50 Fun Facts About Trivia for 9 Year Olds

Which popular snack is really a legume, like beans and lentils, whose pods grow underground?

A peanut plant flowers above ground, then sends a thin stalk called a peg down into the soil, where the pod finishes growing.

Which plant is really a giant grass, with some kinds growing about three feet in a single day?

Bamboo shoots, stems and leaves are the main food of the giant panda, and the stalks of the biggest kinds grow about 150 feet long.

Which weather event heats the air until it booms, reaching five times the heat of the Sun's surface?

Lightning heats the air it passes through to about 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and the rumble made by that sudden burst of heat is what we call thunder.

Which landmark, a gift from the people of France, was shiny brown copper before turning green?

The Statue of Liberty changed color within about twenty years, and its green coating now shields the metal underneath from more damage.

Which icy world, named by an eleven-year-old schoolgirl, was called the ninth planet until 2006?

Pluto got its name from Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, who loved ancient myths, and astronomers now class it as a dwarf planet.

Which ocean liner, once called unsinkable, sank on its very first voyage after striking an iceberg?

The Titanic was the largest ship afloat when it left Southampton, England, for New York in April 1912, and it carried only twenty lifeboats.

The orca, nicknamed the killer whale, is really the largest member of which family of sea animals?

Dolphins count the orca as their biggest relative, and many orcas live in close family groups called pods, built around a mother and her young.

Which everyday material, first used for beads long ago, is made mostly by melting sand?

Glass is made by heating sand rich in silica until it melts, then cooling the hot liquid quickly so that it sets hard.

Which meat-eating plant snaps its leaves shut when an insect touches the tiny hairs inside?

The Venus flytrap is native to the wetlands of North Carolina and South Carolina, where it catches mostly insects and spiders.

Bumping which joint squashes a nerve against bone and causes the tingle people call the funny bone?

The elbow is where the ulnar nerve runs just under the skin with no muscle to cushion it, so a knock there feels like a small electric shock.

Which bird of prey, often called the fastest animal alive, can dive at more than 200 miles per hour?

The peregrine falcon has moved into big cities, where it nests on tall buildings and hunts the pigeons that live there.

Which rodent, the national animal of Canada, chews down trees to build dams and lodges?

A beaver is the second-largest rodent alive, after the capybara, and its dams turn streams into ponds where it can build a safe home.

In which upright-swimming fish does the father carry the eggs in a pouch until the babies hatch?

A male seahorse can be handed up to 1,500 eggs at one time, and he carries them for between 9 and 45 days before the tiny young swim out.

Which ape that uses sticks as tools is, with the bonobo, the closest living relative of humans?

The chimpanzee makes tools from sticks, rocks, grass and leaves, and uses them to reach honey, termites, ants, nuts and water.

Whales, bats and humans all belong to which group of animals?

Mammals feed their babies milk, and they also have fur or hair and three tiny bones in the middle ear, features that set them apart from other animals.

Which hunter, shown as human-sized in the Jurassic Park films, was really about as big as a turkey?

Velociraptor was also covered in feathers, and it had a large curved claw on each back foot that it probably used to pin down its prey.

Which animals died out about 66 million years ago after a huge asteroid struck what is now Mexico?

Dinosaurs were hit by a space rock six to nine miles wide, yet one branch of the family lived on, and its members are today's birds.

Which pancake topping is made by boiling tree sap, mostly in the Canadian province of Quebec?

Maple syrup starts as watery sap collected from holes drilled into tree trunks in late winter, then heated until most of the water has gone.

Which planet is both the smallest of the eight and the closest to the Sun, circling it in 88 days?

Mercury has days that outlast its years: one sunrise to the next takes about 176 Earth days, twice as long as one trip around the Sun.

Which icy space object grows a glowing tail of gas and dust when it passes close to the Sun?

A comet can grow a tail longer than the distance from Earth to the Sun, and about one a year is bright enough to see without a telescope.

Which event happens when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, turning day dark for minutes?

A solar eclipse is total only along a narrow track across Earth's surface, and watching one without special eye protection can cause lasting harm.

Which step of the water cycle turns puddles into an invisible gas and cools your skin as sweat dries?

Evaporation happens at the surface of a liquid, and it takes heat away as it goes, which is why wet laundry dries faster on a windy day.

Which gas, named after the Greek word for the Sun, is used to make party balloons float?

Helium is the second-lightest element of all, after hydrogen, so a balloon filled with it weighs less than the air around it and rises.

Which tool, invented in ancient China, uses a magnetized needle to show which way is north?

The compass was first used in China for telling fortunes, about 2,000 years ago, and only much later for finding the way on journeys.

Which giant spinning storm forms over warm ocean water and has a calm center known as the eye?

A hurricane has a twin with a different name: the same kind of storm is called a typhoon when it forms in the northwestern Pacific Ocean.

Which disaster, set off when underground rock suddenly slips, is most common around the Pacific?

The strongest earthquake ever measured struck Chile in 1960 and reached 9.5 on the scale that scientists use to compare them.

Which continent has more than fifty countries and holds both the Sahara desert and the Nile river?

Africa has 54 countries and is the second-largest continent, and its Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world.

Which country is the largest on Earth, so wide that it stretches across eleven time zones?

Russia shares land borders with fourteen other countries, from Norway in the northwest to North Korea in the southeast.

Which country, the largest in South America, is the only one in the Americas that speaks Portuguese?

Brazil holds most of the Amazon basin, which has the largest river system in the world and its widest stretch of untouched tropical forest.

Which European country is shaped like a high-heeled boot and is the birthplace of pizza?

Italy completely surrounds two tiny independent countries, San Marino and Vatican City, the smallest country in the world.

The biggest structure made by living things, a reef off Australia, was built by which tiny animals?

Corals called polyps, billions of them, built the Great Barrier Reef, which is so large that it can be seen from space.

Which black opening in the middle of the eye shrinks in bright light and widens in the dark?

The pupil looks black because nearly all the light that goes in through it is soaked up inside the eye instead of bouncing back out.

Which mineral, found in milk, cheese and yogurt, does the body use to build strong bones and teeth?

Calcium is stored almost entirely in the bones and teeth, and growing children aged 9 to 13 need more of it each day than most adults do.

Which general of the Revolutionary War became the first president of the United States?

George Washington won the vote of every elector both times he ran, and the national capital and a state were later named after him.

Which explorer left Spain in 1492 with three ships, hoping to reach Asia, and landed in the Bahamas?

Christopher Columbus was looking for a sea route west to the East Indies and their spices, and he crossed the ocean four times in all.

Which pilot became the first woman to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean, in 1932?

Amelia Earhart vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 while trying to become the first woman to pilot a plane all the way around the world.

Which picture writing of ancient Egypt was decoded in the 1820s with help from the Rosetta Stone?

Hieroglyphs used more than 1,000 different signs, and a French scholar named Jean-François Champollion was the one who finally cracked them.

Which invention did Alexander Graham Bell, a Scottish-born teacher of deaf students, patent in 1876?

The telephone made Bell famous, yet he thought of it as an intrusion on his real work as a scientist and refused to have one in his study.

Which woman escaped slavery and then made about 13 trips back to lead others to freedom?

Harriet Tubman used the secret network of helpers and safe houses called the Underground Railroad to rescue about 70 people, including her own family.

Florida is a famous example of which landform, a strip of land with water on most of its sides?

A peninsula stays joined to the mainland on one side, and the one in Florida gives the state the longest coastline of the lower 48 states.

Which Roman numeral, seen on many clock faces, stands for the number ten?

X means ten, so the Romans wrote nine as IX, with a one placed in front to show that it is taken away.

Which short poem follows a 5, 7, 5 pattern and often appears as three lines in English?

A haiku comes from Japan, and it traditionally includes a word or phrase that tells the reader which season of the year it is.

Which kind of reference book, named in 1595 after a mythical king, is a collection of maps?

An atlas was given its name by the mapmaker Gerardus Mercator, who admired the legendary King Atlas as the first great geographer.

Which author and former fighter pilot wrote Matilda, The BFG and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

Roald Dahl served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, and his books have sold more than 300 million copies around the world.

Which magical land does Lucy Pevensie reach by stepping through a wardrobe in a spare room?

Narnia is a land of talking animals, and when Lucy first arrives the White Witch has kept it in winter for a hundred years.

Which road race of just over 26 miles is named after a battlefield in ancient Greece?

The marathon takes its name from the legend of a Greek messenger who ran all the way to Athens with news of a victory in battle.

Which type of rock, such as granite, forms when hot magma or lava cools and hardens?

Igneous comes from a Latin word meaning fiery, and it is one of the three main types of rock, along with sedimentary and metamorphic.

Which scientist pointed an early telescope at Jupiter in 1610 and discovered its four largest moons?

Galileo Galilei first called them the Medicean Stars, and they were the first objects ever found circling a planet other than Earth.

Which artist painted the Mona Lisa and also filled notebooks with studies of anatomy and plants?

Leonardo da Vinci also came up with ideas for flying machines, an armoured fighting vehicle and a way to use the Sun's heat for power.

Which green pigment in leaves soaks up sunlight so that a plant can make its own food?

Chlorophyll soaks up blue and red light best and takes in far less green light, which is why most leaves look green to us.