Black and White African Rhinos in Coronavirus Crisis
By Sofia Mancini, age 8 Did you know that in 1995 there were 500,000 black rhinos, but now they are critically endangered, with only 5,500 of them left? There are only about 23,500 black and white rhinos in total left. With a global pandemic crushing the tourism...
Who am I?
By Nicolle Berroa, age 13 “[He] was the most important bridge between the wonderful legacy of the civil rights movement and the message of hope and change,” said Charles J. Ogletree Jr., a Harvard Law School professor and civil rights lawyer. I was born in...
Meet IndyKid Reporter… Dayanara Hernandez
By Giavana Maldonado, age 13 Meet Dayanara Hernandez, a 15-year-old high school freshman. In 2019, she became an IndyKids reporter and wrote her first cover story in early 2020. Dayanara was introduced to IndyKids by her elementary media teacher. Her passion has...
Socially Distant Social Movements
By Charles DeLange, age 12 Activists have found new ways, or gone back to older ways, to fight for their causes during the coronavirus pandemic. Many protesters and people want to keep their communities interactive, even if people are spaced at least six feet apart....
Supreme Court Ruling Makes Discrimination Within Contracts Easier
By Amzad Ali, age 16 and IndyKids Staff In March, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of cable giant Comcast in Comcast v. National Association of African American-Owned Media (NAAAOM), weakening a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibiting racial...
Immigrants in the U.S. Demand Release and More Protection During Coronavirus Outbreak
By Jesus Hernandez, age 11 President Donald Trump has scaled up his anti-immigration campaign by overseeing changes in immigration policy that first went into effect on March 18 citing the coronavirus pandemic. The new policies restrict undocumented immigrants,...
How Do You Stay Home Without a House
By Raya ElHajjar, age 12 COVID-19 has been ravaging New York City since March 2020. Although the streets are largely empty, if you look closer, you might see a person huddling in a corner, holding up a cardboard sign that reads “Anything Helps.” More than 70,000...
Coronavirus Explained
By Giavana Maldonado, age 13 COVID-19 is a virus caused by the novel coronavirus which causes respiratory illness in its hosts. There are many types of coronavirus, some of which cause diseases in humans. The first reported case of this coronavirus was in Wuhan,...
News Brief: Earth Day Goes Digital
By Nicolle Berroa, age 13 April 22 marked the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers had to get creative with their activism. A 72-hour online live stream was co-hosted by actor Ed Begley Jr. and his daughter, Hayden Carson Begley,...
News Brief: DACA Status Update (May 2020)
By Nicolle Berroa, age 13 DACA recipients across the United States are anxiously awaiting a decision by the Supreme Court that will ultimately decide their futures. The close to 70,000 recipients for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), may lose the legal...
Science Brief: Endangered Sea Turtles Enjoy Quarantine
By Gibran Williams , age 8 On March 22, 97 vulnerable hawksbill turtles felt the benefit of human social distancing and ended up in the ocean instead of dying. The turtles hatched on a beach in Paulista, a town in the northeastern state of Pernambuco, Brazil. Paulo...
Science Brief: Antarctica’s Hottest day on Record
By Anneliese Smudde, age 10 On February 9, Antarctica saw its highest temperature on record at just over 69 degrees Fahrenheit, according to researchers at Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station. This temperature broke a record heat of 63.5 degrees recorded just three...
Supreme Court Ruling Makes Discrimination within Contracts Easier
By Amzad Ali, age 16 and IndyKids Staff In March, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of cable giant Comcast in Comcast v. National Association of African American-Owned Media (NAAAOM), weakening a key provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibiting racial...
Dakota Access Pipeline Given a Glimmer of Hope
By August Kaiser, age 10 and IndyKids Staff The Dakota Access Pipeline has been operational since May 2017, but now a federal court has ordered the U.S Army Corps of Engineers to do a full environmental review. In response to a petition to nullify federal permits,...
What Is Medicare for All?
By Dayanara Hernandez, age 15 and IndyKids staff Medicare for All is commonly thought of as being just one proposal, when in fact there are several proposals. Medicare for All is a way for all people to have the same benefits, regardless of their income or private...
School’s Out: How Coronavirus is Changing Education
By Orik Ehren, age 13 All over the world the schools of hundreds of millions of students are closed due to the coronavirus. Their educations have been moved online or, in many cases, suspended entirely. Keeping students away from school does positively...
Someday You Could Be… Sean Petty, Pediatric Emergency Room Nurse and Social Justice Warrior
By Dayanara Hernandez, age 15 Sean Petty has been a nurse for 13 years and is currently a pediatric emergency room nurse at a public hospital in the Bronx. This interview took place via email in April 2020 during the height of the coronavirus outbreak in New York...
Op-Ed: Why We Rise
by Adedayo Perkovich age 16 “It comes as a great shock to discover that the country, which is your birth place, and to which you owe your life and your identity has not in its whole system of reality involved any place for you.” — James Baldwin This year, my...
The Evolution of LGBTQ+ Rights
By Rida Ali, age 16 “Would I truly go to heaven, despite being gay?” was a question that James Guay asked himself as a young child. Guay, in an interview with Time, described how he was a victim of conversion therapy, a practice that attempts to change one’s sexuality...
Coronavirus and Xenophobia: Hate Spreads Like a Virus
By Rosell Estrella, age 10 and IndyKids Staff COVID-19 was first detected in Wuhan, China, late in 2019. The subsequent worldwide spread of the novel coronavirus has with it spread xenophobia and racism toward many people of Asian descent. President Donald Trump and...
Parker Todd, aka The Sickler
By Charles Delange, age 12 Parker Todd was diagnosed with sickle cell disease (SCD), also known as sickle cell anemia, at 3 years old. At 11, he wrote The Adventures of the Sickler, a comic intended to help other young kids struggling with illness. Now 14 years old,...
Drag Queen Story Hour Strives to Teach Kids Acceptance and Diversity
by Juan Cortes, Age 10 and IndyKids Staff Some drag queens around the United States are taking to a different kind of stage: one at the front of a public library. The Drag Queen Story Hour, which started in 2015 in San Francisco, are events which see drag queens...
Mutual Aid: Community Spirit Is Contagious
By Amedeo Max Bettauer, age 10 and IndyKids staff Tod Robbins, the founder of Utah Valley Mutual Aid, received a call from a woman speaking Spanish, a language he was rusty in and hadn’t practiced since college. But he knew from her voice that she was desperate. So he...
Sewing the Seeds of Change: Two Students Use Craftivism to Slow the Spread of Coronavirus
By Larissa Spaho, age 12, Spanish correspondent Ellie Kothari and Giulia Michieli, two 11 year old sixth-graders who attend middle school in Barcelona, Spain, had an idea. After Spain called a mandatory quarantine for its citizens, students were forced to attend...
Youth Climate Change Lawsuit Thrown Out by Federal Government
Photo by Bill Oxford By Orik Ehren, age 13 Juliana v. United States, a 2015 high-profile lawsuit which saw a group of 21 young plaintiffs accuse the United States of pursuing actions that exacerbate global warming, was dismissed on January 17, 2020. The dismissal...
Trump Rolls Back Michelle Obama’s Nutrition Guidelines Act
Fatty foods back on the menu. Photo by Wikimedia Commons By Juan Cortes, age 10 On January 17, 2020, the Trump administration rolled back the standards of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act led by Michelle Obama in 2010. New standards proposed by the Agriculture...
NY State Bans Plastic Bags
Reusable bags NYC. Photo by Jon Tyson By Orik Ehren, age 13 In a landmark piece of legislation, the state of New York has banned the distribution of nonbiodegradable single-use bags by retail stores from March 1, 2020. With consumers now being encouraged to bring...
Female NASA Astronaut Makes History
Christina Koch in space, 2019. Photo by NASA/Beth Wessinger Aisha Tabala Age 11 & Indykids staff On February 6, 2020, NASA astronaut Christina Koch returned to earth having achieved the remarkable record of holding the longest single spaceflight by a woman. Koch,...
Who Am I?
Photo by Wikimedia Commons By Mikhail Razzak, age 11 I was born on June 27, 1880, in Tuscumbia, AL, and died June 1, 1968, in Easton, CT. I learned how to read and write when my teacher, Anne Sullivan, poured water with a pump on my hand and spelled the word “water”...
The Future of Australia’s Iconic Koala Is in Danger
A koala chews on eucalyptus leaves. Photo by David Clode By John Davidson, age 11 and Siena Kokolios, age 6 Koalas are marsupials that live in eucalyptus trees—known locally as gum trees—in eastern and southern Australia. Marsupials carry their babies in a pouch....
Iran Protests and the Evolving Antiwar Movement
Iran peace protests, Boston, 2020. Photo by Kai Medina By Rosell Rivas, age 10 & IndyKids staff Iran’s Major General Qassem Soleimani was assassinated on January 3, 2020, under the authorization of President Trump. In response, the New York Times reported that...
Against the Iraq War: The Largest Global Protest Ever
Protesters against the war in Iraq march towards U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C, 2007. Photo by, Ragesoss By Michael Hirschfield, age 12 and IndyKids staff On February 15, 2003, 12 to 14 million people gathered in 800 cities around the world to protest against the...
The Draft Haunted Many People, But Some More Than Others
Vigil to End Vietnam War - October 15, 1969. Photo by United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division By Charles DeLange, age 11 Military conscription, or the draft, was a way for the United States to keep a steady amount of troops in the military...
Women-Led Antiwar Movement of WWI
Jane Addams & fellow women delegates of the International Women’s Congress, 1915. Photo by Wikimedia Commons By Jessie Mai Mitnick, age 12 During World War I, young men from all over the country were drafted into the war to fight. This left many women at home,...
Antiwar Movements Throughout History: An Introduction
Eugene V. Debs, five time candidate for President, following his release from Atlanta Federal Penitentiary in 1921. Photo by Wikimedia Commons By Jessie Mai Mitnick, age 12 “... no war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.” -- Eugene V. Debs...
Why Wildfires in Australia Were So Bad This Year and What’s Being Proposed to Prevent More Devastation
By Owen Hughes, 9 years old, Australian correspondent Wildfires, or bushfires, as they are called locally, have always occurred in Australia. But in the last five months or so, Australia has experienced its worst fires yet. The fires have mainly been taking place in...
Undocumented, Uninsured and Unprotected: The Struggle to Get Healthcare in the U.S.A.
By Amedeo Max Bettauer, age 10 The American humorist Josh Billings once said, “Health is like money, we never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.” Census data from 2017 shows that for 27 million Americans and 615,000 New Yorkers, that concept is hauntingly...
Seven Accused in Murder of Environmentalist Berta Cáceres Sentenced to Prison
Original Illustration by Emogene Cataldo By Lucia Mejia, age 12 In December 2019, seven men were sentenced to jail for the murder of activist Berta Cáceres, 44. Five of the men were sentenced to 50 years of jail time, and two were sentenced to 30 years. Cáceres was a...
Brooklyn Book Bodega Believes “Books + Kids = Power”
Photo by, Annie Spratt on Unsplash By Tallulah Echtenkamp, age 11 & IndyKids staff Over 21,404 free books distributed across the city. That’s the impact the Brooklyn Book Bodega has had. A bodega is a store that sells many things. However, the Brooklyn Book Bodega...
School Shootings Still Threaten Kids. They’re Trying to Stop It.
Protesters in San Francisco. Photo by Natalie Chaney By Amedeo Max Bettauer, age 10 & IndyKids staff Every day, school buses across the country pass through metal gates, past guardhouses with uniformed police officers, and into parking lots with high fences and...
2020 Census: Why It Matters to Be Counted!
By Jesus Hernandez, age 11 Every 10 years, the U.S. Census Bureau counts every person living in the United States, and it’s happening in 2020. The census impacts how the government distributes more than $675 billion in federal funds to communities for services like...
100 Years of Votes for Women: The Fight Continues
By Dayanara Hernandez, age 15 This year marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote in the United States. While women went on to make U.S. political history in 2018 winning a record number of congressional seats, women...
“We Can’t Eat Money or Drink Oil” – Youth on the Frontlines Fight for Climate and Environmental Justice
By Lucia Mejia Cardenas, age 11 and Indykids Staff Young people are making history as powerful leaders in the fight against climate change. Sixteen-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg is receiving global attention for her work and has quickly become the face of...
How Is the Story of America Told? Illuminating History to Better Understand the Past, the Present and Our Future
History can be an exciting and fascinating window into the past—learning about inspiring people and how they helped create what we have today. But there are some parts of history that are painful and difficult to tell. Oftentimes these traumatic events in our past...
The 1619 Project: Revealing the Truth About Slavery and Its Legacy
By Dayanara Hernandez, age 14 On a warm sunny day, New York Times journalist Nicole Hannah-Jones stands on shoreline of Old Point Comfort, Virginia, with the waves lapping beside her and the seagulls chirping above. In the first epsiode of the 1619 podcast, she pauses...
The 400 Years of Inequality Project Uses the Study of History to Create a More Equal Society
By Rosell Rivas, age 10 years old and Aisha Tabala age, 11 The 400 Years of Inequality project marks a painful anniversary in American history, when the first of millions of Africans were brought over as slaves to work on plantations established on land stolen from...
An Indigenous Peoples’ History for Young People
By: August Kaiser Age, 11 and Indykids staff Kids aren't always being taught the truth about Native American history, and historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz wants this to change, so she encourages them to learn about history from resources produced by Native Americans and...
40th Anniversary of A People’s History of the United States
By Michael Warman Hirschfield, age 12 Next year is the 40th anniversary of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Zinn, an activist, historian and professor, is celebrated for raising awareness of the oppressed. He highlighted the stories of people...
Mni Wiconi, Water Is Life. Why I Stand Up for Native Rights
By Aslan Tudor age 12 years old Aslan is the author of two books, Young Water Protectors and Young Native Activist. He is a citizen of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. When we arrived at the Oceti Sakowin camp, there were thousands of tents and tipis set up in front...
Children Miss Out on School as the Crisis in Jammu and Kashmir Continues
By Jesus Hernandez, age 11 and Indykids Staff Every morning, Aliya Khan, a fifth grader in Kashmir, wakes up and walks to her school. But soon she returns home, disappointed, every day, according to an article published in The New York Times, at the end of October....
President Trump Was Impeached. What Does That Mean?
By Juan Cortes, age 10 and Indykids Staff UPDATED December 19 2019 First up, it’s important to know that Congress, which is made up of members elected to represent the people, is comprised of two levels of government: the House of Representatives (also known as the...
“What Is It Like to Grow Up in a Place That’s Going Away?”: The Last Generation, an Interactive Documentary Telling the Stories of Kids from the Marshall Islands
By Jessie Mai Mitnick, age 12 Izerman Yamaguchi-Kotton, a 9-year-old boy, squats down on the shoreline of his local beach, arranging white-and-fawn-striped shells from smallest to largest. Every morning after breakfast he loves to come down to the beach and check on...
Someday You Could Be a Lawyer and an Activist Like Tara Houska
By Lila Katch, age 14 Tara Houska is Ojibwe from Couchiching First Nation. She’s an attorney (lawyer) and the co-founder of Not Your Mascots, an organization dedicated to fighting against stereotypical Native representations in sports. She’s also an adviser to...
Air Pollution Is a Growing Problem — And It’s Reaching Alarming Levels in India
By Jesus Hernandez, Age 10 Air pollution kills around 7 million people worldwide every year, according to the World Health Organization, and health organizations around the world are scrambling to keep up with the growing threat. Poor air quality is fueled, in part,...
16-Year-Old Climate Activist Greta Thunberg Named Time Person of the Year
By Indykids Staff Outraged by the lack of government action against climate change, in August 2018, Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg decided to take action herself. At the time she was 15 years old, and every Friday she protested outside the Swedish parliament with...
Sydney’s Air Quality 12 Times Above “Hazardous” Levels as Wildfires Continue to Rage
For several weeks 100 wildfires have been burning across eastern Australia, torching 5.3 millions acres, or 2.1 hectares, of land. That’s around 17 times the amount of land burned in the Amazon rainforest fires in August 2019. While wildfires are common in the...
Resolution to Honor Indigenous Peoples’ Day Introduced into Congress
By Amin Adem, age 14 Representatives Deb Haaland and Sharice Davids, the first two indigenous people to be elected to Congress, together with support from Reps. Norma Torres (D-CA), Don Young (R-AK) and Betty McCollum (D-MN), introduced a resolution on October 11,...
Historic Chicago Teachers’ Strike Ends with Deal for More Spending on Schools
By Juan Cortes, age 10 Teachers in Chicago, home to the country’s third-largest school district, ended their historic 11-day strike in late October after the city agreed to meet many of the teachers’ demands. The agreement included reduced class sizes, having a nurse...
New Breakthrough in Recycling Batteries for Renewable Energy
By Aishwarya Vedula, age 12 and Indykids Staff As climate change continues to be a growing concern, many countries are focusing on ways to use renewable energy. A big part of renewable resources is the use of lithium-ion batteries. Though they are not only used in...
Can Disabling One Protein Lead to Cure for the Common Cold?
By Aishwarya Vedula, age 12 The common cold is a short-lasting, but potentially debilitating illness that affects millions of people in the United States every year. There’s no cure for the cold as it is caused by various viruses that use human cells to reproduce and...
Meet an IndyKids Reporter: Rosell Rivas
By Juan Cortes, age 10 Why did you decide to become an IndyKids reporter? Because it seemed like an interesting experience to become a journalist and be introduced to new topics that I haven’t heard about. I’ve had a lot of fun experiences, and I’ve learnt a lot,...
Who Am I?
By Orik Ehren, age 13 and IndyKids Staff I was born on February 18, 1931, in Lorain, Ohio, and I died on August 5, 2019, in New York. My family was part of the Great Migration, the mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to urban areas in the North to...
“My Camera Is a Weapon,” IndyKids Reporter Meets 13-year-old Palestinian Journalist Janna Jihad
By Lanyie Rhodes, age 13 Janna Tamimi, also known as Janna Jihad, is a 13-year-old Palestinian girl who is a reporter from the small town of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank. She started reporting as a journalist when she was 7 years old, after her friend and...
The Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle Is One of the World’s Rarest Turtles
By Esteban Guerra, Age 8 The Yangtze giant softshell turtle is one of the world’s rarest turtles. The Yangtze is native to eastern and southern China and northern Vietnam. It is also known by the names of Red River giant softshell turtle, the Shanghai softshell...
“The Biggest Bully I’ve Ever Had to Deal With.” – How Congresswomen Stood Up to President Trump
By Hudson, age 13, and IndyKids Staff As students begin another year, many schools take steps to prevent bullying and safeguard the health and well-being of their students. Yet, unfortunately, bullying isn’t just a problem on the playground, but it’s an issue in many...
Human Rights Groups Call on China to Stop Separating Uyghur and Other Turkic Muslim Children and Return Them to Their Families
By Clara Wong and May Mcgrath age 10 and IndyKids Staff Pronunciation for Uyghur- WEE-gor Human Rights Watch has called on the Chinese government to immediately release all Uyghur children being held in so-called child welfare institutions and boarding schools in...
The Alcatraz Occupation: A Powerful Symbol of Indigenous Resistance and Leadership
By Lanyie Rhodes, age 12 and IndyKids Staff In November 1969, Richard Oakes, a Mohawk from New York, led a protest with around 80 Native Americans/Indigenous peoples to the island of Alcatraz about 1.25 miles offshore from San Francisco. The group was made up of...
How the Black Campus Movement of the 1960s Transformed Higher Education in the United States
By Michael Hirschfield, age 11 and IndyKids Staff Between 1965 and 1972, Black student activists held protests at thousands of colleges and universities to demand more equality in their schools. Known as the Black Campus Movement (BCM), they were campaigning for...
The Protest Movement Calling for an End to the War in Vietnam
By Aisha Tabala, Age 11 The Vietnam War began on November 1, 1955. The United States started sending troops to South Vietnam in 1965 to fight the Viet Cong, the pro-North force in South Vietnam, which was armed by North Vietnam and supported by the communist nations,...
Muhammad Ali’s Fight for Peace and Justice
By Gibran Freilla Williams, age 8 and Anand Jaureguilorda, age 15 Muhammad Ali was a boxer who died in 2016 at the age of 74. He was a three-time heavyweight champion and gold medallist in the 1960 Olympics for boxing. But he was also an activist who fought for civil...
The Stonewall Uprising
By Ella Marnin age 10 The 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising was on June 28. The uprising started when police raided a gay bar, the Stonewall Inn, located in Greenwich Village, New York. Back then, bartenders used to refuse to serve gay people. Some places...
“What We Do, We Do from Our Hearts”: How the Young Lords Addressed Inequality in New York City
By Rosell Rivas, age 11 and IndyKids Staff The Young Lords were originally a street gang but turned into a grassroots revolutionary civil and human rights organization in the summer of 1969. They were mostly made up of young Puerto Rican men and women living in East...
Trump Pushes to Allow Oil Drilling in the Pristine Arctic Wildlife Refuge
By Jesus Hernandez, Age 11 The Trump administration wants to allow companies to drill for oil in the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), home to the largest untapped oil reserves in the United States, by the end of 2019. The Bureau of Land Management...
The Green New Deal: Why We Can’t Fight Climate Change Without Addressing Inequality
By Tully Comfort age 12 and Indykids Staff In February of this year, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bill Markey introduced in Congress a Green New Deal (GND) resolution to take on inequality while eliminating climate pollution, by creating jobs with higher...
“The People Can Do It When They Unite”: A New Chapter in Puerto Rico’s History Calls for Greater Democracy
By Yael Mora, age 11 and Indykids Staff It’s been two years since Hurricane Maria devastated the Carribean island and U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, making history as one of the worst and deadliest natural disasters ever recorded in the region. Amid rebuilding efforts...
Meet an IndyKids Reporter, Samaira Bunbury
By Onika Ehren, age 12 Samaira is a creative and inquisitive 12-year-old journalist who has been writing for IndyKids since the IndyKids Summer Camp 2018. In addition to writing articles, she has also designed political cartoons and produced a podcast looking at...
“It’s Like Someone Has Taken a Part of My Heart That Was There for a Long, Long Time.” A 12-Year-Old Reflects on the Experience of Immigration Officers Separating His Family.
By Victor, age 12 Every week, my family would go to the movies. We watched Sharknado 1, 2 and 3. We used to get popcorn, nacho cheese chips and Coke slushies. It was exciting, something I looked forward to. But two years ago, everything changed. One day, after my dad...
New NYC Styrofoam Ban Will Help Reduce Climate Change and Plastic Waste
By Aishwarya Vedula, age 12 Everywhere we go, we are surrounded by products made of plastic. This is a huge problem for our environment because these materials contribute both to littering the ocean and the earth, as well as to climate change. According to the science...
“Censorship Leaves Us in the Dark”: How Banned Books Week Illuminates the Right to Read
By Lee Walker Watson, age 13 Every year, in the last week of September, books that have been banned in certain communities are publicized by the coalition of librarians, educators and publishing companies who organize Banned Books Week. “Banned books” are books that...
Afropunk: The “No Hate” Movement That Celebrates African Culture
By Samaira Bunbury, age 11 Every summer, around 70,000 people of various ethnicities, shades, abilities and genders celebrate the annual Afropunk Festival. With a program full of dance, music, film and fashion, it’s an all-arts festival that embraces African-centric...
News Briefs for Climate Week
World Leaders Meet in NYC for U.N. Climate Summit by IndyKids Staff On September 23, world leaders met in New York City to attend a special United Nations summit on climate change. The summit aimed to put in place realistic plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by...
Seesaws Unite Children Across the U.S.-Mexico Border
By Jessie Mai Mitnick, age 11 Three neon pink seesaws were installed through the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday, July 28, for about 30 minutes, with the intent to gather kids of all ages to have fun, to be happy and to have conversations across the border — a border...
New Report Reveals Child Labor on U.S. Farms
By Dayanara Hernandez, age 14 A recent article by Karen Coates and Valeria Fernández published in Pacific Standard, “The Young Hands That Feed Us,” revealed the hidden reality of child labor in the United States. A 2014 Childhood Agricultural Injury Survey estimated...
Someday You Could Be a Scientist Like Sajan Saini
By Ben Wakley, age 12 Sajan Saini is a scientist and professor who specializes in photonics, a special technology that manipulates or changes light for different purposes. He received his doctoral degree in materials science at MIT in 2004 and has worked with the MIT...
Who Am I?
By Jessie Mai Mitnick, age 11 Former President Barack Obama thought of me as “the Godmother of the civil rights movement.” I was born in Richmond, Virginia, on March 24, 1912. I was raised by my mother, Fanny, who was a nurse, and my father, James, who was a building...
Save the Earth by Saving the Ocean
By Eliot Pascoe, age 7 for the LA Climate Strike, September 20 2019
Getting Wild With… The Jaguar
Habitat Loss Threatens the Mighty Jaguars By Leah Romero, age 9 The jaguar is a magnificent feline that conservation groups say will face extinction in the near future unless humans change their behavior now. The word “jaguar” comes from the indigenous Tupian word...
Indykids Podcast: The Growing Movement of Japanese Americans Protesting Immigration Detention in the U.S.
During WWII, the United States government incarcerated about 120,000 innocent Japanese, Japanese American and Japanese Latin American people during World War II because Japan was seen as its enemy at the time. Now, former Japanese American and Japanese Latin American...
Indykids Podcast: “You are not helpless. You are not powerless” – How Everyday New Yorkers are Supporting and Providing Sanctuary for Immigrants
Podcast by Hudson, age 13, and Aisha Tabala, age 11 IndyKids reporters Hudson and Aisha spoke with the prominent immigration activist and executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, Ravi Ragbir about the challenges facing immigrants in the United States today,...
Indykids Podcast: “If I were you, I would not want to be me”- An 11-year-old shares with his peers the impact ICE had on separating his family
Victor in many ways is just like any other 11-year-old boy, he loves playing video games and going outside, but there's one big difference— For the past two years he has been separated from his father, after he was arrested by immigration officials at their home one...
Indykids Podcast: “Can we reimagine a world where youth prisons don’t exist?”
"We don't think about the experiences our young people go through before they come into contact with the system." - Hernan Carvente When Hernan Carvente was just 16 years old he was sentenced to six years in prison. He spent four years incarcerated in a maximum...
Under Attack: The Press in the Era of Trump
By Finn Tenzin Hamre-Myers, Age, 14 Attacks on the media have become commonplace under the leadership of President Donald Trump and have become a signature part of his administration. Insults such as “fake news,” “enemy of the people” and “failing” are used to...
How the Equality Act Will Ban Discrimination Against LGBTQIA+ People in the U.S.
How the Equality Act Will Ban Discrimination Against LGBTQIA+ People in the U.S. By Lukas Azcurrain age, 12 The Equality Act is a new bill proposed by Congressmembers David Cicilline (D-RI) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Susan Collins...
Equal Pay Day Highlights the Gender Pay Gap
By NYLA ALCANTARA 11 years old Equal Pay Day started in 1996 by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE). It is a day that highlights the issue of unequal pay between men and women. This issue is called the gender pay gap because of the difference between what...
Students Strike 4 Climate: Young People Leading the Way for Action on Climate Change
By Lila Katch, age 14 “You say you love your children above all else, and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes.” - Greta Thunberg On March 15, 2019, about 1.4 million students across the world skipped their classes to protest the growing...
Mozambique’s Devastating Cyclones Reveal the Inequalities of Climate Change
By Eleanor Hedges Duroy, age 15 On March 14, 2019, Tropical Cyclone Idai hit southeast Africa, making landfall in Mozambique and causing floods and heavy rain in neighboring Zimbabwe and Malawi. According to the United Nations, it was one of the worst-ever...
It Was Just a Normal Day at School. Then an Immigration Truck Showed Up
By Yael Mora, age 11 On a Thursday in early March, I was in math class listening to my teacher, Mr. Cheesman, give a lesson on how to convert mass, weights and volume. Then, at lunch, I played chicken with my friends. It was just a regular day at my school, P.S....
Un Libro a la Vez: How This Revolutionary Librarian and Puppeteer Brought Spanish Books to the Public Library
By AISHA TABALA, age 10 It’s not a secret that Nueva York, New York, is one of the most diverse cities in the world, and Latinos make up a major part of its rich culture. Thanks to the fearless Latina, Pura Belpré, the 25% of the population that speaks Spanish in the...
Navajo Activists Take the Lead to Address the Water Crisis in Their Communities
By JUAN CORTES Age 10 The Navajo Nation is the largest Native American reservation in the United States, sprawled across Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Behind this vast and scenic land, surrounded with beautiful reddish-orange rocks and mountains, and a community with...
New York City Passes Its Own Green New Deal
By Indykids Staff New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a new and ambitious plan for the city to do its part to reduce global warming and climate change. The Climate Mobilization Act, which comes into effect May 17, aims to enact the largest carbon reduction...
