(energetic rock music) - welcome to teen kids news, i'm veronique. let's begin with our top story for this week. what do you call a teen who loves playing softball, dancing and eating chocolate chip cookie dough? oh! and one more thing. she has a crown. amelia has the answer. - you call her katherine haik, miss teen usa 2015. - [announcer] the winner of miss teen usa 2015 is

louisiana! (cheers) the first runner up is california. - katherine won more than just the crown. she also won a place in the history books. not only was she the youngest contestant to make it to the famous pageant. at 15 years old, she's the youngest winner ever. hi katherine! - hi. thank you for having me. - our pleasure. what was it like competing against 50 girls who were quite a bit older than you? - right. well, i see myself as a really mature 15-year-old. i don't think my age really held me back from having the same experience as everyone else. i made so many friends. i just had the time of my life. it was so much fun. - now, you grew up in a small town in louisiana, what was that like? - i did. well, living in a small town, i love living in a small town. you know everyone. they're so supportive. when i won, they just went crazy. they're amazing. i love living there. - you must be a pretty big celebrity around town?

- i would say so. - you actually started playing softball at, three? - i did. my sister actually played softball. my dad wanted me to get involved. i started playing at three. it went from there. i'm on the high school softball team. i just love doing it. - [amelia] what position do you play? - right. well, i did play first base. i'm currently playing second base. i move around. i've played everywhere. - are you better at hitting or fielding? - i would say it's kind of equal. i did hit an over the fence home run last year. that was really exciting. maybe hitting. it just depends on the game. - well you certainly hit a home run with the miss teen usa pageant. what made you enter in the first place? - right. well, i did a lot of small pageants when i was younger. this was actually my first really big one. i really entered pageants just to get the full experience. you get so many things out of doing pageants like confidence and just the speaking skills and doing interviews like this,

it'll just help me through the rest of my life, so, it's definitely a really positive experience for me. - for those of us who have never been in a major pageant, what are some of the skills you need to master? - right. well, i think you really need to master just finding out who you are and being confident in who you are. that really shows why you're on stage or doing your interview and just being yourself. that really helps in pageants. - speaking of pageants, before making it to the national competition, you have to win the state competition. and you had a nervous moment there, didn't you? - i did. it was actually my first really big pageant where i had to answer an on-stage question. i just got stage fright and really nervous. i kind of blanked out at the moment. i didn't really answer the question really well. it kind of held me back. in the end, the judges said i did really well in my one-on-one interview. that really helped me win pageant. after that, i saw that that's what i really need to work on for the national pageant. it told me what i needed to work on.

at miss teen usa i didn't bobble on the question. so all was good. - obviously it worked out for you. you went on to win the title of miss louisiana teen usa. and ultimately, the title of miss teen usa 2015. when we return, we'll hear how katherine's knowledge of history helped her win the talent competition. teen kids news will be right back, - [luke] closed captioning is brought to you by.

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- we're talking with katherine haik, miss teen usa 2015. when one thinks of a talent competition, you think of dancing, singing, or maybe playing an instrument. but you did something a bit different, didn't you? - i did. we actually don't have a talent portion in miss teen usa, but it was kind of a get to know you question. we had to put three interesting facts on our bio and they chose the one where i could sing all of the presidents, in order, while singing a song. i had to do it in front of the whole audience and it was kind of cool to do it in front of all of them. it was fun. (laughs) - how can i not ask you to show us? - okay. washington, adams, jefferson, madison, monroe, adams, jackson, van buren, harrison, tyler, poke and taylor, fillmore, pierce, buchanan. lincoln, johnson, grant, hayes, garfield, arthur, cleveland, harrison, cleveland, mckinley, roosevelt, taft, wilson, harding, coolidge, hoover, franklin roosevelt, harry s. truman, dwight d. eisenhower, john f. kennedy, johnson, nixon, ford, carter, reagan, bush, clinton, bush, obama. it's a mouthful for sure (laughs)

- impressive. and you didn't just recite the names, but you asked the audience to clap along, did they? - they did. it was a way to get them involved and the final question is kind of an intense point so i think it kind of broke up the mood and made everyone more relaxed. - what gave you the idea to sing the presidents song? - well i actually learned how to do that in 7th grade. my history teacher used to bring his guitar to class to help us remember information, because it's so much easier to remember it in a song. it was just something cool and fun that i remembered i could do and it made me stand out from the rest of the contestants. - stand out you did! what's it like to hear your name announced as the winner, as miss teen usa? - it's a very crazy moment, a very exciting and surreal moment for sure. i always dreamed of it but i never really thought it would happen. a year ago today i would of never imagined being in the final two and hearing my name called. so it was crazy, very exciting,

and it's been so much fun since then. - if any of our viewers want to enter the miss teen usa competition, what advice could you share? - i would tell them to go for it. don't let the fear of trying something new stop you from doing it because you never know; you could win and go really far from there. it's a great experience and i've definitely learned a lot of things about myself and just, you know, being independent and learning so many skills from doing it. - terrific! thanks for speaking with us. and congratulations! - thank you. - for more information about miss teen usa pageants or competitions in your area, check out their website. for teen kids news, i'm amelia. - there's nothing funny about being bullied. except maybe for this. believe it or not, the word bully was originally a complement. back in the sixteenth century it meant sweetheart. not that i'm suggesting that if you're faced with a bully that you should call him or her sweetheart. but it does make one wonder how things can get so turned around.

- we've got to take a short break. but don't go away because teen kids news will be right back! without basic supplies to read and write. unfortunately there are many schools like that in poor countries around the world. you're about to meet an organization working to change that. (light cultural music) - [jacelyn] these students in sri lanka are on their way to a special library. what makes it special would be surprising to us, it has books. - room to read is an organization that is opening schools and libraries across the developing world for the poorest of the poor. hundreds of schools, thousands of libraries so that every child everywhere is no longer denied an education because they were born at the wrong place at the wrong time. - [jacelyn] john wood is an amazing guy. he used to be a big executive at microsoft. until he went on vacation in nepal. that's when he saw the desperate need for books and libraries.

he changed the course of his own life, to change the lives of children all over the world. - when i was growing up in pennsylvania we had actually a book-mobile that came to our town. and we think of this kind of as a nepalese yak-mobile. we got our yak loaded with books and we're about to head off to go to a secondary school here in jambas and deliver about 500 books to help them start their first library. - [jacelyn] when john arrives with his yak-mobile, just look at the reaction. reading isn't just fun, it's a way for them to connect to the world beyond their isolated community. - what does shirash like? - he likes ice cream. - he likes ice cream. what do annie and onnie like? - what do annie and onnie like? they like chicken curry. - they like chicken curry.

do you like chicken curry? - yes. - yes? okay. - [jacelyn] in nepal, children express gratitude with flowers, and the traditional namaste. - [john] namaste! - [jacelyn] there are also grateful children in africa, cambodia, india, and laos. since it started, room to read has reached more than 1,600 schools, and built 15,000 libraries. libraries filled with books published in the local language. this is made possible by donations of all sizes. including help from american teens. - students throughout america have gotten very involved in room to read with a movement called students helping students. so students pick a goal, they pick a country, and we don't dictate to them here's what you do, here's how you do it. we say here's a menu, you can decide you decide on a project, you decide on a country, we'll tell you how much it's going to cost. and we'll report back to you on how the money was spent. - [jacelyn] it costs $30,000 for room to read

to open a school. that's a lot for teens to collect. - [john] what's great about this is that no one individual, probably is going to raise enough money to build a school. but if 20 to 50 or 100 students come together and make it a project they're going to do it together and it's going to give them a great feeling of saying when they hear about poverty, when they hear about global issues, they're going to be able to say you know what? i did something. - [jacelyn] by just raising $250, you can sponsor a scholarship for a girl. in many parts of the world, girls are not able to go to school. - when you think about the fact that over 100 million girls in the developing world woke up this morning and did not go to school. that to me screams opportunity. it's an opportunity to get out there and make positive change in the world and to say no longer should we live in a world where any child, boy or girl, is denied education. - if you're looking for a great service project, read my lips, room to read. to find out how you can help, there's a link on our website. - one way to tell if someone is a really good friend is not so much by what you say to each other,

but maybe by how little you say. well, sorta. experts say that a true friend is someone you can spend time with and not feel you have to keep a conversation going. of course, if you're both busy watching tv, surfing the web or playing video games, that doesn't exactly count. - it's time for another important message, brought to you by the national road safety foundation. (soft piano music) (baby crying) - [crowd] happy birthday! - [man] i love you. (bells ringing) (laughing) (flat line bleeping)

- you may be surprised where experts say you should do some of your studying. i'll have that story in make the grade, next on teen kids news.

- things like noise and distractions aside, the experts say where you study can have an impact on how well you study. for reviewing major topics for a test, they recommend sitting at a desk or table. in fact they say you should try to recreate as much as possible the setting where you'll be taking the test.

but wait till you hear where they recommend you should study for simple memory tasks, such as flashcards, or memorizing a poem. in bed, at least for some of the work. research shows that it may be easier to memorize things before you go to sleep, rather than in the morning. it seems the mind keeps on working overnight. by the way, if you think sleeping on your textbooks will help, it won't. i'm christin, here to help you make the grade. where was i, i never saw a moore, i never saw the sea, yet know i how the weather looks and what a billow be. (regal music) - across the country there are weird laws that haven't been enforced for decades, but are still on the books. for example, in one california town it's illegal to kiss unless both people doing the kissing

first wipe their lips with carbonized rose water. what on earth were they thinking when they came up with that? - the oldest baseball stadium in continuous use is fenway park. fenway park is located in the fenway district of boston, massachusetts and is the home of the boston red sox. but why is the park called fenway park? well a fen is another word for a marsh and before fenway park was built, the area was very marshy. but why they decided to build a baseball stadium over a marsh, i'm not sure (laughs). i'm matt with teen kids news. - few things are more frustrating than having your smartphone die just when you need it. so here's one trick to help make your battery last longer, lower the screen's brightness. your phone probably came with a pre-set level that's a lot higher than you need. and the brighter the screen,

the quicker you're draining your battery. so go into your phone's menu and manually lower the brightness. you'll find that dimming your screen is a really bright idea! - most of us know that sugary drinks can be unhealthy. but sugar is not the only thing we need to be careful about. daniella explains. - when it's time to focus, do you reach for a caffeinated drink like soda, coffee or tea? if you do, you could be reaching for trouble. medical experts say caffeine is more than just a chemical compound. it's actually a mood altering drug. that means it gives you ups and downs, sorta like being on an unpleasant merry-go-round ride. on the up side, caffeine can give you a short term energy boost. but here's the downside. caffeine can also cause anxiety, the jitters, and trouble sleeping. and when it wears off you can feel sluggish. even worse, if you drink caffeine on a regular basis, your body begins to crave it.

so when you don't get caffeine, you can have withdrawal symptoms. including headaches and difficulty concentrating. and that's not good for your schoolwork so, whether it's soda, coffee or tea, go for decaff. you're under enough pressure from school as it is, don't let caffeine make things even harder. i'm daniella for teen kids news. - a great way to eat your veggies. my recipe is next on teen kids news. don't go away.

are sharing some of their favorite recipes with teen kids news. here's one you can make. - today we're going to make a dish that's great for lunchtime or anytime you want a healthy snack. my pasta and vegetable salad is easy to make and take with you on the go. i'll show you what we need. i've picked out elbow macaroni, i'm gonna use about half a box. i've chopped two stalks of celery, one can of black sliced olives, and then i've diced one cucumber, one red bell pepper, one green bell pepper, and 1/2 of a red onion. i'm gonna finish it today with mozzarella cheese and grated parmesan.

let's start the pasta. i'm gonna give this a nice stir, but you can use any pasta you like, really. my favorite's elbow maca i've used one teaspoon of c i used fresh today because it was in the garden, but you can use dried as well. gonna add one tablespoon of black pepper. one tablespoon of white sugar. tablespoon of onion powder. and a tablespoon of garlic powder. i'm gonna mix all of those ingredients with 1/4 cup of cider vinegar. now i'm gonna add the 1-1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil.

you want to add it slowly so that it mixes together well. this pasta salad is great the next day after it's been in the fridge to get nice and cold. all the flavors will come together, and it's my favorite to take to school. when i was a kid my mom used to make this everyday before school. now that the dressing is done, let's go check on that pasta. it's been cooking for about seven to 10 minutes now, but you should follow the directions on the box. they're always right. our pasta's done. now that the pasta is cooked, there's two ways we can cool it. after you've drained the pasta you run cool water off it to cool it off quickly and stop the cooking. or the other way is just to drain it and allow it to cool naturally on the side.

let's add all our ingredients. i'm gonna add the celery, and then the onion. next is the black olives and the green pepper. i'm going to add the cucumber and the red bell pepper next. then we're going to mix it all together. there's a lot of vegetables in here and the good thing about them is that they're all raw, so all the nutrients, all the nutritional, the health benefits aren't lost at all. doesn't that look nice? i'm not even finished yet. i'm gonna add the cheese next, little bit of mozzarella, you don't have to use all of it, but just enough, as much as you'd like. of course you can add any cheese that you want. i like mozzarella with my pasta, you can add cheddar. i'm using parmesan next. little bit there. give that another good mix.

and sometimes you might need a bigger bowl. we're gonna add the dressing next. give it a good mix just to mix it all back together again. and again you don't have to use all of this, this is the best thing to keep in the fridge, you can use it on your salads if your mom makes salad with steak some nights, or if you want to make more pasta salad. i'm gonna use about a cup here. now that it's all mixed, i like to season. seasoning to taste just means adding a little bit of salt and a little bit of pepper to make it taste better. it's up to you how much you add. i added a little bit of both. let's taste. mmm, delicious! this is my pasta recipe, pasta and veggie recipe, at the culinary institute of america. for teen kids news, i'm fletch. - wow, that looks really good.

you can find the full recipe on our website. teen kids news will be back next week, you won't want to miss it. bye for now. (energetic rock music) - [amelia] write to us at info@teenkidsnews.com.

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