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In November's "Nature' Power" issue, we asked you to write a poem about a powerful natural event. Thank you to everyone who sent us their entries. We were blown away by your beautiful words and rhymes!
Careful My Calf
The ground shakes,
The wind is strong,
The waves soar high,
Like mountains in the sea.
Be careful of the surface,
My little calf,
Be careful where you swim,
Do not dare to swim up.
Up to where the waves crash,
Up to where you hear the wind dash.
We have to swim up,
Just once or twice for air,
But trust me, my darling,
It’s not safe up there.
Try to stay under,
Protected by the sea,
Otherwise, you’ll get pushed by the waves,
Like that lovely tree.
Hurricanes are more dangerous
On land than in the sea,
But it’s still important, baby,
That you stay close to me.
Tsunami
Chloe, aged 10, Sheffield
Wildfires!
The Forest is silent, nothing makes a sound,
Then in a flash, lightening hits the ground!
A shower of sparks is sent flying,
Animals are running with the fear of dying.
The sparks get caught on a bush, setting it aflame,
And just then the wind came,
Swirling, whirling through the fire,
The flames reaching their ultimate desire.
For now they’ve become a roaring inferno
The animals all hide and stay low
Very slowly, the fire begins to stop,
The ashes all silently drop,
Floating down all around,
Hitting the ground without a sound.
Volcano Erupting
I see smoke coming out of the top of the volcano.
The landscape is dying
As the ripples of the rock come falling down.
Lava, red and orange, like blood.
It looks like orange juice,
Flowing down the volcano in layers,
One on top of another.
I hear explosions: "Pow!" "Boom!"
It sounds like thunder.
I feel the shaking of trees about to die.
I smell smoke and dust, the clouds of ash.
I wonder what will happen to the volcano after it’s erupted.
Will it kill it, or will it make it even better?
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This competition asked you to design a secret egg hidden somewhere in nature, and your entries went far beyond the obvious nests and burrows. Eggs arrived disguised as pine cones, floating on leaf boats, perched on volcano ledges, tucked into cloud cover and even masquerading as chocolate Easter eggs to fool foxes. Thank you to every reader who took up the challenge and thought like a parent bird, fish, reptile or imaginary creature trying to keep their precious egg safe.
We were swept away by the response to this competition. Letters arrived from rivers across the world – the Thames, the Mississippi and many more unnamed waterways – each one brimming with personality, passion and a genuine love of the natural world. You gave your rivers voices that were worried, hop...
Somewhere beneath a grassy field right now, a tiny insect is building an underground loudspeaker. Male mole crickets engineer horn-shaped burrows that amplify their calls hundreds of metres into the night air – and your child can recreate the same science at home using nothing but cardboard and a phone. This hands-on experiment explores sound, shape and natural engineering in a way that is genuinely surprising. No screens, no special equipment, just a brilliant idea borrowed from nature.
