Why is Critical Race Theory Under Attack?
Photo by Kelly Lacy on Pexels By Luca Cantagallo, age 11 and IndyKids staff Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a controversial bill this August that will alter the way that teachers can discuss current events and the racist history of the United States in their classrooms....
Line 3 Pipeline Causes Controversy
A protest bus outside Minn. Public Utilities Commission hearing on Enbridge's Line 3 in downtown St. Paul, Minn., 2018. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons By Dayanara Hernandez, age 16 Enbridge, a Canadian pipeline corporation, has recently faced an increase in...
More States Are Loosening Gun Laws. We Should Be Concerned.
Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash By Claire Davis, age 13 and IndyKids Staff Around the country, some lawmakers are attempting to make it easier to carry a gun in public without training, a permit or being subject to a background check. Already this year, states such...
Argentina Officially Recognizes Non-Binary People
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash By Josey Law, age 10 and IndyKids Staff Argentina has become the first Latin American country to officially recognize non-binary people. The country is now allowing people to put an “X” on national identity documents if they do...
News Brief: Manatee Annual Death Record Surpassed in Just Six Months
Photo by Maegan Luckiesh on Unsplash By June Fink, age 10 So far this year, more than 841 manatees have already died in Florida, according to the Associated Press. That’s 11 more than the previous record high in 2013, which was for the whole year. The manatee...
News Brief: Madrid Set to Grow Urban Forest to Fight Climate Change
Madrid aerial photo. Photo by Gotta Be Worth It on Pexels By June Fink, age 10 Mariano Fuentes, Madrid’s councilor of environment and urban development, announced plans to build an urban forest surrounding the city to combat the city’s heat and improve air quality....
Proposed Abolition Amendment to Address Modern-Day Slavery
Photo by Eyasu Etsub on Unsplash By Jessie Mitnick, age 13 Recently, Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and Georgia Representative Nikema Williams reintroduced the Abolition Amendment. The Abolition Amendment aims to revise the 13th Constitutional Amendment, which abolished...
Science Brief: Flex Those Filtration Mussels
Photo by Gil Ndjouwou on Unsplash By Melina Cantagallo, age 13 Mussels are most often thought of as just a food, but they could potentially be used to free our oceans of toxic microplastics. Microplastics are small pieces of plastic sometimes too small for the...
Science Brief: Thailand Bans Coral-Damaging Sunscreens
Coral Reef in Vietnam. Photo by @quinguyen on Unsplash By Zahra Latheef, age 11 On August 4, Thailand ordered all non-ocean-friendly sunscreens be banned from marine parks. Regular sunscreens contain ingredients like oxybenzone, octinoxate, 4-methylbenzylidene camphor...
How Much Does the U.S. Really Recycle?
Photo by Mali Maeder on Pexels By Melina Cantagallo, age 13 and IndyKids Staff At 292.4 million metric tons, the United States produces the most waste per capita, with each person contributing 102 metric tons of garbage in their lifetime. But how much of this waste is...
An Interview With… The Brennan Center For Justice
IndyKids reporter Neena Sapkota, age 12 interviews Sean Morales-Doyle regarding the recent slew of voting rights restrictions across the United States. Sean is the Acting Director of the Voting Rights & Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Neena:...
Meet an IndyKids Reporter: Neena Sapkota, age 12
Neena is a 12-year-old 7th grader from Hyattsville, Md. She wrote her first article for the IndyKids newspaper last year and returned this summer to write our cover story. Neena has big dreams for the future, including becoming an author, singer, lawyer or even...
Quiz: Who Am I?
By June Fink, age 10 and IndyKids Staff I was born on August 24, 1922, in New York City.When I was growing up, my family couldn’t afford books, so my parents sent a coupon and a dime to the New York Post each month and we ended up owning 20 volumes of Charles Dickens’...
Getting Wild With… Gray Wolves
Photo by Brianna R. on Unsplash. By Esteban Guerra, age 9 Wolves play a big role in keeping our ecosystems healthy. Gray wolves are found in many parts of the United States, including Alaska, northern Michigan, northern Wisconsin, western Montana, northern Idaho,...
Center Spread: The State of U.S. Immigration
Root Causes of Mass Immigration By Malcolm Peterson, age 10 More than 1 million immigrants arrive in the United States each year, according to the Pew Research Center. There are many reasons people choose or are forced to leave their home countries, including lack of...
Cover Story: Our Voting Rights Are Under Attack: the Time to Fight For Democracy is Now
Original illustration by Sydney Greene, sydvisuals.com By Neena Sapkota, age 12 Voting rights in the United States have come under attack since the 2020 presidential election. Eighteen states have already made voting more difficult by enacting 30 new voting laws. Many...
Someday You Could Be… Sara Saedi
Interview By Raya El-Hajjar, age 13 Sara Saedi was born in Tehran, Iran, during wartime and an Islamic Revolution. Her parents fled to the United States, where they lived undocumented until Saedi was in her twenties. Saedi is the author of the memoir, Americanized:...
Turmoil in the Middle East Rise as Israel and Palestine Can’t Find Common Ground
By Amzad Ali, age 16 and IndyKids Staff “Stop the fire immediately. We’re escalating towards a full scale war,” Tor Wennesland, United Nations Middle East envoy, said in a tweet on Tuesday, May 18. In the past few weeks, tension has reached new levels in the ongoing...
“People Are Not Scared Anymore”: Colombians Protest Tax Hike in Ongoing Pandemic
By Dayanara Hernandez, age 16 Already facing post-pandemic unemployment and poverty, Colombians were hit with an announcement on April 28 by their president, Iván Duque, of a tax reform that targeted millions of middle- and working-class people but favored the...
Center Spread: The Protest Issue—First Amendement Rights Under Threat
Introduction: “Power concedes nothing without a demand,” — Frederick Douglass: First Amendment & the Importance of Protest By Raya El-Hajjar, age 13 Did you know there is no legal age for exercising your First Amendment rights? Additionally, there are no...
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act Hits Back at Police Brutality
By Samaria Bunburry, age 14 Following nationwide protests after the murder of unarmed Black man, George Floyd, the House of Representatives passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in March this year. The legislation aims to reduce the number of Black victims...
Breaking News: Federal Judge Rules DACA “Illegal”
By IndyKids Staff The Dreamers’ future is once again under threat this month after Andrew Hanen, a Texas federal judge, ruled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program unconstitutional. DACA, an initiative created in 2012 by then-President Obama,...
Breaking News: Bootleg Fire Becomes Nation’s Largest Wildfire
By IndyKids Staff Having already scorched over 350,000 acres—an area larger than Los Angeles—the Oregon wildfire has now become the largest burning in the United States this year. Named after the nearby Bootleg Spring, the fire began on July 6 and has now forced...
Meet an IndyKids Reporter: Arnay Agarwal, age 12
By Aida El-Hajjar, age 11 Arnay Agarwal is a 12-year-old published author, radio host, founder of the Storytelling Society of India and IndyKids journalist from Bangalore, India. Aida: How and when did you develop your passion for writing? Arnay: I think I was born...
