>> you're watching "teen kids news," and here's what's coming up. >> omg! a new survey shows the downside of too much texting. brb. >> we'll meet two brothers who did something very special with their spring break. >> i'll tell you about a student art project that's really off the wall. >> did you ever want to join the circus? we'll meet some kids who are on their way. >> that and lots more right now on "teen kids news." >> welcome to "teen kids news." i'm mwanzaa. >> and i'm siena. here's our top story for this week.

>> texting. it's been around for more than 10 years, but when it comes to text etiquette, most of us are in uncharted territory. tyler joins us now to talk about the dos and don'ts of texting. tyler? >> one sec, mwanzaa. i'm wrapping up this text. was that rude? most teens, in a recent survey, say "yes," yet for some reason, we still do it. when is the wrong time to send a text message? >> obviously, like, if you're in class. >> like, at the movies. >> way late in the evening, like, waking somebody up. >> when you're in the car. >> probably dinner, 'cause my mom, like, hates me when i, like, start texting and, like, she's trying to talk to me. >> okay, we know it's wrong to text at school, dinner, or when talking with a friend, but have you ever done it? >> yes. >> yes. >> yes. >> yes, but i've never sent a text at school. >> margaret sullivan is with

text plus, a mobile app that's very interested in texting trends. so, it did a survey and found that the average teen sends 100 texts a day. that's about 3,000 texts a month. here's what else the survey found. >> 75% of texters say that it's rude to talk and text at the same time -- to text in the middle of a conversation, but 50% of kids say they've done it. >> but that particular rude behavior may be changing because of peer pressure. >> given how much teens are texting today, people might be shocked to find out that other kids are calling one another out on their rude behavior, so we actually have users who've said that in the past, when they're talking to a friend who's texting, and they're texting right in front of them, they'll shoot them a text saying, "you're being rude." >> given all the texts that are sent every day, it's not surprising that 85% of students admit to texting while in class, but you might find this surprising. >> a lot of those students have told us that it's their parents who are texting them during the class and during the school day. >> most adults don't think

they're encouraging bad behavior. they send the text thinking the message will just wait to be read at the end of the school day. but no kid is going to wait to read a text. what's the point? >> it's instant, it's fast, it gets to you right away. >> yes, texting is a useful and powerful technology, but with power comes responsibility. sometimes we're texting so fast we send messages to the wrong person. >> if you're sending about 100 texts a day, you've got to be typing pretty quickly. so, count to three, look at who you're sending it to, make sure it's the right person, and then press send. >> i was supposed to go out to a party with my friend, and i didn't want my brother to come, but i sent it to him instead. oops. >> i was messing around with my friend at school, and i accidentally sent it to the wrong person, and he took it the wrong way. >> me and a couple friends were texting about a surprise party, and i accidentally sent the text to the person who the surprise party was for. ruined everything. it was terrible. i felt so bad for so long afterwards. >> i was trying to text my

girlfriend, and i ended up texting my ex-girlfriend a very intimate message, and it did not end well. >> so, i was really mad at one of my guy friends because he was not doing a project with me the way i wanted him to, so i kind of cursed him out to my friend, and it turns out i sent the text message to him, so i'm not gonna do that on text message anymore. >> the most common text misfire is sending "i love you" to the wrong person. and, while we're on the subject of dating... >> so, if you're gonna ask someone out on a date by a text message, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. one, personalize it. make sure that it looks like it was actually meant for this person and that you didn't just send out a blanket e-mail to everyone, hoping for one date. >> and here's another etiquette tip. don't ask someone out who you've never met in person. that's just plain tacky. think of texting as a tool for quick communication, not a replacement for communication. >> take some time. texts are important. it's, of course, important to stay connected with your friends, but you should always

put down the phone and make sure that you're staying connected with the people around you. >> and remember, don't say anything in a text that you wouldn't say in person. it's easy to be mean in a text message, but it's just as hurtful. >> stay with us. there's a lot more coming up on "teen kids news." >> we'll be right back. >> george zimmerman is out from behind bars on $150,000 bail. the neighborhood watch volunteer is facing second-degree murder charges in the february 26th killing of florida teenager trayvon martin. he says the shooting was in self-defense. zimmerman taking the stand in a preliminary hearing apologizing to trayvon's parents for shooting the 17-year-old. >> i wanted to say i am sorry for the loss of your son. i did not know how old he was. i thought he was a little bit younger than i am. and i did not know if he was armed or not.

>> zimmerman will wear an electronic monitoring device while he waits trial. new clues in an investigation spanning three decades leading police and the fbi to a basement in new york city. officers digging up the concrete floor and tearing out drywall hoping to discover what happened to 6-year-old etan patz, who went missing in 1979 while walking by himself to a bus stop. the basement was used by a handyman in the late 1970s who gave patz a dollar for helping him a day before the little boy vanished. patz is the first missing child to appear on milk cartons. and space shuttle discovery making its way to its new home, hitching a ride on the back of a 747. the retired spaceship flying three times over washington, d.c. -- a final salute before going on display at the smithsonian. >> the shuttle served its purpose. it was a very, very successful program. i love the shuttles. i have a very wonderful place in my heart and for all the people that worked on them. but it is time to move on.

>> all four shuttles will retire to museums around the country. for "teen kids news," i'm heather childers, "fox news channel in the classroom." >> frankenstein, the statue of liberty, and a bald gold guy named oscar. these are some of the images you'll find covering the hallway walls in a rather unusual school project. christian has the story. >> the mural's a great place. it's the friendly place that everyone goes to when they have an inspirational feeling, and everyone's just so nice, and work gets done here. they actually get, boom, boom, boom, work. >> here is where students at william mckinley junior high school go to learn on their own time. >> we mostly come at 7:00 in the morning, and sometimes we stay after school. we've even spent our lunch periods in mr. buxton's class, trying to get in as much work as we can. >> no extra credit.

all they get is a cup of hot chocolate. >> language-arts teacher tom buxton dreamed up the project -- a giant mural that stretches half the length of a football field. it started when a student approached mr. buxton with an unusual piece of art. >> a young lady handed me a refrigerator magnet that had an image of rosie the riveter on it. >> rosie the riveter is a popular image from world war ii, created by american artist norman rockwell. >> and when i thought about it, it resembled an image on the sistine chapel ceiling. i checked it out. sure enough, that's what it was. it was isaiah. isn't that cool? >> isaiah is one of the prophets on the famous ceiling in rome. renaissance artist michelangelo painted isaiah 300 years before rockwell used the figure as a model for rosie the riveter. >> when i showed that to the kids, they became so enthralled at the idea of looking at the ceiling and what was on it, that i had to explain the whole thing to them, and i realized i had something here that i could work with with these kids, and that kind of sprung into the idea of the project. >> mr. buxton decided a mural was the perfect medium to help kids learn about art by doing

more than just reading about it. >> in a language-arts class, what they do is the study of the various types of literature, the poetry, the robert frost, to the study of the greek mythology. and afterwards, they come to me, and i expose them to the various artists that came from that era. and what they do is to learn all the secrets that's from the old masters and to fuse them with their own style of art. >> we bring everything that we learned in class to, like, another level. we draw it, we write poems about it, we do a lot of extra things that i don't think in other schools, they do it. >> my favorite thing is that it involves literature, artwork, and they're all connected in some way. >> frankenstein, for example. the kids will read the novel "frankenstein" in class, and we'll develop with them some ideas for what goes onto the mural in terms of a sketch. we might try to use some of the architectural features that you might see here. for example, we ended up using an electrical box to form the monster's heart because that's what he used to charge him up, so to speak.

>> it takes hours of drilling, sanding, and sketching to prepare each panel. >> a lot of work. a lot of dirty work. a lot of clothes that get ruined 'cause of paint. just a lot of work that you have to do. >> you see this -- this book? the blue one over here. that's kind of a -- it's a disaster. >> it doesn't go perfect all the way. a lot of times, they make mistakes, but we keep going on and on and on up until it's perfect, and we don't give up. that's our main motto. >> i think they become better individuals, you know? they're aware of the community. even just the camaraderie in working with each other, you know, "i'll hold this, you hold this," the conversations they have, i just think it makes them smarter and brighter in a broader sense. >> while we were there, a new section of the mural was being started. it's dedicated to the victims of 9/11. it doesn't matter whether any of these students can paint as well as norman rockwell or michelangelo. what does matter is that they can express themselves through art in the same way the old masters could. for "teen kids news," i'm christian.

>> the medal of honor is the highest award the united states can bestow on a person for bravery above and beyond the call of duty. >> the medal of honor came about because the united states army actually did not have any medals to give to its soldiers prior to the civil war. today, of course, you have to pretty much do a very heroic act -- something that's distinctly either saves lives or saves a situation. in the civil war, you didn't have to do that. a lot of times, a soldier would get a medal of honor for just picking up a dropped flag. today, though, you actually have to do something in combat with an enemy force, and that's a little bit different than some of the medals of honor that were given out in the past.

>> this report is brought to you by the national road safety foundation. staying up late, studying, stressing over grades and tests. do you think things like these can cause a teen to be distracted while driving? >> yes, because staying up late decreases your energy and it will make you drowsy or sleepy and studying because you have to worry about tests all the time and homework and things like that. >> i think so -- that you can get distracted while driving because of a lack of sleep. it makes you tired and you're not very focused on what's going on around you. >> i definitely do. even when they're not driving, teens are distracted by the amount of stress that you get from school, you know, from studying for tests and all these finals coming up and college applications. and i think that that carries over to when you're driving. >> they could go some, like,

rush to a test and by accident, even hit a pothole and just crash. >> yeah, pretty much. especially studying and the stress and all with tests. and especially at the end of the year with sats and most of those big exams. >> definitely. like, some days i wake up and i'm so tired. i stayed up till 3:00 in the morning. i couldn't imagine driving. you're just exhausted. [ chuckles ] >> definitely. if you're thinking about the homework that's due last period and getting it done and youron's information or that date, it can definitely distract you from what's happening on the road. >> well, it depends what kind of teen you are. if you do choose to stay up late and study, well, that's your own fault for not doing your work early. i think that if you concentrate hard enough and focus and you get the right amount of sleep, you're able to go on driving safely. >> your grades should certainly be important to you, but nothing should be more important than your health. for "teen kids news," i'm

nicole. >> spring breaks and summer vacations can be fun and exciting. they can also be very rewarding. tom and riley are brothers. they're a lot like other guys their age. they play a little hoops, do their homework, and toss the ball around with the family dog, so, as spring break approached last year, they figured it would be a lot like other spring breaks. >> most of our vacations are taken to -- we go to, like, beaches and vacation spots where you relax and don't... not action-packed. >> this time, though, the boys' mom had a different idea -- a very different idea. >> i wanted to do something where the boys would learn about how people live in other countries and learn about giving back. >> so she found this

organization, orphanage outreach, and we went on the trip and helped orphans. >> the orphanage was located in the dominican republic, which is in the sunny caribbean. but the boys were not enthused. >> we were both disappointed because, on spring break, you don't necessarily want to be working in an orphanage and whatnot. you want to be out playing with your friends at the beach or playing baseball or playing outside. >> things didn't exactly improve once they got there, either. >> first thing i saw when we arrived, we noticed, was how poor everyone was there. >> where we were was pretty remote and definitely very poor, but we went even out into areas that were more remote, and there was no running water and, you know, just goats and chickens all over the place. we were in a tent, and we were supposed to set it up ourselves, and, actually, it rained. it poured rain one night, and the whole tent collapsed on us. >> to make matters worse, very few of the local children spoke english. >> it was very tough speaking to

them, so a lot of things, we had to, like, make hand motions. >> but then, something very interesting happened. [ indistinct conversations ] [ bat clangs ] [ cheering ] the brothers began to discover how rewarding it was helping kids who had no families of their own. >> and they would lead them in baseball games and all sorts of other different things, and they had them singing, and it was amazing. >> everyone that we met was so -- they were all very kind. when we would be walking home, people would run out in the street, they would say hello to us, they would drive by, they would offer us water. >> and, as far as they're concerns about finding time to relax? >> we had tons of time to relax. but, usually when we had that time, we would go hang out with the orphans because we liked having fun with them. we would go play basketball or we would go play baseball or we'd play duck-duck-goose or any other games. >> it was just fun in a different way. it was a new experience. it was a great experience.

>> we met tons of new people, tons of awesome, fun-loving people who i just -- who i won't forget for the rest of my life. you just felt it changed your life. >> to find out how you can do something special with your spring break or summer vacation, visit our website. for "teen kids news," i'm erika. >> are you afraid of bugs? if so, be glad you're not living 50 million years ago in wyoming. paleontologists from simon fraser university recently discovered the fossil of what they call a "monstrously big ant." the ants were the size of hummingbirds. you're also probably glad they don't fly. >> walking a tightrope, working with animals, wearing colorful

costumes -- being a circus performer seems like a lot of fun. nicole tells us about a camp that gives teens a taste of what it's like under the big top. >> for more than 20 years, the circus arts camp has been teaching kids how to master skills ranging from acrobatics to juggling to balancing to balancing and juggling. the camp is in hartsville, new york, but their expertise is global. >> our instructors are coaches from the gymnastic fields, from professional circus, ringling bros. and barnum and bailey, european circuses, as well as the big apple circus, and then some of our teachers who have grown up through the program that we've trained. >> and expert help is definitely in order. for example, george makes the diabolo look easy. >> and once you have that, you can do all kinds of tricks with it -- plenty of stunts.

things like that, or step over it. and spin it under your leg. you can catch it out of the air, like this. things like that any many other fun things. you want to try it? >> i do want to try. >> okay. now, you right-handed? >> i am. >> so, you roll it towards your left shoulder and pick it up. roll it to your left and pick it up, and then up and down with the left -- the right hand. gently, gently. that's it! that's it. you got a beautiful spin right there. tightrope, and let it in. and let it in. yes, yes! good job. that's it. >> next, i tried my hand -- i mean foot -- at walking on stilts. if at first you don't succeed...

i was more at home on the trampoline. since i have one in my backyard, flipping in the air comes naturally. i get to try aerial fabrics next. polly seems to defy gravity as she gracefully executes her moves on the aerial hammock. >> which is basically a very long piece of fabric folded in half and tied in a knot way up there. >> since it's called a hammock, it makes sense that the one thing i learned how to do is lie down. >> well, sit first. there you go. [ laughs ] >> this pose is called "doing the coffin." ahh! now for something a little more challenging. >> so, you're gonna put your foot on the fabric and stand on up. >> okay. >> and just to make us a little more secure, we're gonna crisscross the fabrics. >> okay. >> then my foot's gonna come -- in dance, we call this passé, with your foot to your knee. >> okay. >> hands reach way up high, and

then you're gonna arch forward and let your hands slide down a little bit for your first pose. >> okay, now, how did she do that? i think -- yep, like this. hello. when we return, i get a lesson in funambulism. that's a fancy way of saying tightrope walking. we'll be right back. >> we're at the circus arts camp in heartsville. so far, i've learned to catch a diabolo, walk on stilts, flip on a trampoline -- whoop! -- and strike a pose on an aerial hammock. but a day at circus camp would not be complete without some tightrope walking. these fans are not for keeping cool. they're for keeping your balance. >> that's it. you're gonna feel the balance. i got you. you're doing great. now i'm gonna teach you how to walk. come on over here. so, when you start to walk, you're gonna do a brush-toe

slide. so, watch my feet. you brush by this foot. your toe finds the wire. and you slide. so, it's brush, toe, slide. brush, toe, slide. go ahead. that's it. right. good. now, you won't be looking down when you do it. you'll be looking straight ahead. so, your feet tell you where the wire is. you never lose contact with the wire then. excellent. >> fortunately, i was wearing my lucky snoopy socks. i'm stepping on my sock! >> so move forward. yeah, you got it. so, brush right there next to the foot alongside it. i got you. you're doing great. almost there. >> ahh-ahh-ah-ah. >> ah, you're good. you're good. >> okay. [ laughs ] >> all right! [ claps ] so, would you like to try the higher one? >> sure. let's try the higher one. as i head for the high wire, i

get a harness to help me keep on course. this wire is only about five feet above the gym floor, but it looks a lot higher. >> so, same thing. you're gonna do your brush-toe slide. keep your fan up. that's it. now try a little more balancing with the fan so you don't maybe have to depend on your hand so much. good job. all right. you did it! bravo! >> the circus arts camp certainly brings kids to new heights. i'm nicole for "teen kids news." ahh, and i'm falling again! >> that wraps up our show, but we'll be back soon with more "teen kids news." >> thanks for joining us, and have a great week.

steves: since the romantic era in the 19th century, luzern has been a regular stop on the grand tour route of europe. [ whistle blows ] its inviting lakefront now includes a modern concert hall, which incorporates the lake into its design. the old town, with a pair of picture-perfect wooden bridges, straddles the reuss river, where it tumbles out of lake luzern. the bridge was built at an angle in the 14th century to connect the town's medieval fortifications. today, it serves strollers, rather than soldiers, as a peaceful way to connect two sides of town. many are oblivious to the fascinating art just overhead. under the rafters hang about 100 colorful 17th-century paintings showing scenes from luzern and its history.

this legendary giant dates to the middle ages, when locals discovered mammoth bones, which they mistakenly thought were the bones of a human giant. here's luzern in about 1400, the bridge already part of the city fortifications. and luzern looked like this in 1630. luzern is responsible for controlling the lake level. by regulating the flow of water out of its lake, the city prevents the flooding of lakeside villages when the snow melts. in the mid-19th century, the city devised and built this extendable dam. by adding and taking away these wooden slats, they could control the level of the lake. swans are a fixture on the river today. locals say they arrived in the 17th century as a gift from the french king, louis xiv, in appreciation for the protection his swiss guards gave him. switzerland has a long history of providing

strong and loyal warriors to foreign powers. the city's famous lion monument recalls the heroism of more swiss mercenaries. the mighty lion rests his paws on a french shield. tears stream down his cheeks. the broken-off end of a spear is slowly killing the noble beast. the sad lion is a memorial to over 700 swiss mercenaries who were killed, defending marie antoinette and louis xvi during the french revolution. the people of luzern take full advantage of their delightful river with a variety of cafes and restaurants along its banks. this evening, we're enjoying the setting as much as the food. i'm having the local pork. my producer, simon, is having eel, fresh from the river. with a picturesque setting like this, the dining experience makes for a wonderful memory.