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James Van Der Zee was born on June 29, 1886 in Lenox, Massachusetts. He was one of the most famous photographers of the Harlem Renaissance and had no formal training in photography. He acquired his first camera after answering an advertisement when he was in the 5th grade. He taught himself how to operate the camera and it became his hobby. He worked various odd jobs until 1914 when he got a job as an assistant photographer. With his financial success, he realized that he could make a better living if he opened his own studio.

Are you terrified of snakes? Or are you amazed by snakes? People usually have one reaction or the other!

Snakes are reptiles, most closely related to lizards. Snakes have a backbone, no arms, or legs, and are covered in scales. They are cold-blooded but do enjoy the warmth of lying in the sun. Snakes live all over the world, except in extreme cold found in the polar regions. Most of the over 3,000 species of snakes are harmless, but venomous snakes kill more than 100,000 people each year. 

There is no more loyal companion or devoted friend than a good dog. Dogs are amazing pets, but sometimes they can be trained to do specialized work that humans are unable to do. Some dogs with jobs keep people with disabilities safe, some help people through trauma, some can sniff out bugs or other pests, some help the military and police, some herd and protect sheep and livestock, and some are rescue animals that can save lives.  

Mindfulness is a word you hear a lot nowadays, but do you really know what it means and what it is? Mindfulness means paying full attention to something. That something could be the game you are playing with your sibling, or just your own breathing pattern. It is a way of saying that you are truly focused on the task at hand.

No one knows why humans decided to keep cats as pets. It is believed that it may have been because of the the hunting abilities of cats that humans decided to take cats into their homes 5,000 years ago. While cats are still used to hunt mice and bugs in our homes, cats are adopted for several reasons including friendship. 

A young cat is called a kitten. As a cat grows up, it goes from being a kitten to young cat to being an adult, and then a senior cat. Cats live up to an average of 10-15 years and some even live as long as 20 years. 

Samhain (pronounced SOW-in) is one of the earliest Halloween celebrations. It originated over 2,000 years ago in parts of Great Britain, Ireland, and Northern France, and was celebrated by people known as Celts. Samhain means “the end of summer,” which is exactly what the Celts celebrated during this festival. Samhain was primarily a harvest festival, where the Celts thanked their gods for the food they harvested as summer came to an end.  

Animals need a way to cross busy roads. A wildlife crossing provides safe passage over or under a busy highway. It’s a way for animals to migrate and move freely, safe from traffic. It can give many animals access to what they need to survive. Wildlife crossings usually include trees or other natural resources to make them look like their normal habitat. 

Sharks are predators that live in all of the world’s oceans. They have been around since before the time of the dinosaurs! They are excellent hunters, but they come in all shapes and sizes, so some sharks eat small fish or even miniscule plankton, while others catch enormous animals like seals, squids, sea birds, or sea turtles. Their senses are some of the reasons they are such good hunters. Their sense of smell is 10,000 times better than a human’s! They can smell the tiniest amount of blood in the water. Sharks also have incredible hearing, and can even feel other animals moving nearby.

Have you ever wondered where chocolate comes from? It’s a long journey for chocolate to travel to be made into the candy you eat. The first step in making chocolate is to pick the cocoa pods off the tree. These trees grow near the equator because they need the weather to be hot all year round to grow. They are indigenous to Central and South American but cocoa trees are also grown in West Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia. Inside the cocoa pods are beans.  

The human heart is a muscle located inside your chest. It does not look like the kind of heart you usually see on valentines; rather, it is shaped more like a pear with tubes sticking out of it. These tubes are called arteries and veins, and they are responsible for helping blood move to and from your heart. Veins move blood to your heart, and arteries move blood away from your heart. You can see your veins through your skin, but you cannot see your arteries.