>> welcome to "teen kids news." i'm livia. let's start with our top story. lots of us help to raise money for good causes. but ellie tells us about one teen who raised an outstanding amount in a surprisingly short amount of time. >> lisette and caroline have an extra-special bond. they're sisters just two years apart. but their closeness goes deeper than that. when they were very little, lisette saved caroline's life >> when i was 2, i was diagnosed with a really rare cancer called

acute myelogenous leukemia, also known as a.m.l. >> only a transplant of bone marrow could save caroline... and only a transplant from someone whose bone marrow was a perfect match with hers. the best-case scenario for a match was a sibling, and i'm caroline's only full sibling, and i was a perfect match. >> the transplant from her big sister worked. caroline has been in remission -- that means no cancer -- for 11 years. >> and because of all of that, she's honestly my best friend. i know i mean the world to her, and she means the world to me. >> that's a lie. it's a secret. she's not supposed to know i love her that much. >> now lisette is proving her love in a different way. she's raising money to find a cure for the disease that almost claimed her sister's life.

both girls have been active with the leukemia and lymphoma society. so lisette decided to enter the society's "woman of the year" competition. >> it's a 10-week fundraising competition, so basically we compete to raise the most money. but it's like a fun competition because we all have the same goal. we all want a cure for blood cancers. >> lisette set a seemingly impossible goal -- to raise $50,000 in only 10 weeks. >> so this is a box i made at the beginning of my campaign. i have my team name, lisette conquers leukemia. >> a family friend contributed a drawing of lisette as a superhero. >> it kind of looks like me. >> then she set up a fundraising page online and her own website explaining her campaign. that was just the beginning. >> like, i had a whole bunch of events. so far, i had a cookie party. and then i had a scavenger hunt. and then i'm actually -- i've been doing fundraising at caroline's school.

also i've been selling t-shirts. >> a whole lot of t-shirts. and flowers, too. add some colorful posters, and you have a recipe for success. when the 10 weeks were up, lisette had not only reached her goal, she had exceeded it, raising... it was an impressive amount but not enough to land her the title "woman of the year" at the society's big celebration. still, lisette wasn't disappointed. >> and what i really like is that the slogan is, "whoever wins, cancer loses." and so that makes me -- almost, like, inspires me to raise even more money. because i'm like, regardless of how much i raise, i know that we are going a step closer to finding a cure. >> lisette may not have won the competition, but she clearly has the heart of a champion. by the way, the leukemia and lymphoma society has all kinds of ways for teens to get involved. we have a link on our website. >> this important message is

brought to you by the aclu, because constitution day is every day. [ up-tempo music plays ] >> teens are learning how to protect all of us from a serious threat. i'll have the story when we return.

>> for this next story, you need to understand that the word "vulnerability" means a kind of weakness -- a weakness that can make you a target. vulnerability in a computer system makes it a target for hackers. if you read the headlines, you know that even banking and military computer systems can be vulnerable. cyber attacks, as they're called, are a real danger. and that brings us to carina's report. >> say hello to the front lines of future battles against cyber attacks. these teens are among the winners of the national high school defense competition, also known as the cyber patriot competition. >> we put the two terms together -- "cyber" because that's what we're about, and "patriot" because we're teaching good citizenship, and you end up with "cyber patriot." >> to compete at the finals in washington, teams had to first meet challenges back home. >> after three online rounds of competition in which they're judged on how well they fix cyber vulnerabilities, 28 teams are selected and flown here, all

expenses paid, to the national capital, where they compete head to head against all the other teams that have qualified for the national finals competition. >> at the finals, the teens had to ward off cyber attacks designed by professional engineers. >> and the first-place winner... [ drumroll ] ...is chantilly academy. [ cheers and applause ] >> competitors take home more than awards and scholarship money. they also take home a deeper understanding of the importance of protecting our computer systems. >> everything on the internet -- and we put all of our important stuff on, you know -- files on a computer or something, so it's really important to know how to protect them. >> it's just another way to keep everybody safe. just like police out on the street, how they keep everybody safe, it's the same way through the internet. >> run by the air force association, the competition is sponsored by northrop grumman.

it's a company that specializes in protecting us from cyber attacks. >> and what we look for in future professionals in the cyber-security business is teamwork, collaboration, communication. and when you see these students in action, they're demonstrating all of those skills. >> another goal of the cyber patriot competition is to inspire more teens to become interested in stem -- science, technology, engineering, and math. along with cyber security, these are all considered vital to our nation's future. >> want to be the best you can be? it all starts with being healthy. as you're about to see, it's pretty easy. >> okay, so you brush your teeth morning and night, floss, and go to the dentist. but guess what. that may not be enough. jax hubbard is a nutritionist at

downstate long island college hospital. hi, jax. >> hi, there. >> it's pretty obvious that candy and sugary gum are bad ideas. >> correct. you might be surprised to learn about some other foods that may harm your teeth, as well. for example, raisins. they're full of sugar, and they're very sticky. so the sugar stays on your teeth a long time, which can cause tooth decay. lemons are very acidic, meaning they have a high level of acid. and too much of that can damage your teeth. >> how about drinks? >> what you drink can deposit sugar on your teeth, as well. so you need to avoid soda and other sweetened beverages. instead, drink lots of water. that's great for your teeth and gums. >> you know, it's not easy to brush while at school. >> true. it's best to brush, but if you can't, at least rinse your mouth out with water after you eat. and carry floss, or there are throwaway plastic toothpicks. >> a wise person once said, "be true to your teeth, and they'll never be false to you." thanks, jax. >> my pleasure. >> with health bites, i'm katie.

>> this report is brought to you by big mountain entertainment. >> ♪ i was never the one to be a trend ♪ ♪ no >> if you'd like a chance at being in the music video for "i just wanna be me," go to facebook.com/sixstoriestold and select "music video contest" from the "more" tab. >> the song "i just wanna be me" is about being yourself. sing it, show us what makes you unique, and send us in the video, and we can put you in our music video. >> you've got until september 1st to enter. all of the submissions will be judged by the band. good luck!

>> i'm about to have a close encounter of the dolphin kind. hello. >> hi, scott. i'm carolina. >> nice to meet you. >> nice to meet you. welcome to the national aquarium. >> well, thank you. i've always wanted to be here, see some dolphins. >> are you excited? >> i'm super excited. >> awesome.

>> the national aquarium in baltimore, maryland, is right on the harbor leading to the chesapeake bay and atlantic ocean. that's where some of the aquarium's star attractions come from. bottlenose dolphins are crowd favorites. they're not fish. they're mammals. the babies get milk from their mothers. and just like us, they're sociable. and how smart are dolphins? >> dolphins are very smart. it's kind of hard to categorize exactly how smart they are, because there's no true way of knowing. but they're very socially complex animals. they learn pretty easily, so it's a lot of fun to work with them. >> i was soon going to find out just how true that is. but one more question first. and how do they communicate with each other? >> they communicate in a lot of different ways. so, most of the time when people think of dolphins and communication, they think of vocalizations like clicks and whistles, and that is part of it. we don't know obviously what they're saying. that's between them. but the other ways they

communicate sometimes is body language. so a lot of times they will jump out of the water, make really big splashes. they'll kind of hit their pectoral or flukes against the surface of the water, and that's all communication among the dolphins. >> dolphins have something in common with us teens. we both spend time in schools. >> yeah, so "schools" is the term that we use when dolphins hang out together in big social groups. it can also be called a pod of dolphins. and it can be a different range of numbers, anywhere as few as about 10 or 12 to as big as a couple of hundred dolphins at a time. >> but "school" has an extra-special meaning for these dolphins. they get lessons. first they're taught by following a pole. but soon they learn to respond to hand signals. and that's how the trainers guide them through their show. carolina introduced me to the family, sisters maya and chesapeake and chesapeake's daughter, bayley. >> we're gonna go ahead, and

we're gonna meet maya first. >> all right. >> so i want you to come down next to me on either side -- whatever is most comfortable for you. and we're gonna go ahead... [ hand slaps on water ] all right, so this is maya. maya is 12 years old. [ dolphin clicking ] >> just like a puppy waiting to be petted, maya stretched out so i could run my hand along her back and her tail, or fluke. >> what do you think she feels like? >> like a dolphin, i guess. >> like a dolphin. yeah. sometimes people describe it as like a hard-boiled egg, like with the shell is taken off. >> seems maya didn't like that comparison. >> all right, scott, are you ready to ask her for some behaviors? >> yes. >> [ laughs ] all right, so we're gonna ask her to applaud. so what i want you to do is put both hands straight up and just wave to her really big. good job. very nice. all right. all right, now we're gonna ask

her to do some vocalizations on cue, so what i want you to do is put your hand like a fist and just show it to her right in front of her face, just like that. [ dolphin squeaks ] let's try again. [ dolphin squawks ] [ laughs ] good job. very nice. now we're gonna go ahead and ask her to twirl around in a circle for us, okay. so what i want you to do is actually stand up with me. and just twirl around in a circle, and you can do it once or twice, and you can actually stop and watch her. good job. [ whistles blows ] good job! and i let her know she did a great job by actually blowing on my whistle. that's exactly what that means to a dolphin. >> they also know they'll be rewarded with a snack. that's why maya responded right away when i signaled her to wave her fluke. >> now, are you okay with getting a little wet? >> yeah. >> just a little bit? all right. so what i want you to do is just go ahead and reach in the water and just splash her. [ dolphin chirps ] >> [ laughs ] >> good job. very nice. very nice.

you can never win a water fight with a dolphin. trust me. >> and i got the wet shirt to prove it. coming up, we'll find out why dolphins are always smiling.

>> it was awesome, and i loved seeing the dolphins. they are, like, awesome. >> we're at the national aquarium in baltimore, home to some very cool atlantic bottlenose dolphins. now, they seem friendly 'cause they look like they're smiling. are they? >> well, that's actually one of the most deceptive things about them, that they're always smiling because of the way their mouth is shaped. they can be friendly, but the thing is it takes really a lot of time to develop a bond with them. that's why the only time you should try to touch a dolphin is in a supervised program like the dolphin encounter here at the aquarium. >> and now we're gonna go ahead and meet our youngest dolphin at the national aquarium. this is bayley. >> bayley just turned 5.

and she likes to play fetch. >> take this basketball, and, scott, what i want you to do is just go ahead and lob it right at her. don't worry. she's good at catching. and now get ready. put both hands straight up. >> bayley's a basketball natural. she does her own version of "dribbling" around the court. >> good job. very nice. so right now what we're gonna ask her to do is do an aerial, so it's a big jump out of the water. okay, so what i want you to do is put your right hand straight out and bring it down and across your body just like that, and you're gonna see bayley come up out of the water really high. >> that's awesome. >> it is awesome. [ whistle blows ] very nice. good girl. that was exciting. >> now, what can we learn from dolphins? >> we can learn a lot from dolphins. they're, as you probably just saw, they're really cool animals. they can teach us a lot about how we communicate with animals but, most importantly, what we can do to help them.

>> are dolphins endangered? >> so atlantic bottlenose dolphins, which are the dolphins that are here at the national aquarium, are not endangered. but, as always, with any animal species, really, it's kind of human intervention sometimes that can threaten them. >> as "teen kids news" has often reported, all kinds of marine life can be harmed by pollution and debris, like fishnets. dolphins are no exception. one way we can help protect dolphins is by learning more about them. we have a link to the national aquarium on our website. for "teen kids news," i'm scott. and i think i'm gonna need a new shirt. >> this report is brought to you by nbc sports at the auto shows on nbc sports network. >> well, self-driving cars, like this audi a7, are becoming closer to reality here in the sunshine state, as florida becomes just the third state in the union to become a test bed for technology. >> making sure that we're at the cutting edge of technology, then we'll have companies like audi that will be here that will do their testing and eventually

they'll do advanced manufacturing. and so our children and our grandchildren will have the best jobs in the world. >> audi is showing traffic jam pilot on its a7. you may have experienced adaptive cruise control, which regulates speed by accelerating and braking. traffic jam pilot takes that a big step further by taking over the steering, hands-free up to 40 miles per hour. according to government statistics, 9 out of 10 accidents are caused by human error. audi is confident that their technology can improve on that, when it makes it to market in less than five years. >> but the fact that we can expand, sort of, the envelope of safety of the car is without a question, because if you look at what the car is able to do and see from a sensing standpoint, it's far beyond anything that we have today. >> so what you're looking at here are the brains behind traffic jam pilot. now, realize that just a couple years ago, it took the entire trunk space. now it fits all nicely right here. it's just about ready for production. so, what's holding things up?

>> the human/machine interface -- that's going to be absolutely critical, because you as the user of the car are now handing over the control to the vehicle, so you want to know that you can trust that technology. we have to know what this type of technology does in a real-world environment. and that's why it's so crucial to be here in florida to test this technology. >> this is going to make our highways safer, and it will be exciting as the technology develops. >> so, next time you visit tampa and jump on the expressway, don't be surprised if that audi driver next to you isn't driving. for "tkn," i'm tore dietrich. >> bach, beethoven, gershwin, and a boy named j.p. we'll tell you what they all have in common coming up.

>> harry introduces us to a young man who not only plays music, he composes it. >> we're going to go over to the piano there. >> okay. >> j.p. and his teacher are arriving for the day's lesson, which is part music theory and part composition.

>> the theory part is where you learn what makes the great music work. in the composition class, j.p. will have brought in what he worked on over the course of the week. [ piano playing ] >> i get a lot of inspiration just from improvising on the piano. i write on the piano. and then i put it on the computer. >> these guys are gonna keep repeating, right? >> he'll make suggestions, and sometimes we'll change it or write a little more in the lesson. >> all of these ideas are really beautiful, but you're switching between them so fast that we can't even enjoy them. you get to somewhere really exciting, and then you leave right away. it's like you've driven hours and hours to get to the grand canyon. oh, okay. >> okay, now -- >> stay there. it's interesting. [ piano plays ] good. that's great. that's the stuff. >> great stuff, but definitely

not kid stuff. j.p.'s music is performed not only by his peers at concordia conservatory but by professional musicians. and he has the awards to prove it. the two smaller medals are american society of composers and publishers, ascap for short, medals and they're the morton gould award for young composers. and the middle one, the large medal, is from "from the top." [ piano playing ] [ operatic singing ] >> "from the top" is a program on public radio. here, they're rehearsing one of j.p.'s compositions for a national broadcast. j.p.'s already a veteran of the spotlight. like mozart, he started composing early. >> we have a picture of me just about 2 years old on my dad's lap, and we're playing the piano. [ piano playing ]

>> he also gets a gift for music from his mother's side of the family, as well. two of his uncles are musicians. his mom is often the first to hear his new compositions. [ mid-tempo music playing ] >> yeah. that's really cool. >> thanks, mom. >> it's exciting. it's really exciting, and the encouragement to keep going and to keep being creative -- it's a great thing. >> i'm going to play part of the piano part of my three songs that were performed on "from the top." [ piano playing ] >> j.p. is a great composer. at age 13, he's accomplished quite a bit. i've never seen a student who is such an incredible sponge for what he hears and learns.

>> by the way, j.p. stands for john peter. maybe you'll see his full name on the big screen someday. he wants to write music for movies. >> well, that wraps it up for this week's "teen kids news," but we'll be back next week, so see you then.

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