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Find solutions to Scholastic News Edition 5/6's "What's the Big Idea?" reproducible below.

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May 10-17, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. The main goal is to improve the health of U.S. kids.
  2. Answers will vary but may include that it prevents people from gaining too much weight and from getting illnesses associated with weight gain.
  3. Pierce struggled with his weight as a child, and he also needed to be healthy to become an athlete. 
  4. Answers will vary but may include: "It makes a difference in my mood and how I feel about myself," Melinda says. "And when I have more fruits and vegetables, I'm not as grumpy." 
  5. Answers will vary but may include that Melinda is a member of empowerME's Youth Advisory Board and Tianna and Tyhir go door-to-door handing out jump ropes.
April 26, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include that oil powers cars, fuels power plants, and heats homes.
  2. Answers will vary but may include that it will reduce America's need to buy oil from foreign countries and create more U.S. Jobs.
  3. Answers will vary but may include that it will harm birds and other animals, damage beaches, and pollute air and water.
  4. The Atlantic Ocean south of New Jersey, the Gulf of Mexico, and in waters off part of Alaska
  5. Answers will vary but may include that the President's ultimate goal is to end the country's dependence on fossil fuels and on foreign sources of those fuels, and to increase America's use of cleaner energy and of oil and gas found in U.S. waters.
April 12, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. It is buried in landfills.
  2. Answers will vary but may include that it can pollute streets and oceans, spread disease, and harm animals.
  3. 25 percentage points
  4. Answers will vary but may include that they learned about the importance of recycling.
  5. Answers will vary but may include that trash has created an underwater junkyard off the coast of California and that huge patches of garbage float on the surface of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
April 5, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. He sits down and looks at the spot where he picked up the scent of the allergen.
  2. Answers will vary but may include that Rock'O sniffs out allergens, while Robin uses his nose to locate illegal drugs and missing people.
  3. Answers will vary but may include that he cheers the kids up, lessens their pain and stress, and helps shorten their healing time.
  4. Answers will vary but may include that Electra boosted Mandy's spirits, which helped her heal.
  5. Answers will vary but may include that the dogs are all hard-working, helpful to people, and dependable.
March 22, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include, "The causes and effects of earthquakes after recent, major ones in Chile and Haiti."
  2. The shifting of tectonic plates
  3. It caused tsunami alerts in Hawaii and Japan. People in those places were evacuated from coastal areas.
  4. Answers will vary but may include similarities such as: Many people died and became homeless because of the quakes. Both were caused by shifting tectonic plates. Answers may include differences such as: The Chile quake was less devastating than Haiti's partly because buildings in Chile were constructed to better withstand earthquakes.
  5. The South American Plate and the Nazca Plate
March 15, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. It is about robots becoming a bigger and bigger part of humans' lives.
  2. They can do repetitive tasks with precision; they never get tired, and they don't make mistakes.
  3. Answers may vary, but may include: "It . . . has hands so nimble that it can handle flexible materials . . ."
  4. Nao
  5. hospitals and nursing homes
March 1, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary, but may include that the story is about the changing roles of women in the U.S. military.
  2. Answers will vary, but may include that Erslev was feeling scared and anxious.
  3. Women do not typically have the same physical strength as men.
  4. Answers will vary, but may include serving as machine gunners, patrolling areas as military police, and searching Iraqi and Afghan women for weapons.
  5. The U.S. Army
February 15-22, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary, but may include that they were trying to end the practice of segregated lunch counters.
  2. Answers will vary, but may include that they explain how the sit-ins changed the civil rights movement.
  3. Answers will vary, but may include one of the following: "Some whites supported the sit-in, but others disapproved. They taunted the demonstrators, calling them racist names. Woolworth's closed temporarily at the end of the week after a bomb threat."
  4. Answers will vary, but may include that the Woolworth's lunch counter served black people for the first time on July 25, 1960, and that lunch counters were integrated in many cities in the South by the end of 1960.
  5. Answers will vary, but may include that the lunch counter at Woolworth's had long refused to serve African-Americans, while taking their money from purchases in other parts of the store.
February 1, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. It explains why and when the ancient Egyptians began to make mummies.
  2. About 3,500 years ago.
  3. Answers should include any three of the following: To accompany their owners to the afterlife, to become food for Egyptians in the afterlife, to be given as offerings to gods and goddesses, or because they were believed to have the spirit of a god within them.
  4. Answers will vary but may include that researchers hope to learn more about the ancient Egyptians' religious beliefs and how they made mummies.
  5. Answers will vary.
January 25, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Paragraphs 1, 3, and 5
  2. Answers will vary but may include bringing their own lunches and birthday treats, wiping down lunch tables and chairs, and being unable to sit near people who are eating foods they are allergic to.
  3. Any variation of the following is acceptable: "To succeed in making someone do or believe something by giving the person good reasons."
  4. Answers will vary but may include that an additional 29 Representatives and eight Senators became sponsors of the bill.
  5. The guidelines would include training teachers to give kids emergency allergy medicine and making sure that cafeteria workers know how to keep foods that can cause allergies separate from other foods.
January 11, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers may vary but may include: "The Olympic Games are a tradition that unites the world in peaceful sports competition." and "The most significant thing in the Olympics Games is not to win but to take part," [Baron Pierre de Coubertin] said. "Just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle."
  2. 114 years ago
  3. ski cross
  4. five times
  5. "Days after making the 2002 U.S. Olympic team, Cook broke both feet in a training crash. She battled back and won a spot on the 2006 Olympic team."
January 4, 2010
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include that it is about the biggest news stories of 2009
  2. Answers should include any two of the following: Obama signed an economic stimulus bill into law, worked on different plans to make health insurance available and affordable to all Americans, announced that he will remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, sent more U.S. troops to Afghanistan, and won the Nobel Peace Prize.
  3. To honor and remember
  4. Sotomayor is the newest U.S. Supreme Court Justice. She entered history books in 2009 by being sworn in as the first Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
  5. 360 years
December 7, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include that walruses cannot hunt for food or escape predators as easily on land.
  2. the burning of fossil fuels
  3. Answers will vary but may include that pollutants trapped in the glaciers are being released.
  4. false
  5. Dictionary definition 3: adj. very important
November 30, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. four states
  2. Answers will vary but may include that he has raised tens of thousands of dollars to help provide food, school supplies, and more to homeless kids.
  3. Northeast
  4. Answers will vary but may include that they provide statistics about homeless kids in the U.S.
  5. Answers will vary but may include the following sentence: "Guillen hopes that after seeing the film, kids will want to go out and work for a cause they believe in."
November 16, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Kabul
  2. False
  3. Answers will vary but may include to drive out the Taliban and improve security conditions in Afghanistan.
  4. Answers will vary but may include that they explain the sacrifices of military families.
  5. Answers will vary but may include that Danielle says she's "proud to be a military [kid]," and expresses an interest in getting "to meet new people from different cultures."
November 9, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include that it is about newspapers' role in U.S. democracy.
  2. Answers will vary but may include that they give people important information about the U.S. government.
  3. Answers will vary but may include that they provide significant examples of newspapers' impact on the U.S.
  4. Answers will vary but may include that more people are getting their news for free from Internet sources.
  5. Answers will vary.
October 26, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include that it explains why and how native languages became endangered.
  2. Answers will vary but may include: "Of the more than 288,500 Cherokees around the world, only about 10,000 speak the language today.”
  3. Answers will vary but may include that they perform songs and record CDs in the Cherokee language.
  4. Answers will vary but may include “because the subjects sing as one way to show pride in their language.”
  5. Answers will vary.
October 19, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary, but should include an understanding that the prologue provides the reader with background information about the topic the play will cover.
  2. Answers will vary, but should include an accurate understanding of the key ideas presented in Scene 1 of the play, such as an understanding of the state of the nation’s financial condition on October 29, 1929.
  3. Answers will vary, but could include any of the following: Poor families often depended on bread lines for food; By December 1929, many thousands of people were out of work; Millions of people have seen their life savings disappear.
  4. Answers will vary, but should include an understanding that they were named Hoovervilles in reference to President Herbert Hoover, who was President when the Great Depression began.
  5. Answers will vary, but should demonstrate an accurate understanding of the important information and key ideas presented explicitly and implicitly in the play.
October 5, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include an expectation that one will read about how to make decisions that will affect one’s life in a positive way.
  2. Answers will vary but may include the effects, both good and bad, that food can have on one’s health.
  3. Answers will vary but may include: Illnesses like heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes are often diet-related.
  4. Expository
  5. Answers will vary but may include that it helped them make healthier food choices and inspired them to grow their own fresh produce.
September 28, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include that she was diagnosed with diabetes at age 8 and that her dad died when she was 9.
  2. Answers will vary.
  3. Both
  4. Answers will vary but should include that she will decide whether laws are constitutional.
  5. Answers will vary but may include: She graduated No. 1 in her class at both her elementary and high schools. Her good grades earned her a scholarship to Princeton University, from which she graduated with highest honors.
September 14, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Legislative branch
  2. Answers will vary but may include that the Constitution set up a national government for the U.S. and that it laid out the framework for our democracy.
  3. Four years
  4. Executive branch
  5. Answers will vary, but may include that the division of power between the federal and state is a benefit because it puts another check on the power of the federal government, OR that the division of power between the federal and state provides no benefits because it allows for rules to sometimes conflict between the two levels of government.
September 7, 2009
Suggested solutions to this issue's What's the Big Idea?:
  1. Answers will vary but may include that cyberbullying differs from regular bullying in that it involves technology, and is similar in that both are hurtful.
  2. Answers will vary.
  3. Answers will vary but may include that technology is more widespread.
  4. Answers will vary but may include "kind" and "caring."
  5. Answers will vary.

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