70 Fun Facts About Summer Trivia for Kids

Which three months make up summer in the Northern Hemisphere, according to weather forecasters?

Weather forecasters count June, July and August as Northern Hemisphere summer, dividing the year into four three-month seasons; astronomical summer instead runs from the June solstice to the September equinox.

When it is summer in the Northern Hemisphere, what season is it in the Southern Hemisphere?

It is winter there: from June to August the Southern Hemisphere tilts away from the Sun, so Australia and South Africa have their coldest months while the north has summer.

What do we call the day in June with the most daylight in the Northern Hemisphere?

The summer solstice falls on June 20 or 21, when the North Pole tilts as far toward the Sun as it gets and the Northern Hemisphere has its longest day.

Why do we have seasons?

The tilt is about 23.4 degrees, which lifts the Sun higher in the sky and makes days longer in summer.

About how long does sunlight take to travel from the Sun to Earth?

Light takes about 8 minutes (8 minutes 20 seconds) to cover the roughly 150 million kilometres from the Sun to Earth, a distance astronomers call one astronomical unit.

What is the Sun mostly made of?

The Sun is about three quarters hydrogen and one quarter helium by mass; each second its core fuses roughly 600 million tonnes of hydrogen into helium, releasing the energy that warms Earth.

What is a sunburn caused by?

UV light damages the skin, which is why sunscreen with a good SPF rating matters at the pool.

What do the letters SPF on a bottle of sunscreen stand for?

SPF means sun protection factor, a measure of how much longer protected skin takes to redden; the scale is credited to chemist Franz Greiter, whose 1946 Gletscher Crème rated only about SPF 2.

Which frozen treat did an 11-year-old reputedly invent in 1905 by leaving a stirred drink outside overnight?

Frank Epperson of Oakland said he left a soda-powder drink with its stirring stick out on a freezing night in 1905; he applied to patent his 'Epsicle' in 1923, later renamed the Popsicle.

The ice cream cone became famous at a World's Fair in 1904 in which US city?

St. Louis hosted the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, where ice cream served in rolled waffle cones became a craze; cones existed earlier, but that fair made them famous across America.

William Morrison, who co-invented cotton candy in 1897, had which surprising day job?

Morrison was a dentist from Nashville; with confectioner John C. Wharton he built an electric machine that spun melted sugar into threads, and their 'Fairy Floss' sold 68,655 boxes at the 1904 World's Fair.

A s'more is a toasted marshmallow and chocolate squeezed between what?

Graham crackers: the 1927 Girl Scout handbook Tramping and Trailing printed a recipe for 'Some Mores', a toasted marshmallow and chocolate pressed between two graham crackers; the shortened name followed in the 1930s.

Which ingredient gives modern marshmallows their springy, chewy texture?

Gelatin, whipped with hot sugar syrup, traps air bubbles and sets into the springy foam of a modern marshmallow; the original sweet was made from the sticky root sap of the marsh mallow plant.

Botanically, a watermelon is what kind of fruit?

A watermelon is a berry: botanists class its hard-rinded, many-seeded fruit as a pepo, the same type as cucumbers and pumpkins; it was domesticated in northeastern Africa thousands of years ago.

Which country grows nearly two thirds of the world's watermelons?

Seedless watermelons were first developed by Japanese scientists back in 1939.

In 1676 a company began selling lemonade from tanks carried on vendors' backs in which city?

Paris: in 1676 the Compagnie de Limonadiers won the right to sell lemonade from tanks strapped to vendors' backs, pouring cups of sweetened lemon water for passers-by in the streets.

The tiny 'seeds' on the outside of a strawberry are actually what?

Botanically the strawberry is not what most people assume, and it belongs to the rose family.

A peach with smooth, fuzz-free skin is called what?

A nectarine is a peach variety whose skin lacks fuzz, the result of a single recessive gene; nectarines and peaches are the same species, Prunus persica, and grow on the same kind of tree.

Which fruit is the national fruit of India, Pakistan and the Philippines?

The mango tree is also the national tree of Bangladesh.

Christopher Columbus was the first European to see a pineapple, on which Caribbean island in 1493?

On Guadeloupe in November 1493, during his second voyage, Columbus's crew found pineapples in a deserted village; the plant itself is native to the Paraná and Paraguay river basins of South America.

Fireflies are not true flies, so what kind of insect are they?

Fireflies are beetles of the family Lampyridae, with more than 2,000 species; their glow is thought to have begun in the larvae as a warning to predators that they taste bad.

How long do North America's periodical cicadas spend underground before emerging together?

Periodical cicadas of the genus Magicicada live underground as nymphs for 13 or 17 years, then emerge in vast broods within a few weeks; their chorus is among the loudest insect sounds.

Which way do fully grown sunflowers face?

Mature sunflower heads settle facing east: once the stem stiffens the daily sun-tracking stops, and east-facing heads warm faster in the morning, which draws more pollinating bees.

Where does a grasshopper have its ears?

A grasshopper's ears are a pair of tympana, thin membranes on the first segment of its abdomen just behind the hind legs; crickets and katydids instead carry theirs on the front legs.

Which mosquitoes bite people?

All mosquitoes drink flower nectar; females of many species also need blood to make eggs.

Which butterfly makes a famous long migration each autumn from the northern US and Canada to Mexico?

The monarch butterfly flies up to 4,800 km to overwinter in the oyamel fir forests of central Mexico; its caterpillars eat only milkweed, which makes the adults taste awful to birds.

How many stages does a butterfly's life have?

Four stages: egg, caterpillar (larva), chrysalis (pupa) and adult, a sequence called complete metamorphosis; the caterpillar's body is largely rebuilt inside the chrysalis.

What do worker bees feed to larvae chosen to become queens?

Royal jelly, a protein-rich secretion from glands in young workers' heads, is fed to every larva for its first days, but only future queens keep receiving it until they pupate.

What are most seashells found on the beach made by?

The shells are mostly calcium carbonate, which is why they last so long after the animal is gone.

How many arms do most starfish have?

Most starfish have five arms, matching the five-fold symmetry shared by echinoderms, though sunflower stars grow 16 to 24; most species can regrow a lost arm.

How do dolphins sleep without drowning?

Dolphins are mammals, so they must come up for air even while resting.

How many kinds of sea turtle are there in the world?

There are seven sea turtle species: green, loggerhead, hawksbill, leatherback, olive ridley, Kemp's ridley and flatback; the leatherback is the largest, and females return to their natal beach to nest.

Which of these beach animals has existed for more than 500 million years?

Jellyfish: fossils of these soft-bodied drifters date back more than 500 million years to the Cambrian; they swim by pulsing their bell, and some species are eaten as a delicacy in East Asia.

What causes the ocean's tides to rise and fall about twice a day?

The Moon's gravity does most of the work, which is why high tide moves a little later each day.

A rainbow always appears in which part of the sky?

A rainbow is always centred on the point directly opposite the Sun, so the Sun must be behind you; sunlight bends and reflects inside raindrops, putting red on the outer edge of the arc.

What kind of cloud makes a thunderstorm?

Cumulonimbus clouds, towering 12 km or more, hold the updraughts that separate electric charge and make lightning; they can also drop hail and, at worst, spawn tornadoes.

Which US holiday on July 4 celebrates the 1776 adoption of the Declaration that made America its own country?

Independence Day: Congress voted for independence on July 2, 1776, and adopted the Declaration of Independence two days later, which is the date the holiday took.

Canada Day on July 1 marks Canada becoming a country in which year?

Confederation on July 1, 1867 united Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick as the Dominion of Canada; the holiday was called Dominion Day until 1982, when Canada patriated its constitution.

France's national holiday on July 14 remembers the storming of which prison in 1789?

The Bastille, a royal fortress-prison holding just seven inmates, fell to a Paris crowd on July 14, 1789; France marks the day with a military parade down the Champs-Élysées.

Which chemical element gives fireworks their bright red colour?

Strontium salts such as strontium carbonate burn with a deep red flame, so they go into red stars and flares; copper gives blue, barium green and sodium a bright yellow.

In 1752, who flew a kite in a storm to show that lightning is electricity?

Benjamin Franklin's June 1752 kite experiment in Philadelphia drew charge from a storm cloud down the wet string to a key, showing lightning is electrical; he went on to invent the lightning rod.

The first modern Summer Olympics were held in 1896 in which city?

Athens hosted the first modern Olympics in April 1896, with 14 nations and about 240 athletes, all men, competing in the rebuilt marble Panathenaic Stadium.

How often are the Summer Olympics normally held?

The Summer Olympics are held every four years, a span the ancient Greeks called an Olympiad; only the World Wars cancelled Games (1916, 1940, 1944), and Tokyo 2020 slipped a year to 2021.

Beach volleyball, an Olympic sport since 1996, most likely started in 1915 in which famous seaside spot?

The two-player version we know today grew up in Santa Monica, California, in the 1920s.

Surfing became an Olympic sport at which Games?

Surfing debuted at Tokyo 2020, held in 2021 at Tsurigasaki Beach in Chiba; the first champions were Brazil's Ítalo Ferreira and Hawaii's Carissa Moore.

How many innings are there in a normal baseball game?

Each team has nine players, and if the score is tied after nine, they keep playing extra innings.

Super Soaker inventor Lonnie Johnson worked as an engineer for which space agency?

Lonnie Johnson was an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working on the Galileo mission to Jupiter, when a jet of water from a home heat-pump experiment gave him the idea in 1982.

The Frisbee got its name from a company that made what?

Yale students tossed the empty tins of the Frisbie Pie Company; Wham-O borrowed the name in 1957.

The plastic hula hoop craze of 1958 was inspired by children playing with bamboo hoops in which country?

Wham-O founders Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin heard in 1957 that Australian children were exercising with bamboo hoops, made a plastic version, named it after the Hawaiian hula dance and sold 25 million in four months.

Edwin Perkins invented Kool-Aid powder in 1927 by drying out which liquid concentrate?

Fruit Smack, a liquid concentrate whose glass bottles often broke in the post, was dehydrated by Edwin Perkins of Hastings, Nebraska, into Kool-Ade powder in 1927; the spelling became Kool-Aid in 1934.

Which Disney Channel cartoon has two stepbrothers on summer vacation while their platypus fights Dr. Doofenshmirtz?

Phineas and Ferb, on Disney Channel from 2007, follows two stepbrothers building wild summer projects while their pet platypus Perry battles Dr. Doofenshmirtz; sister Candace never manages to bust them.

In Finding Nemo, what kind of fish is Nemo?

Nemo is a clownfish, an orange-and-white reef fish that shelters among sea anemone tentacles; his friend Dory is a regal blue tang, and the 2003 film was then the highest-grossing animated movie.

Which summer film's song 'Summer Nights' was sung by John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in 1978?

Grease: in the 1978 film musical, Danny and Sandy retell their beach romance to their friends in 'Summer Nights'; the single spent seven weeks at number one in Britain and reached the US top five.

Lilo & Stitch is set on which Hawaiian island?

Lilo & Stitch (2002) is set on Kauai, whose towns and beaches the animators sketched on research trips; Lilo adopts alien Experiment 626 as her 'dog', and the film is about ohana, family.

The 'dog days' of summer are named after Sirius, which is a what?

Sirius, in the constellation Canis Major (the Great Dog), is the brightest star in the night sky; ancient Greeks and Romans blamed its dawn rising in late July for the heat and lethargy of midsummer.

The first organised summer camp in the US, the Gunnery Camp, opened in 1861 in which state?

Connecticut: schoolmaster Frederick William Gunn of the Gunnery in Washington, Connecticut, marched his pupils to the shore at Milford in August 1861 for two weeks of camping, boating and fishing.

The word 'hammock' comes from the language of which Caribbean people?

The Taíno of the Caribbean wove sleeping nets they called hamaca; Columbus described them in October 1492, Spanish sailors adopted the word, and hammocks later saved space aboard ships.

Modern American flip-flops are thought to be based on the zōri, a traditional sandal from which country?

Japan: US soldiers returning from the Second World War brought home zōri, flat Japanese sandals with a thong between the toes; rubber copies became everyday American summer footwear in the 1960s.

What makes a popcorn kernel pop?

Water inside the kernel turns to steam: at about 180 °C the pressure inside the sealed hull reaches roughly nine atmospheres, the hull bursts and the starch puffs to 20 to 50 times its size.

Which ice cream chain made '31 flavours, one for every day of the month' its big idea?

Baskin-Robbins, founded in 1945 by brothers-in-law Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins in California, adopted the '31 flavors' slogan in 1953 so customers could try a different flavor every day of the month.

Ice cream sundaes were reportedly invented to get around laws that banned selling what on Sundays?

Sodas: the story goes that 'blue laws' in towns such as Evanston, Illinois forbade selling soda water on Sundays, so fountains served ice cream with syrup instead; Buffalo, Two Rivers and Ithaca also claim the sundae.

What do ladybugs ooze from their leg joints to put off predators?

A foul-tasting yellow fluid: when handled or attacked a ladybug 'reflex bleeds', squeezing bitter, alkaloid-laden blood from its leg joints; its red and black colours warn birds to leave it alone.

What is a ladybug's favourite food?

Many mothers lay their eggs right next to an aphid colony so the babies hatch beside lunch.

The world's smallest bird, found in Cuba, is named after which insect?

The bee hummingbird of Cuba is named for the bee: at about 6 cm long and around 2 grams, the weight of a paperclip, it is easily mistaken for a large bee as it hovers at flowers.

How do crickets make their chirping sound on summer nights?

Crickets rub their wings together: a ridged 'file' on one forewing scrapes a hard edge on the other, and only the males sing; they chirp faster as the night gets warmer.

Sunflower seeds are packed in spirals that follow which famous number sequence?

The Fibonacci sequence: a sunflower head packs its seeds in two sets of spirals, typically 34 one way and 55 the other, or 55 and 89, consecutive Fibonacci numbers that fill the disc without gaps.

Which two Chinese thinkers are said to have invented the kite around 2,500 years ago?

Mozi, the philosopher, and Lu Ban, the master carpenter, are credited with wooden bird-kites called muyuan in the 5th century BC; later kites used silk and then paper stretched over bamboo.

Where was the world's first known swimming pool, the Great Bath, dug about 4,500 years ago?

Mohenjo-Daro, a city of the Indus Valley civilisation in today's Pakistan, had the Great Bath, a brick tank about 12 by 7 metres sealed with bitumen, built around 2500 BC.

How deep is Deep Dive Dubai, the pool Guinness certified as deepest in 2021?

Deep Dive Dubai is 60 metres deep and holds 14 million litres of water; Guinness World Records certified it as the deepest pool in June 2021, and divers explore a sunken 'city' inside.

What word was written all over the world's largest beach ball, made in London in 2017?

Baywatch: Paramount inflated the 19.97-metre ball in London in May 2017 to promote the Baywatch film, and Guinness World Records handed the certificate to the film's cast.