Do pigeons have 360-degree vision? Try our kids’ quiz

1. Flora, 7, asks: do pigeons have 360-degree vision?

   1. Yes! Pigeons can see 360 degrees without moving their heads

   2. No! Pigeons can only see straight in front of them

   3. Almost! They can see 340 degrees without moving

   4. Yes, but only because they can twist their necks all the way around

2. Grace, 11, asks: if I am an 11-year-old girl and I weigh 5 stone and 12 pounds, how many helium-filled party balloons would I need to float?

   1. More than 3,000 balloons

   2. 126 balloons

   3. 5 balloons

   4. 59 balloons

3. Rex, 5½, asks: how many religions are there in the world?

   1. 5

   2. About 4,000

   3. About 120

   4. About 1 million

4. Tom, 9, asks: why do bad thoughts come into my head at night-time and not in the daytime?

   1. Because you don’t have all the activities of the daytime to keep you busy

   2. Because feeling tired makes it harder to cope with our worries

   3. Our brains are busy sorting out our feelings and memories while we sleep, so sometimes worries can come out in our dreams

   4. All of the above

5. Naomi, 8, asks: how long would it take to walk around the sun?

   1. 2 million years

   2. 365 days

   3. 103 years

   4. 2 weeks

Solutions

1:C - Pigeons can see a very impressive 340 degrees without moving their heads. That’s almost all the way around! This is because pigeons’ eyes are on either side of their heads, rather than on the front, like ours., 2:A - The answer can depend on how you’re calculating it, but it would take more than 3,000 balloons – approximately 3,096 – to lift a child of 5 stone and 12 pounds (or 37 kilograms) off the ground. Those balloons would have to contain 35,356 litres of helium., 3:B - There are approximately 4,000 recognised religions around the world. There may be many more, though, followed by small numbers of people., 4:D - There are lots of reasons you might have more worries at night. You don’t have the distraction of a busy day, and have less energy to fight worries because you’re tired. Bad thoughts can also come out in dreams because our brains process our feelings during sleep. If it happens, just try to focus on good feelings until you fall asleep., 5:C - If you walked at 3 miles an hour, it would take about 103 years to walk around the sun – if you walked nonstop!

Scores

1. 5 and above.

2. 4 and above.

3. 3 and above.

4. 2 and above.

5. 0 and above.

6. 1 and above.

Molly Oldfield hosts Everything Under the Sun, a weekly podcast answering children’s questions, out now as a book.

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