.Volume I, Issue 22, September 29, 1996

Kids Working to Make a Difference
Interested in helping others or the environment? Go to www.teaching.com/act and click on the Youth in Action Network icon. You have to enter a username and password--"guest" will work for both--but once you're in, you'll find real, practical ways to make life better in your community. The authors of this site believe that kids can tackle community problems, and they've created a site so you can learn about human rights and environmental issues, talk with kids about them on-line, and take action using the Youth in Action "Power Tools." If you've ever wondered, "How can I help?" be sure to check out the Youth in Action Network, where you may find an answer.

Make Your Own Funnies
Every day is kind of like Sunday at the Philadelphia Online Comics. You can create your own comics page from the daily comics of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Go to http://www2. phillynews.com/ comics/ You'll find even more of your favorite characters at http://www.ucomics.com/comics/ Check out Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes and the rest of the gang there. Find out about the people creating these wacky 'toons, too. Do it just for laughs! ©PAWS, Inc. ©Bill Amend ©Watterson (Disclaimer: This site now contains advertisements, and the first of these two sites is no longer available.)

Cool School Site: University Park Elementary
Swoop into The Falcon's Nest, the homepage of University Park Elementary in Fairbanks, Alaska, at http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/upk/upk.home.html . Not only will you meet Bill, the real, live school moose, you'll find students' Web pages, an on-line Writers' Workshop, and audio greetings from Alaska, in languages from around the globe. And there's a lot more--go check it out and see what students like you can do on the Web. It's amazing! Does your school have a really cool homepage? To nominate your school's site, go to http:// 4Kids.org/nominations/ and type in a few sentences to let us know what makes the site so great. Maybe it will be the next 4Kids Cool School Site! (This site is no longer available.)

People Helping People
The Giraffe Project at www.giraffe.org tells us about people who stick their necks out to help others--human giraffes! Read stories about giraffes like David Levitt who, at age 11, helped feed the hungry people in his community. If you have spotted any giraffes, you can nominate them, or get involved yourself at the Giraffe Project.

Who writes the comic "For Better or For Worse"?

Heather Clopton

Lynn Johnston

Frank Carey

100 miles

237 miles

17 miles

1993

1982

 

This 4Kids Detective Game has expired.
To play the current Kid Quest Challenge, go to 4Kids.org/kidquest/.

Dear Lexi: No one really owns the Internet. The Internet is made up of lots of smaller computer networks. Some of the networks are owned by schools, colleges and universities, and some are owned by corporations and organizations. Together they make up a worldwide network of thousands of server computers that can talk to each other. Sometimes these server computers are too busy to talk or just aren't working right. When this happens, you have to try again later or e-mail someone at the broken computer's location and ask for help.

Dear Amy: What is that squiggly line ~ in some URLs? --Nathan, Wichita, KS

Dear Nathan: For those who don't know, a URL, or Universal Resource Locator, is the address of a Web page. Every Web page has its own address, and you type the URL into a little window in your browser software, like Netscape or Explorer, to get to that page on the Internet. Most URLs look like a bunch of letters jumbled together. The problem is that URLs can't have any spaces between letters, so people use periods and funny characters, like the squiggly line ~ called a "tilde," in between the letters so that the URL makes sense to them. Everyone tries to keep the URLs short, but it doesn't always work out.