Another incident the zoo is keeping mum about is the November zebra attack on the zookeeper. Baker-Masson says that AZA standards require that there always be a barrier between a keeper and zebras, which can inflict serious bite wounds. But the zoo says three weeks after the attack, it still has not identified how the zebra got to the keeper and it would not release the incident report or other public information about it. The injured zookeeper was recently released after several weeks in the hospital.

Sharyl Attkisson

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Are there animal care problems at National Zoo?

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Behind the scenes, there are insider allegations of mismanagement involving animals at famed D.C. facility

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Real sanctuaries are safe, comfortable places for animals to live after they've been rescued from not-so-nice places like circuses or laboratories. People can sometimes visit these sanctuaries, which is an awesome way to learn about and see animals without supporting businesses that hurt them, like roadside zoos or wildlife parks. Roadside zoos and wildlife parks use animals to make money. It's confusing because they sometimes call themselves "sanctuaries" or "rescues" to bring in more customers, because they know that people don't want to visit roadside zoos, but they're being dishonest when they do that.

It's important not to get these horrible places confused with actual sanctuaries. But how can you tell the difference? It's easy! There are a few simple questions you can ask about a place to figure out whether it's helping or hurting animals the animals who live there.

You can find answers to these questions by browsing a facility's website and social media pages (your parents can help):

1. How are animals housed?

Real sanctuaries make sure that an animal's living space is as close to their natural habitat as possible. Animals should live with others of their own kind so they can have friends. It's mean to keep them all alone in small, dirty pens with concrete floors and nothing to do-and you should stay away from places like that.

2. What kinds of activities do the animals get to do?

The animals' living area should have lots of ways for them to play and enjoy themselves! For example, there should be a large structure for chimpanzees to climb on, water for bears to soak and splash in, and large fields for roaming and exploring. Animals need these things if they're going to be healthy, happy, and comfortable.

Animals should also live with others of the same species so they can communicate with each another easily and form relationships and groups. In many sanctuaries, the animals who already live there help teach the newcomers how to get back in touch with their natural instincts and enjoy life again.

3. How big is the facility?

Animals should be given enough space to explore, roam, climb, and forage. And a real sanctuary NEVER takes the animals out of the facility to show them off.

4. Are visitors allowed to touch or hold the animals?

True wild-animal sanctuaries (with big cats, bears, primates, or wolves) NEVER allow visitors to touch or hold the animals, even babies, and that includes taking photos with them. This would be scary for the animals and dangerous to the visitors, too!

5. Where did the animals come from?

The animals who live there probably came from a place where they were mistreated, so they have a sad and painful past. The staff will want to share each animal's story so that visitors can learn about the various places that hurt animals (like laboratories, circuses, and roadside zoos). Real sanctuaries provide animals with a permanent home for the rest of their life. They NEVER trade, borrow, or loan animals.

6. Does the facility breed animals?

Sanctuaries NEVER breed animals, meaning that they don't make any of the animals have babies. Places that do breed animals are using them to make money-that's not right, and that's not a sanctuary.

7. What is it like to visit a sanctuary?

Most sanctuaries only allow very limited visits. Usually a guide takes people on a small tour of the place and doesn't let them walk around by themselves.

8. Is it accredited?

True sanctuaries are accredited by the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries (GFAS), a group that makes sure sanctuaries follow strict rules to protect the animals who live there, like the ones listed above.
*****
All living, feeling beings deserve a comfortable place to live where people aren't always staring at them. A true sanctuary puts the needs and wants of the animals first. So if you care about animals, NEVER visit a roadside zoo or a wildlife park, and explain to your friends and family why places like that are bad for animals!

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8 Ways to Tell a REAL Sanctuary From a Roadside Zoo | PETA Kids

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Roadside zoo or animal sanctuary? This list will explain the difference-so you can figure out if a place is hurting or helping animals.

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Scholastic Classroom & News Magazines | Subscribe Now!

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Scholastic Magazines+ cover the latest topics to enhance instruction in math, science, reading, social studies, and more! Subscribe Today!

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Easy to Use. Hard to Put Down.
With Magazines+, you get fresh, high-interest content delivered all year long-in print, online or both. Every single story, video and activity is designed to hook your students and keep them engaged. And because Magazines+ complements your curriculum, it's easy to implement during any part of the school day!

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Scholastic Classroom & News Magazines | Subscribe Now!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Easy to Use. Hard to Put Down. With Magazines+, you get fresh, high-interest content delivered all year long-in print, online or both. Every single story, video and activity is designed to hook your students and keep them engaged. And because Magazines+ complements your curriculum, it's easy to implement during any part of the school day!

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How do you feel about keeping animals in zoos? Read both sides of the argument to help you decide.

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Smart, Social and Erratic in Captivity (Published 2013)

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A film, a book and a trainer’s death have renewed debate among scientists and animal advocates on the wisdom and morality of keeping killer whales in marine parks.

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It was disheartening when I read the stats: 7.5 million Facebook users in the U.S. are under 13! I may have even shed tears when I discovered that 5 million of those kids are under the age of 10!

Parents, it's time we talked about why social media is not smart for middle school kids (and younger).

Learning the hard way that kids are not mini adults

Before we do, I have my own parenting blunder to confess. When my oldest son received his Learner's Permit, I was so excited for him to drive! As he came out of the written test smiling, I tossed him the key and said, "Take me home, James!"

It took less than a minute for me to realize I had completely underestimated his abilities. He didn't have a clue how much gas to apply, when to brake, or even how to stay on the road. It's a wonder we made it home that day alive!

The fault was clearly mine. It sounds crazy when I say it now, but in the moment I never once considered how dangerous his lack of experience would be in this real life situation. (You know, the kind where cars are coming at you from both directions!). In hindsight, an empty parking lot would have been a better place to start.

Give your middle school kids enough time to grow up

If you think about it, it's really the same with social media. We wouldn't give an 11-year-old the keys to the car and say take a spin, but unfortunately many parents are allowing kids to navigate the internet before they are mature enough to do so safely.

Besides puberty, there are a lot of other changes middle school kids have to deal with: a new school, friends, cliques, crushes and more. It can feel awkward and uncomfortable getting used to their maturing bodies and growing sense independence.

Middle school life can take an emotional toll on both parent and child. So, before you toss your kids the keys to Facebook, Instagram or Snapchat, please press pause and think about these 5 considerations.

5 reasons why social media is not smart for middle school kids

1. Should kids start their social media experience lying about their age?

The minimum age to open an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Kik, and Snapchat is 13. Parents may think it's no big deal to bend the rules and have their kids sign in with a fake birthday -but big data makes it a big deal!

In 2000, The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) was launched. This Federal law protects children under the age of 13 from having personal information gathered about them online. However, if an 11-year-old registers with a false birth date there's nothing to prevent their personal information from being shared with third party advertisers.

This is more than giving out a name and address. It's allowing marketers (people you've never met) to spend hours a week secretly observing your child. They'll record how they play, what they say, where they go and who they hang out with. Sounds kinda creepy, doesn't it?

Ultimately, allowing kids access to social media sites is also a parenting issue. Decide now if you're comfortable with them lying to Facebook, as it may influence how comfortable they are lying to you down the road.

2. Kids' brains are highly vulnerable to apps designed to be addictive

From a neurological perspective, the middle school years are incredible. The brain is going through an intense process of pruning, myelination and remodeling. That means that an adolescent brain is deciding now what it wants to specialize in for years to come.

This is precisely why Sean Parker, ex-Facebook president, is sounding the alarm. He's publicly stated that one of the main objectives for creating Facebook was this: "How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?"

All successful social media apps work on the principle of giving users a hit of dopamine in exchange for new and fresh content. How these hits might affect brain specialization hasn't yet been documented.

What we do know is that social media is an entertainment platform. In other words, using it early won't make kids smarter or more creative. A better use of their discretionary time would be to explore a favorite subject, hobby or sport.

3. On social media kids see a distorted view of reality

As kids enter middle school they start to ask new questions. One of the big ones is, "Who am I?" For guys, hair gel and new deodorant scents suddenly become significant. Whereas girls tend to gravitate towards make-up and fashion trends. It's about forming identity.

Ironically, it's as important to fit in, as it is to stand out! (Think about that group of middle school kids you spotted at the mall sporting the exact same jacket, the exact same shoes, and the exact same backpack, at the exact same time.)

On social media, kids are not only influenced by the peers in their circle of friends; there is pressure to keep up with trendsetters from all over the globe. For an impressionable mind and a developing self-esteem, it can feel like they will never match up.

And it's not just looks that matter to kids. Showing off outrageous behavioral trends gets serious clicks too. Every week a new challenge is issued on one platform or another. Some challenges are annoying; others like the Tide Pod Challenge, highlighted in this CBS news report are downright dangerous.

4. Social media exaggerates a child's tendency to focus solely on themselves

Middle school is a time when kids feel as if the whole world is looking at them (and judging them). Social media can exaggerate the worst of it. That can lead to depression, severe bullying, and to the worst case scenario-suicide.

Jean M. Twenge has been researching the behavioral patterns of young people for over 25 years. Her recent conclusions about the impact of social media on middle school kids are sobering:

Eighth graders who spend 10 or more hours a week on social media are 56 percent more likely to say they are unhappy than those who spend less time.

Eighth graders who are heavy users of social media increase their risk of depression by 27 percent.

Teens who spend three or more hours a day on electronic devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, like making a plan for how to do it.

especially hard hit, have experienced a 50 percent rise in depressive symptoms.

We've all heard stories of online bullying. I questioned a high school sophomore this week about her early social media experience. She explained that bullying related to social media use doesn't always happen online:
"It's the whispers behind people's backs, 'can you believe so and so's post', where the most damage occurs. Even if you're not involved, it's really hard not to get caught up in the drama."
5. Social media pushes kids into risky behavior to seek affirmation

Victoria L. Dunckley, M.D. is adamant the maturity required to use social media appropriately cannot be taught to middle school kids. It's like trying to dress them in clothes that are too big. You just have to wait and let them grow up.

One of our readers says she is overwhelmed by social media culture influencing young kids:
"My daughter is 13 and has friends that are sexting and sending nudes to strangers on Snapchat. I'm so glad she comes to me with her questions. I've been very proactive about addressing these issues from an early age. Still, she feels alone because a lot of her friends are so clueless about these
This mom is absolutely right to be alarmed. Social media is a predator's playground.

Predators are expert at giving kids the attention they are looking for -You're so beautiful, you're so funny, you're so adventurous. When kids find someone who agrees with everything they say, it can be intoxicating. Police will tell you how easy it is to gain the trust of a middle school kid. Even more shocking is how quickly they can be persuaded to participate in risky behavior.

[[CTA]]

Prepare middle school kids now to get the best out social media

I will tell you one more secret about myself as a parent -I make lots of mistakes. We all do. It's part of the job description. Plus now we have the impossible task of keeping ahead of the latest tech trends. Just like our middle school kids, we're bound to have some growing pains.

What to do if your kids are on social media now?

If your middle school kid is already on social media stay calm. In fact, it may cause more harm to cut them off completely at this point. Instead, make sure the ground rules for use are explicit. We recommend you go so far as to write up a contract. For ideas, check out this list at Scary Mommy.

Better than tossing them the keys

Reflecting on the experience with my novice driver, it's important to help kids get used to social media in a controlled environment for the first little while. Here are some tips:

Start with a family account

Begin using social media on large devices (not phones)

Set time limits and stick to them

Follow your kids' accounts

Plan face-to-face time with friends

Eventually the day will come when it's time for them drive on their own. When that happens, you can still have them update you about their online interactions. Kids will thrive when they know their parents always have their back.

Is My Child Ready for a Smartphone?

Smartphones and social media tend to go hand in hand these days. Although we recommend kids begin their social media experience on tablet or computer, knowing when to allow your child full-time internet access is important!

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5 Reasons Why Social Media is Not Smart for Middle School Kids | Defend Young Minds™️

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Is you middle school kid begging to have their own social media account? There's a lot of pressure for kids and parents to sign on early. Before you do, make sure you know all the facts. We've got 5 compelling reasons why you will want to hold off a little longer...

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These sets can be given to research clubs during Session 2 of the unit. They can also be reread by clubs during Bend II, along with the additional Bend II texts. During Bend III, these sets can be given out to clubs who have not yet studied the issue. You can also note a few texts marked which you might find particularly helpful to steer students to read/ reread during Session 12 "Who Said What? Studying Perspective."
Are extreme sports worth the risk?
Text Set Articles:

​* "Famous snowboarder pulls out of slopestyle at Sochi Olympics" (By Los Angeles Times, adapted by Newsela staff, Feb. 10, 2014
* *Safer Slopes (from Super Science Magazine, Nov/Dec. 2013) NEED LIBRARY CARD
* "Best of the X Games"
* "Skate Safety: A Crash Course" By Sky Siljeg
* "X Games Too Extreme? New Questions After Snowmobile Accident" (By Brian Tood and Dugald McConnell, January 31, 2013)
* "Extreme Sports Growing In Popularity" (By Lola Jones, May 20, 2008)
* "Kids and Extreme Sports" (By: Kyanna Sutton, Family Education)
* "Why Do People Enjoy Extreme Sports?"
* "The World's First Wingsuit Champion is Crowned"
* "Wingsuit Daredevil Jeb Corliss Completes Another Heart-Stopping 'Flight'" http://www.dogonews.com/2013/9/30/wingsuit-daredevil-jeb-corliss-completes-another-heartstopping-flight NOT AVAILABLE
* The Toughest Sport Infographic:
* "Given the risks involved, where's the appeal in extreme sports?" (By Allan Maki and Paul Waldie, The Globe and Mail, January 20, 2012)
* "With the thrills come extreme risks"
* "Are Extreme Sports Worth the Risk?" (Storyworks Magazine November/December 2014). NEED SIGN IN
Multimedia:
* "Extreme Sports" (0-2:24)
* "Base Jumper On Extreme Sports Risks and Rewards" (Video clip from CBS This Morning) Base jumper and extreme skier, JT Holmes, discusses the risks and benefits of his career.
​* "Sarah Burke's Death: Extreme Sports Dangers" (January 1, 2012)

Books:

* Extreme Sports by Bobbie Kalman
* any of the other extreme sports books by Bobbie Kalman such as Extreme Skydiving
* Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills (And What the Neighbors Thought) by Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt
* Skateboarding by Clive Gifford
* Defying Gravity! Rock Climbing by Christine Dugan
* Extraordinary Women Athletes by Judy L. Hasday
* Tony Hawk: Professional Skateboarder by Tony Hawk
* To the Extreme by DK Readers

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These sets can be given to research clubs during Session 2 of the unit. They can also be reread by clubs during Bend II, along with the additional Bend II texts. During Bend III, these sets can be given out to clubs who have not yet studied the issue.

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Remember when we all got Facebook back in the day, and the most provocative posts were photos or descriptions of your lunch? There was no news in the newsfeed, no ads trying to sell you anything, and probably the most essential aspect of early social media: there was little FOMO. Once users started adding filters to photos and creating unrealistic versions of a person's experience that encouraged likes, shares, and comments from anyone, FOMO rose sharply, and with it, anxiety and depression across the age spectrum rose too.

We've seen a parade of experts on news shows saying that social media is driving a mental health crisis in the U.S. and for many parents, we can see how kids comparing themselves to friends-and total strangers -online can negatively impact their mental and emotional health. In one study published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, researchers followed 143 college students and limited their social media to less than 30 minutes a day. Astonishingly, researchers noted that when users decreased their time on social media apps, their loneliness and depression also decreased.

But in a world where sometimes social media can feel like the only way to connect with others, how do we balance being able to keep our apps without harming mental and emotional health? That seems to be the question that a new app called BeReal is asking.

The BeReal app is a new social media app that tries to create a set of boundaries that force users to be as authentic as possible. The app launched in 2019, but in 2022 the BeReal app has seen a 315 percent growth uptick thanks to a clever marketing tactic whereby the BeReal creators formed a college ambassador program to get other young folks signed up-and it's working. But what exactly does BeReal do, and is the BeReal app safe for kids?

Here is everything parents need to know.

The BeReal app is a photo-sharing app that aims to be the polar opposite of an influencer-type social media lifestyle. It was created in 2019 and founded in 2020 by a French app designer, Alexis Barreyat. And while the app does not appear to use new, flashy technology, it does do something refreshing: it takes away a ton of the features we've come to expect from social media photo-sharing apps like filters and editing. Where Instagram and Facebook are built on the idea of branding an individual to help build a massive following, BeReal does the exact opposite; it keeps social media as authentic as possible by preventing branding and audience building.

How Does the BeReal App Work?

The app has some genius rules that may help create a new social media experience whereby curated hyper-edited realities are a thing of the past. Here are the BeReal app boundaries that every user must operate within:

There are no filters.

Users get a two-minute window to snap on photo.

The two-minute window is constantly changing times, creating a sense of spontaneity and preventing users from being able to stage photos.

All users from the same geographical region get the same two-minute window.

The app uses the phone camera to take a photo that is both forward and selfie facing so that other users can see a real-time authentic view of what the creator is experiencing.

If a user doesn't like their photo, they can retake it one time and post it up to two hours later. However, the BeReal app will label that photo as delayed so that other users will know that it was a do-over. And to prevent lurking, the only people who can view uploaded photos are people in a user's friend list who also posted a photo.

Is BeReal Safe?

As a parent of a tween who is dying to have his own social media, I love the concept behind the BeReal app. Authenticity is something that has become precious and rare online these days, and an opportunity to contrast the depressing worldview that offered by other apps like Instagram and Facebook make BeReal feel like a safer option. But is it?

From a mental health perspective, the BeReal app may be a healthier choice as it does not allow users to incentivize popularity through likes, shares, and comments. There are no number counts or ways to objectively compare one account to another.

In a statement to CNN, BeReal said that they were aiming to create "an alternative to addictive social networks" by giving users the chance to show friends who they really are in an authentic way. "BeReal won't make you famous; if you want to become an influencer, you can stay on TikTok and Instagram."

How Old Should Kids Be To Use the BeReal App?

According to the Apple App Store, BeReal is intended for kids ages 12 and up. Meanwhile, the Google app store lists the BeReal app as T for Teen. So, what's the difference?

According to the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRT), apps get rated against several categories. They are:

E for Everyone

E10+ Everyone 10years-old and up

T for Teen or 13 years old and up

M for Mature

A for Adult

E10+ is generally considered suitable for kids ages 10 and up, and may include "cartoon, fantasy or mild violence, mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes," according to ESRT.

T for Teen, on the other hand, is a little more grown-up and may contain "violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling and/or infrequent use of strong language," according to ESRT.

What Should Parents Know About the Bereal Privacy Settings?

The BeReal app privacy setting state that they processing personal data in accordance with French law because the app was designed in France. Since France is part of the EU, citizens who use EU-based technology enjoy the world's strictest personal data rules. In short, BeReal must be transparent about what information it collects, how that information is used, and how long the app retains that information, all of which can easily be found on a simple chart in their privacy policy.

Parents can rest easy that the BeReal app is not another social media platform that will cater to fantasies of popularity in the manner that Instagram and Facebook do. There does not appear to be a built-in drive to encourage users to stay on the app for extended periods of time or compete for likes and shares. Authenticity is the game and connecting with real-life friends in the goal.

That said, as safe as the BeReal app appears to be, it is always a wise idea for parents to download and tinker with any new app to be sure they see and understand what their kids see and understand. And, of course, it is strongly recommended that parents continuously talk about online safety and goals with social media. Because as much as we love the idea BeReal wants users to enjoy an authentic experience that won't lead to FOMO, the real way we can keep kids mentally and emotionally healthy with regard to social media is by making sure it is a good fit and limiting its influence over our lives.

We reached out to BeReal for comment on this story, but have not heard back at the time of publication. BeReal has not yet been reviewed by Common Sense Media, a trusted go-to site many parents use to best determine appropriateness for all forms of media for their kids.

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BeReal Is a New 'Unfiltered' Social App-Is It Safe for Kids?

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BeReal is a new social media app that offers users a chance to escape the over-curated world of influencer lifestyles we associate with Instagram and Facebook.

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In order for us to understand why people enjoy extreme sports, it is vital for you to understand what extreme sports are; the background, why they are called extreme and why they are categorize on the basis of enjoyment styles.

In recent years, the term extreme sports has evolved on grand scale. It can be categorized into three main types: Air, Land and Water. Now you'll start unleashing, how they work and why do people enjoy them.
These extreme sports are often subject of debates based of the fact that how a sport is called extreme. Often popular in younger-than-average crowd (though not mandatory), these sports are not inducted or sanctioned by schools. These sports are practiced mostly on individual level, while in many cases professional coaching can also be acquired.

Now we tell you the secret recipe of their buzz:

Control and physics: The reason why people enjoy these sports are that they are normally played, exercised or practiced in free or uncontrolled environment like base jumping and sky diving. It means while traditional athletes play in controlled environment like fields and gyms. Extreme athletes have to operate and display their skills in free-flowing natural environment. For this reason the aspects and understanding of laws of physics and how to apply and use them are really crucial for success.

Thrill: This is the single most attractive factor in people's interest for extreme sports. The adrenaline rush is what differentiates it from any other type of sports. The thrill that is derived in extreme sports is highest. The athletes are fully exposed and at the mercy of direct danger. The catch is how to maintain composure and apply skills when it is in extreme scenario. Extreme sports are also widely condemned for the same reason. As many don't think it is a game to put one's self in harm's way with full throttle, without understanding the intensity of consequences.

Pushing The Limits: Extreme sports as the name goes is about pushing the limits. The balance and control of regular instincts application is tried in the highest pressure scenario. The response, nerves and the grip over the un-controllable is the main zeal why people who play or watch, enjoy it.

Man against Nature: As we mentioned earlier that they are about natural elements- Air, Water and Land. These games are loved because the natural elements react to human extreme or instincts. The passion of man to overcome the natural barriers is an addiction for these athletes and spectators. Many a time these overtures have dire impacts, but the fear of danger is the prime motivator to excel in its skill.

Some of the mainstream extreme sports are base jumping, bungy jumping, sky diving, gliding, extreme skiing, mountain biking, cliff-diving, scuba diving, wind surfing. No matter what extreme sport you may enjoy know your limits, or you'll be pushed.

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In order for us to understand why people enjoy extreme sports, it is vital for you to understand what extreme sports are; the background, why they are called extreme ...

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Choose Your AdventureWelcome to the Outdoors section of Exploration Junkie! Exploration often implies various outdoor activities and sports - on land, in the water, or in the air. And of course, it's also a lot of fun. Develop your outdoor skills now and take your outside experiences to a whole new level!

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