On-line News For Kids

Ellen Whyte Columnist/ellenwhyte@lepak.com

Most news media is designed to appeal to older audiences. This week we take a look at specialist news resources aimed at younger audiences.

CBBC Newsround at http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews is a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) service specially designed for teens. Like most newspapers, items are organized into broad categories. Choose a page from the left margin to bring up top stories from the UK, as well as world, science, sports, music and entertainment news.

Each page has a handful of top stories outlined in bold with an accompanying image, as well a list of titles leading to other interesting features. Many also offer supporting video clips.

You can surf through the basics or dig deeper, depending on how much time and interest you have. What is also nice about this site is that it offers a text as well as audio download. So if you prefer to listen to the news rather than read it, click on the earphone link.

If you love photo journalism, check out the Pictures link. This section has dozens of slide-show stories from all over the world.

Many of these focus on news issues but there are also pictures of pop concerts, award ceremonies, art festivals and exotic travel destinations. There is some truly stunning stuff here that's excellent for school project work.

CBBC Newsround stories are updated several times a day. As this is also an interactive site offering chat rooms, opinion polls, discussion forums, quizzes and other activities, you might want to make this your first stop of the day.

Yahooligans News at http://www.yahooligans.com/content/news is an online news service that provides a collection of links to articles, slide shows and videos telling half a dozen of the most important new stories. This is a U.S. oriented service, so there is currently an extra link discussing the U.S. elections. Other top stories cover entertainment, science, world news, sports and other categories.

When you click on a headline of interest, you will be faced with a main page of links leading to news from sources such as Reuters, the Associated Press, Discovery Channel and BBC Interactive. The margins offer links to relevant sections of the Yahooligans Directory as well as featured websites -- in case you want to surf for more information.

Also on the main page are six slide shows, showcasing the best images for the top world, animal, entertainment, sports, science and other stories. These can be a bit slow if you have a poor connection, but some of the pictures here are worth more than a 1,000 words.

If you want to look up a story that made the headlines last week, you can check the archives and search by keyword. Some of the news services leave their articles online one week; others are more generous, offering their fare for some months.

There is lots of interesting stuff happening in the world of science, but few newspapers offer more than a page or two of news. But you can learn what's going on in the scientific community by visiting Discovery News Online at http://dsc.discovery.com/news/news.html.

This site has easy-to-read articles describing what's happening on Mars, what new discoveries have been made about our planet, how newly found historical documents are solving age-old mysteries, what sort of exciting engineering projects are being proposed and much more.

Each feature is illustrated and most also offer video clips, further interviews with scientists, interactive exhibits and extra links leading to more information.

Other Discovery sister networks are more specialized. Animal Planet news at http://animal.discovery.com/news/news.html, for example, carries the latest ecology and conservation stories, as well as fascinating articles discussing what we are learning about the interdependence between animals and people. Like Discovery News, these features are rich in multimedia and come with links leading to lots more information.

If you have a passion for learning more about the sea, space, history or Earth, check out the bottom of the Animal Planet or Discovery News pages and check out the drop-down list. All of these resources are continuously updated with quality information. If you have a project coming up, or want to stay on top of non-political news, Discovery is a great place to start!

As news resources for kids don't attract as many advertisements or as much sponsorship as other news media, resources come and go rather quickly.

Many local, national and regional newspapers have a kids section in their online publications; the problem is locating one you're interested in. A traditional keyword search can take some time, but if you are interested in a shortcut, check out a list of several dozen starting points on the Google Directory at http://directory.google.com. Just click on Kids and Teens, followed by News.