It was a 7.5-magnitude earthquake. (That is how earthquakes are measured in terms of how bad they are. Seven point five is very big.)

The earthquake also caused a tsunami. That is a massive wave of water. When an earthquake happens on or near a large body of water, it can cause huge waves and flowing water that does a lot of damage. The earthquake in Indonesia was along the coast, near a city called Palu, which is on a bay.

Many people helped those who were affected by the disaster.

The post Indonesia Recovering From Earthquake, Tsunami appeared first on Teaching Kids News.

A team of researchers in the United States spent a week looking through the garbage bags of 1,151 people living in Denver, New York and Nashville. The researchers wanted to know what kind of food was being thrown away, how much there was, and why it was being tossed.

By asking these questions, the researchers hoped to find ways to reduce the amount of food we throw away, and to give some of that food to people who need it.

The researchers found that, in the cities they surveyed, more than a kilogram of edible food per person is wasted each week. (Edible food is food you can eat. It doesn’t include things like apple cores, egg shells, or bones from meat.)

Fruits and vegetables were the most common edible foods found in the trash, followed by food leftover from meals. Eggs, bread and milk were also commonly thrown out.

The post How Much Food Do You Waste? appeared first on Teaching Kids News.

For more than a week, wildfires have been burning in the "Golden State."

The fires started after a period with very little rain dried out the grasses on the hillsides. CBC News reports that "hardly any measurable rain has fallen in the region over the past six months." The new conditions may be due to climate change.

Californians were warned about the fires so they could leave in time. A variety of methods were used to warn residents, including texts sent to their cell phones.

The timely warnings have saved lives, giving tens of thousands of residents time to evacuate their homes. 

The post California Wildfires appeared first on Teaching Kids News.

They are the names of very large storms, affecting the area around the Caribbean*, Mexico and the southern United States.

Hurricanes are given names, like “Irma” to make it easier to refer to them.

People in these areas are used to dealing with storms. But these storms are much larger than normal. They have very high winds—up to 120 kilometres an hour—with lots of rain that can flood people’s houses and force them to leave the area. (In this case, leaving your home is known as “evacuating.”) In Florida, more than 6.4 million people have been told to evacuate before Irma gets there, according to a report from CBC News.

The post Large Storms Affecting Caribbean, US appeared first on Teaching Kids News.