The Denver Post •

CK Reporter of the WeekKaiya Cox, Aurora

Itzhak Perlman is many things, including one of the world’s most famous violinists, an inspiring teacher, and an advocate for disabled people. When he was about four years old, he recalls, he

decided he wanted to play the violin. It was around that time that he contracted polio.

His second teacher (Rivka Goldgart) had heard of the diagnosis, and was initially reluctant to teach a disabled child, but met with him anyway.

“Actually, the disability did not play any part,” Perlman says. “The only diff erence when you study the violin is that you stand up when you play. I would say 90% (of violinists) or even more sit down when they play (in concert). So in my case, that was it. I was not playing with my feet, I was playing with my hands.”

While his disability did not aff ect his playing, it did catch the eye of the press when he went to America from Israel, as he told his recent Boettcher audience at a fundraiser for Choices in Concert and Jewish Colorado.

Perlman said early reports would comment about how much he struggled to get on stage with his crutches. Then, when he sat down and played, everyone forgot all about it.

At fi rst, Itzhak Perlman did not like the attention he was receiving because of his disability.

Later, however, when everybody got used to it, he asked the press to mention it again to raise awareness about what people with disabilities can accomplish.

This was his fi rst of many acts as a disability advocate.

Although Perlman advocates for disabled people, he doesn’t think that he has a single greatest accomplishment in that role.

“I suppose talking about it is one thing,” he says. “Hopefully being a role model, just by the fact that I’m disabled and I have a career.”

He still sees many things that need to be fi xed. For example, ‘accessible’ rooms: Because they are

made to standard codes according to the Americans with Disabilities Act, they can be problematic since, as Perlman phrased it, “Not everyone has the same disability.”

He also thinks that people should separate someone’s abilities from their disabilities, because

people should judge other people by what they can do, not simply by what they can’t.

Itzhak Perlman is also a cook. He doesn’t have a favorite food, but he says he prefers savory over sweet dishes.

“I started cooking the fi rst time I had to go on a diet,” he says, “because all these diet foods are all very unappetizing. My fi rst dish that I remember cooking -- I was in my early twenties -- was hot dogs in V8 vegetable juice , mixed up with some peppers and stuff .”

From Perlman’s love of music and cooking combined arose a new musical instrument: the blender.

When you use a blender, the motor creates a certain pitch, and the faster the motor moves the higher the pitch is.

Perlman cleverly fi gured out that one could actually use it as a musical instrument.

There are still a few diffi culties getting the pitches right, especially in the middle register, he explained, so his favorite piece to play on it is “anything in tune.”

Perlman said that he would like to start a “Guess That Tune” YouTube channel for the blender, and there are actually a few clips of him playing the blender already on YouTube.

You can fi nd links at ColoradoNIE.com As the blender is relatively new, however, famed

musician Itzhak Perlman still prefers the violin for his formal concerts.

April 5 , 2016

Rudy Rhino is one of a truly rare breedRhinoceroses: The great relative of the

elephant and a highly endangered species. There are only 5,055 black

rhinos left in the wild. That is why the Denver Zoo is lucky to have

received a new member of the zoo family, Rudy the rhinoceros.

Rudy (Rudisha) was transferred here from the Oklahoma zoo. Rudy was welcomed here when their previous Black Rhino Machindi died last September.

Rudy is very fond of touching and rubbing things, and, despite being 22 years old and 2600 pounds, he is very playful.

Rhinos are endangered because people believe that their horns heal everything from bad diseases to the common cold.

Rhino horn is considered valuable, particularly in East Asia. Their horns are made of keratin, which is what your fi ngernails are made of.

The main thing that threatens black rhinos is humanity, both through loss of habitat and poaching. Conservationists around the world are trying to keep the population of rhinos alive.

Rudy has already had two calves in Kansas, so the Denver zoo is not planning to

get Rudy a mate.The white rhino, the gray-colored species

that we more often see, is a bit more social than black rhinos, which tend to be solitary.

Black rhinos usually live in the Sub-Sahara of Africa, mostly in Namibia, Tanzania and Kenya.

Rudy, unlike other black rhinos, has a reddish tint to him, which makes him unique. He also has a carved second horn (the one closer to his eyes) from grating it against surfaces.

His trainer, Dave Johnson, says that Rudy likes browsing on branches and enjoyinga bath.

Rudy began his stay at the Denver Zoo with a 30-day quarantine but is now ready to

welcome visitors. Come see him at the zoo!

Saturday, April 16, 2016 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Cherry Creek, 3550 East 1st Avenue, Denver More details at www.yacenter.org

Accessories, artwork, jewelry, gifts for men, toys and much, much more.

Find exquisite gifts direct from 75+ Young Entrepreneurs.

The YouthBiz Marketplace is the ultimate buy local experience! Young business owners display and sell their unique products to

the local community.

This is the perfect opportunity for gift shopping and a great way to support young, local

entrepreneurs.

By Leslie Wilburn,14, a CK Reporter from Denver

Perlman: Music, advocacy, humor

photo/Lena Kofoeda

By Haley Deison,11, a CK Reporter from Arvada

Itzhak Perlman, playing at a 2012 White House dinner in honor of President Shimon Peres of Israel. (Photo/whitehouse.gov)

The Denver Post •

In the classic epic poem of Roman literature, “The Aeneid,” Virgil writes of the early Romans and how

they fought with the Etruscans who lived in Italy before Rome was founded.

But for centuries, we didn’t know very much about those ancient people except what Virgil wrote, and he was passing on legends by people who didn’t like the Etruscans much to start with.

Archaeology helped, but a big problem was that researchers had very little written records to explain the things they may have found in the ancient ruins.

The Etruscans knew how to write, but they did most of their writing on wax tablets or cloth, things that have not survived the 2,500 years from their days to modern times.

Most of what we know of Etruscan language and culture comes from stone engravings on tombs.

This means we know something about how they felt about death, but not a lot more about their overall culture and beliefs.

The recent discovery in central Italy of a large stone with more writing on it than usual has archaeologists hoping for a chance to learn.

“We know how Etruscan grammar works, what’s a verb, what’s an object, some of the words,” one of the researchers said. Finding the slab at what was once a temple may help them learn the name of the god or goddess and something about how worship worked in that civilization.

That, in turn, will give them good clues as to how the Etruscans lived, archaeologists hope.

New discovery could help us understand an ancient culture

Two years ago, the world was panicked by the sudden, rapid outbreak of ebola in West Africa.

The often fatal disease was diffi cult to treat and was so contagious that it required medi-cal personnel to take extreme caution in how they handled patients and in how patients were housed in clinics and hospitals.

The epidemic in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ghana was particularly bad because of several factors.

One was that these countries have large rural areas where there is very little education and only limited medical help, clean drinking water and other health factors.

Another is that people had a culture not only of caring for sick people at home, but also of washing and dressing the bodies of dead family members at home.

Since one major way that ebola spreads is by contact, either with the person or with things like blankets that the person has used, it is clear that home care for the sick and dying meant that entire families and neighborhoods had many chances to catch the disease.

UNICEF and other aid organizations, together with governments of nations around the world, pitched in to help.

There were educational programs to help people understand ebola and how it spreads.

There were also educational programs to help health workers understand it better, and to pro-vide them with additional supplies so they could treat patients safely and eff ectively.

City hospitals and rural clinics were cleaned up and furnished with more linens and supplies for patients and more beds to house the sick safely.

There were also more health clinics built in rural areas, including by the United States Army and other providers not normally thought of as assisting with health problems.

These things combined to help slow the spread of ebola and to create an atmosphere in which the disease could take its place among the health risks medical experts knew how to treat and about which people in the community were better informed.

Last week, the World Health Organization met and declared that the ebola crisis is now over.

However, many West Africans were not pleased with this announcement.

It is true that the crisis has passed, but this does not mean ebola is no longer a problem in their part of the world, they said, and they fear that saying the crisis is over will cause people to become careless about the disease itself, and about the steps they have taken to improve health care in general.

The crisis has ended, but only because people have learned, and as long as they act wisely.

Ebola crisis is over, but ebola is not gone

Rules: Every row across, every column down and each of the six smaller boxes must contain numerals 1,2,3,4,5 and 6, one time and one time only.

The solution to this week’s puzzle is on Page 4.

On this date in 1614, Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married in Jamestown, Virginia, so our answers this week will start with “A” for “anniversary.”

1. The annual holiday on which people are encouraged to plant and care for trees.

2. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks were from this southern state.

3. Something served fi rst as a tasty snack to get you ready for the regular meal

4. Very large South American snake

5. The fi rst man to walk on the moon

6. Denver-based author with one name, he has written 70 kids’ books including “The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle” and “Crispin: The Cross of Lead”

7. This bad dude led the Green Mountain Boys during the American Revolution.

8. Tirana is the capital of this European nation, most of whose citizens are Muslim.

9. Colorado’s third-most populous county is named for these Plains Indians.

10. The United States Naval Academy is sometimes known simply by this name, the Maryland city where it is located.

(answers on Page Three)

At the height of the ebola crisis, West African nations responded with educa-tional eff orts, like these students passing out in-formation in Sierra Leone, and, with aid from other countries, by upgrad-ing clinics and medical facilities throughout the region. The crisis over, but that eff ort must continue.

(AP Photo/Michael Duff)

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“The Guinness World Records 2016” is a 255-page book of epic world records including anything from the tallest teen to the football team with

the best super bowl records to the longest wheelie.This book is good for anyone who likes epic stunts,

incredible feats, or the best sport stats.My favorite stunt that this book contains is the longest

motorcycle ride through a tunnel of fi re at 12.4 meters (395 ft. 0.15 in.).

I recommend this book for all ages from 8 to 80 and, on a scale from 1-100, I would rate this book a 100.

Generally I prefer books with a plot, but this was a nice change.

There is a topic for everyone. If you hate giraff es, fl ip the page!

The main categories are Media and Leisure, Adventures, Sports, Extreme Exploits, Humans, Animals, Construction, Modern World, Earth, and Humans in Action.

There are hundreds of records to look at or try to break. On page 108, I liked the record of most crash tests,

which stands at 988 crashes.

In sports I believe the best was the most passes received and completed passes in a Super Bowl game, held by Denver Bronco Demaryius Thomas at 13 passes during Super Bowl 48.

Also, I think the most impressive record was when Johannes Relleke had 2,443 bee stings removed and survived, even though 1,000 would kill an average non-allergic male adult.

The pictures are detailed and focused. If you read an average of 5 articles per page, you

should take about 1 hour to one and a half hours to fi nish the book.

‘Guinness World Records 2016’ epically fun

By Jack Vanourek,10, a CK Reporter from Littleton

The Denver Post •

is produced by Denver Post Educational Services

Executive Editor: Dana Plewkadplewka@denverpost.com

CK Editor: Mike Petersoncoloradokidseditor@gmail.com

We welcome your comments.

For tools to extend the learning in this feature, look under “Youth Content” at:

www.ColoradoNIE.com

eEditions of the Post arefree of charge for classroom use.Contact us for information on all

our programs.

Denver Post Educational Services101 W. Colfax Ave.Denver CO 80202

(303) 954-3974(800) 336-7678

Stories without bylines were written by the editor.

(see Page Three)

10 right - Wow!

7 right - Great!

5 right - Good

3 right - See you next time!

1. Arbor Day 2. Alabama 3. appetizer 4. anaconda 5. (Neil) Armstrong 6. Avi 7. (Ethan) Allen 8. Albania 9. Arapaho 10. Annapolis

Hot Links to Cool Sites!

NASA’s Space Placehttp://tinyurl.com/ckspace

NIE Special Reporthttp://tinyurl.com/ckniereport

Headline Geographyhttp://tinyurl.com/ckgeography

Pulse of the Planethttp://tinyurl.com/ckpulseplanet

How to become a NextGen Reporter!http://tinyurl.com/colokidsreporter

To read the sources for these stories

The end of the ebola emergency

Etruscan archaeology

go to http://www.tinyurl.com/ckstorylinks

Chapter Three: The Nature-loving City Boy

Theodore Roosevelt – “TR” to his friends, never “Teddy” –

was born a city boy, but he quickly developed a fascination for nature.

In part, it was because of his uncle, Robert Roosevelt, a nature writer who helped start several groups to oppose irresponsible hunting.

And, in part, it was because he saw a dead seal at the market.

He was only seven or eight when he was sent to the market for strawberries and saw the seal, which had been caught in New York Harbor, at a fish stall. He was fascinated and came back for several days to examine it, measure it and even make notes about it.

When the seal was finally sold, young Theodore somehow got the skull, and it became the first exhibit in the “Roosevelt Museum of Natural History” that he and his cousins started.

There was nothing special about the collection of strange things that came to be in the museum, he admitted later, except that it was his, and that his parents wanted him to be curious.

“My father and mother encouraged me warmly in this,” he wrote, “as they always did in anything that could give me wholesome pleasure or help to develop me.”

Roosevelt was homeschooled, and the “Roosevelt Museum” started him collecting bits of nature and keeping careful notebooks about his collections and things he saw in his trips to the country.

And a little boy with asthma in a city full of chimneys putting out coal and wood smoke needed to spend a lot of time in the country, if his parents could afford to take him there.

“One of my memories is of my father walking up and down the room with me in his arms at night when I was a very small person, and of sitting up in bed gasping, with my father and mother trying to help me,” he wrote.

Fortunately, the Roosevelts were quite well off, and young Theodore spent a great deal of time in the country, hiking and watching for things to add to his “museum.” He not only studied and wrote about the things he found, but he learned taxidermy so he could bring home birds and small animals for his collection.

In those days, when cameras were bulky and everyone had to sit perfectly still for a picture, the only way to draw pictures of animals was to shoot them first, and all serious naturalists had to also be hunters. Roosevelt began to collect birds and, in preserving them for display, learned about their bodies.

That was also how, at 13, Theodore learned something important about himself: “(I)t puzzled me to find that my companions seemed to see things to shoot at which I could not see at all,” he remembered later. “One day they read aloud an advertisement in huge letters on a distant billboard, and I then realized that something was the matter, for not only was I unable to read the sign but I could not even see the letters. I spoke of this to my father, and soon afterwards got my first pair of spectacles, which literally opened an entirely new world to me.”

As he grew to manhood, he exercised and became very fit, leaving much of his asthma behind. But he never left behind his love of nature. Not only did he continue to hike, camp and hunt, but, as a New York State legislator and then governor, Roosevelt helped pass laws to protect the forests and rivers of the state, and he wrote books about nature and animals.

He even left New York for a time and went out to the Dakotas to start a cattle ranch and live the life of a cowboy. He often joked about what a city dude he was, but the real cowboys appreciated his sense of humor and the fact that he always did his fair share of the work and was willing to live the same hard life that they did.

The friends he made out west became friends for life, and some even went to the Spanish-American War alongside him years later, as members of his “Rough Riders” brigade of cavalry.

Those cowboys were not his only friends. Through his writing and his political work, Roosevelt made friends with some of the most important nature writers and conservationists in the country.

Once, a magazine editor wrote about the mistakes Roosevelt had made in a book he wrote about animals, and Roosevelt was furious. He stormed into the editor’s office to argue with him, but then listened as the editor explained the mistakes.

Not only did Roosevelt admit he had been wrong, but he and George Bird Grinnell became great friends. They founded “The Boone and Crocket Club” to promote wise and responsible hunting and conservation of animals, and worked together to write and edit the club’s publications.

By the end of the 19th century, Theodore Roosevelt was a well-known politician who cared about people, a writer of books that sold very well and a hero of the war. He was elected Vice-President, and then, when President William McKinley was assassinated, he became the youngest US president in history.

In that position, he was able to do great things to help the nation and the conservation movement. But, as he rode out to Yellowstone with his friend John Burroughs, President Theodore Roosevelt still had a lot to learn about nature.

NEXT: The First National Park

by Mike Peterson, c. 2014 - illustrated by Christopher Baldwin, c. 2014

For a teaching guide, go to http://tinyurl.com/ckserial

The Trip That Saved Nature

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