NOVANews
Real news and big ideas for young readers
NOVA News is a small Australian learning site for school kids. Members read a new story every day at their own year level, answer quick quizzes and collect cards as they learn. NOVA Learn, our library of 54 fact-checked explainers, and NOVA Tools, hands-on tools for spelling, times tables, fractions, telling the time, money, the Moon, the planets, typing and place value, are free for everyone, with no account needed.
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NOVANews
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Real news, written for young readers.
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📚 NOVA Learn: big questions, real answers
54 explainers across 13 subjects, newest first. Each one is checked against trusted sources and has a real photo, a "Words to know" box, a hands-on activity and a quick quiz that explains every answer (216 questions in all).
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🦘 ScienceWhy do kangaroos hop instead of run?Kangaroos have springs built into their legs. Here is how hopping lets them cross the outback using surprisingly little energy.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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🕳️ SpaceWhat is a black hole?A black hole has gravity so strong that not even light can escape. So how did scientists take a picture of one? They built a telescope as big as the Earth.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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📡 SpaceHow the Parkes dish helped the world watch the first moonwalkIn July 1969, about 600 million people watched Neil Armstrong walk on the Moon. Most of the TV pictures they saw came through a giant radio telescope in country New South Wales.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🌋 GeographyHow do volcanoes work?Deep underground, rock melts into magma. Find out what pushes it to the surface, why some volcanoes explode while others ooze, and where Australia's volcanoes are hiding.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🏛️ HistoryHow did Federation make Australia one country?Until 1901, Australia was six separate British colonies with their own laws, taxes and railways. Follow the road to Federation, from conventions and votes in the 1890s to a big ceremony in Sydney on 1 January 1901, and find out who had a say and who was left out.Years 5–8 · 8 min read ·
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⛏️ HistoryHow did the gold rush change Australia?In the 1850s, news of gold pulled people from all over the world to Victoria and New South Wales. Follow the rush from creek gravel to the Eureka Stockade, and find out why it is a story about fairness and loss as well as fortune.Years 5–8 · 7 min read ·
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🦇 ScienceHow do bats find food in the dark?Many Australian bats shout in a voice too high for us to hear, then listen for the echo. Find out how that lets a tiny bat catch a mosquito at night, and why the big flying-foxes use their eyes and noses instead.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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🖼️ ComputingHow do computers store pictures?A computer has no paint and no film. It stores every picture as a long list of numbers. Zoom in on pixels, see how three numbers make any colour, and find out how a photo gets squeezed down to a tenth of its size.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🧲 ScienceHow do magnets work?Magnets can pull on some metals and push on other magnets, without even touching them. Meet the invisible field around a magnet, peek at the tiny patches inside a magnet, and find out why the whole Earth is one giant magnet.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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🐧 ScienceHow do penguins stay warm?Penguins swim in cold seas and stand on icy ground, yet their bodies stay warm. Find out how feathers, fat and clever blood vessels work together, how emperor penguins huddle through an Antarctic winter, and what Australia's little penguins do on Phillip Island.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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☀️ ScienceHow do solar panels make electricity?A solar panel makes electricity from sunlight with no fuel and no moving parts. Find out how a thin slice of silicon does the trick, why a box called an inverter is needed, and how rooftop solar has spread across so many Australian homes.Years 5–8 · 8 min read ·
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👂 ScienceHow do we hear sounds?Every sound you hear starts as a wobble in the air. Follow it through your outer ear, your eardrum, three tiny bones and a snail-shaped tube that turns it into signals for your brain. Then meet the Australian breakthrough called the bionic ear, and find out how to look after your own hearing.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
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🌈 ScienceHow does a rainbow form?A rainbow is made of sunlight that has bounced around inside millions of raindrops. Follow one ray of light through a drop, find out why you must have your back to the Sun, and learn why nobody can ever reach the end.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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♻️ GeographyWhat happens to the things we recycle?Your recycling does not just disappear. Follow a bin from the kerb to a giant sorting plant, see where each material ends up, and find out the honest story about soft plastics and why a few wrong items cause so much trouble.Years 5–8 · 7 min read ·
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🧬 ScienceWhat is DNA?DNA is a code written inside almost every living cell. Find out how a twisted ladder with just four chemical 'letters' holds the instructions for a koala or a kid, why you look like your family but not exactly like them, and how scientists worked out DNA's shape in 1953.Years 5–8 · 8 min read ·
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🍎 SpaceWhat is gravity?Gravity pulls apples to the ground, keeps the Moon circling Earth and holds you on the planet. Find out how it works, why a hammer and a feather fall together on the Moon, and why you would weigh a little less in Cape York than in Tasmania.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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💨 GeographyWhat makes the wind blow?You cannot see the wind, but you can see what it does to leaves, flags and waves. Find out how the Sun and air pressure get the air moving, why Perth waits for the Fremantle Doctor, and how forecasters tell how strong the wind is.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
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🗺️ GeographyWhy do maps of the world look different?Greenland looks as big as Africa on many maps, and Australia looks much smaller than it really is. Find out why you cannot flatten a ball without stretching it, and how map-makers choose what to get right.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🍂 ScienceWhy do some leaves change colour in autumn?In some places, whole streets turn gold, orange and red every autumn. Find out what is hiding inside a green leaf, where the new colours come from, and why most Australian gum trees stay green all year.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
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🥧 MathsWhy is pi special?Divide the distance around any circle by the distance across it, and you always get the same number. Find out why pi is the same for every circle, why its digits never end, how people have chased it for almost 4,000 years, and how to measure it yourself with a piece of string.Years 5–8 · 7 min read ·
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🏅 PE / SportHow did the Olympic Games begin?A running race in a Greek valley about 2,800 years ago grew into the biggest sporting event on Earth. Find out how the Games began, why they stopped for 1,500 years, and how an Australian helped them restart.Years 5–8 · 7 min read ·
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🐝 ScienceHow do bees make honey?No bee makes honey alone. Follow a drop of nectar from a flower to a wax cell, meet the bees that fan it dry, then find out how Australia's tiny stingless bees make a tangy honey called sugarbag.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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🎨 Art & DesignHow do colours mix?Mix red and green paint and you get a muddy brown. Shine red and green light together and you get yellow. Why do paint and light play by opposite rules?Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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🏔️ HistoryHow was the Snowy Mountains Scheme built?In 25 years, more than 100,000 people from over 30 countries drilled tunnels through solid rock to send mountain water inland and make electricity. Here is how they did it, and what it cost.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🍕 MathsWhat is a fraction?A fraction tells you how much of something you have. Slice a pizza, snap a block of chocolate, and find out why 1/2, 2/4 and 4/8 are secretly the same amount, and why people have been writing fractions for more than 3,500 years.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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📝 EnglishWhat makes a poem a poem?A poem does not have to rhyme, be old or be hard to understand. What matters is how the words sound, look and paint pictures in your head. Two famous Australian poems will show you how.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🌏 SpaceWhy do we have seasons?It is not about how close Earth is to the Sun. Earth leans over, and that lean swaps summer and winter between north and south. Find out why Christmas is in summer here, why Darwin has only two seasons, and how Aboriginal calendars read the year from the land.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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🌊 GeographyWhy is the sea salty?Rain, rivers and hot vents on the seafloor have been delivering salt to the sea for ages. Follow a grain of salt from a rock to your tongue, then visit a lake in the outback where the salt has nowhere to go.Years 3–6 · 7 min read ·
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🌱 ScienceHow do plants make their own food?Plants never eat, yet they can grow taller than a house. Their secret is photosynthesis: using sunlight to turn air and water into sugar, with oxygen as the leftover.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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💰 FinanceHow does saving money grow?Put money in a savings account and the bank pays you for it. Add time, and the interest starts earning interest of its own. Here is the maths, with simple numbers.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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❤️ ScienceHow does your heart pump blood?Your heart is a muscle about the size of your fist, and it squeezes around 100,000 times a day. Here is how it pushes blood out to every part of you, and gets it back again.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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🔢 MathsWhat are prime numbers?Primes are the building blocks of every whole number, they never run out, and they guard your secrets online. Grab a pencil and sift them out with a 2,000-year-old trick.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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📖 EnglishWhere do new words come from?English borrows words from other languages, squashes old words together and chops long ones short. Here is how new words are born, and how they earn a place in the dictionary.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🌧️ GeographyWhere does rain come from?Every drop of rain has been on a long journey: up from the sea as invisible vapour, into a cloud, and back down again. Follow the water cycle, Australian style.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
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🏏 PE / SportWhy does a cricket ball swing?A good swing bowler can bend a ball the best part of a metre in the air without spinning it sideways. The trick is the seam, the shine, and a layer of air thinner than a coin.Years 5–8 · 7 min read ·
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🔴 SpaceWhy is Mars red?Mars glows like a rusty-orange star in our night sky. The colour really is rust, and it holds a clue that the planet was once wet.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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🔢 MathsHow big is a million?A million seconds is about 11 and a half days. A billion seconds is almost 32 years. Here is how to picture numbers that are too big to imagine.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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🎭 Art & DesignHow did they build the Sydney Opera House roof?Jørn Utzon drew soaring shells that nobody knew how to build. After years of trying, the answer turned out to be hiding inside a sphere.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🚒 GeographyHow do firefighters fight bushfires?Bushfires follow the rules of science. Firefighters, pilots and whole communities use those rules to slow fires down, and to get ready long before one starts.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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🎸 MusicHow do musical instruments make sound?Every instrument, from a violin to a yidaki, works by making something vibrate. Here is how strings, air and drum skins turn tiny wobbles into music.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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🪸 ScienceHow do tiny coral polyps build the Great Barrier Reef?The biggest coral reef system on Earth was built by soft little animals, many smaller than your fingernail. Here is how they turn seawater into stone.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
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🦆 ScienceHow does a platypus find food with its eyes shut?When a platypus dives, it closes its eyes, ears and nose. Its soft bill takes over, sensing the tiny electric signals made by the animals it hunts.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
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🌐 ComputingHow does the internet send a message from Perth to London?Your message is chopped into packets, labelled with addresses and passed from router to router, often along cables on the sea floor. Here is the journey.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🗣️ LanguagesHow many languages are spoken in Australia?Long before English arrived, this continent was home to more than 250 languages. Today those languages are being woken up, and millions of Australians speak another language at home.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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🏺 HistoryHow the Rosetta Stone cracked the code of hieroglyphsFor well over 1,000 years, nobody could read ancient Egypt's picture writing. Then a broken slab of stone, dug up by soldiers in 1799, handed people the key.Years 5–8 · 5 min read ·
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🔺 HistoryHow was the Great Pyramid of Giza built?Not by slaves, and not by aliens. Archaeologists have found the builders' town, their tombs and even a boat crew's diary. Here is what the evidence tells us.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🌌 HistoryThe Emu in the Sky: reading the dark shapes of the Milky WayFirst Nations astronomers read more than the stars. They also read the dark spaces between them, where a giant emu marks the seasons of the year.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
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🌊 GeographyWhat causes the tides?Twice a day, the sea creeps up the beach and slides away again. The Moon is pulling the strings, and in north-west Australia the results are enormous.Years 5–8 · 5 min read ·
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🤖 ComputingWhat is an algorithm?An algorithm is a set of step-by-step instructions. A recipe is one, and so is the way you sort a hand of cards. Computers follow them exactly, which is why one tiny mistake matters.Years 3–6 · 5 min read ·
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💸 EconomyWhat is inflation, and why do prices go up?When prices rise across the board, each dollar buys a little less. Here is how Australia measures inflation, and why the Reserve Bank aims for 2 to 3 per cent.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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⚡ ScienceWhat makes lightning, and why does thunder boom?Inside a storm cloud, bumping bits of ice build up a giant electric charge. Here is how that becomes a flash and a boom, plus the simple rules that keep you safe.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
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🐝 MathsWhy do bees build honeycomb out of hexagons?Six-sided cells fit together with no gaps and use the least wax. People puzzled over it for 2,000 years before a mathematician proved the bees had it right.Years 5–8 · 6 min read ·
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🏜️ GeographyWhy does Australia have so many deserts?Most of Australia is dry, and it is not just bad luck. A belt of sinking air, a long line of mountains and sheer distance from the sea all play a part.Years 5–8 · 5 min read ·
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🌙 SpaceWhy does the Moon change shape?The Moon is always half lit by the Sun. What changes, night after night, is how much of that sunny half we can see from Earth.Years 3–6 · 6 min read ·
Free to use · no account needed
🧰 NOVA Tools: learn by doing
🔤 Spell It
Look at a picture, hear the word and tap the letter tiles to spell it. Hundreds of everyday words for Years 1 to 3.
Play Spell It →🔢 Times Tables Trainer
Practise any table from 1 to 12, race a 60-second clock and fill a colour grid as you learn every fact. Years 2 to 6.
Open the Trainer →🍕 Fraction Wall
Shade a wall of halves, thirds and quarters to see which fractions are equal, then compare them and take a challenge. Years 3 to 6.
Build a fraction wall →🕐 Clock Trainer
Drag the hands of a big clock, read the time in words and set the clock, from o'clock and half past to every minute. Years 1 to 4.
Tell the time →💰 Money Counter
Make amounts with Australian coins and notes, count piles of money, work out change and learn why cash totals round to 5 cents. Years 1 to 5.
Count some money →🌙 Moon Tonight
See tonight's Moon the way it looks from Australia, scrub through 30 days and find the next full Moon. Years 3 to 8.
See the Moon →🪐 Solar System Explorer
Scroll past the Sun and every planet at their true sizes and distances, send a ray of sunlight and find your weight on each world. Years 3 to 8.
Explore the planets →⌨️ Typing Trainer
Learn to type with all ten fingers: a coloured finger guide, 12 lessons from the home row to capital letters, and a 60-second test. Years 3 to 8.
Start typing →🧮 Place Value & Number Line
Build numbers with blocks from thousands to thousandths, trade 10 for 1, zoom into a number line and practise comparing and rounding. Years 2 to 6.
Build a number →👪 For parents and teachers
How children use NOVA News, how accounts are approved, and simple ways to use NOVA Learn at home or in class: read together, the "Words to know" box, the hands-on activities and the quiz.
Read the guide for grown-ups →🔍 How NOVA Learn is made
Every fact is checked against at least two trusted sources, which are listed on the page. Photos come from Wikimedia Commons and are credited. Explainers are written for Years 3 to 6 or Years 5 to 8, in Australian English.
Read our standards →🔒 The members' site
Members get a new story every day at their year level, quizzes, a reading streak, a word bank, learning games and a card game that rewards reading. Every account is requested, then approved by the Admin.
