Alton Scarborough, Age 11, Of Dover,Tenn., for his question:

What is a peninsula?

Peninsula is coined from two older words meaning almost and island. We would, then, expect it to be a piece of land which is almost but not quite an island. And so it is. An island is surrounded conpletely by water. A peninsula is almost surrounded by water.
As a rule, a peninsula is a long finger of land attached to a larger mass of land, such as a  continent. Florida and baja california are peninsulas attached to north america. Somet3mes a peninsula is attached to a larger mass of land by a narrow neck of land cal1ed an isthmus.
Beatrice Hutchinson., Age 13, Of Trenton, Ont., Canada, for her question:
How did science learn about the ice ages?
The earth's crust is layer upon layer of rocky minerals. The oldest rocks were formed when the world was young, perhaps three billion years ago. Through.the ages., layers of limestone and slabs of slate, masses cif lava and other minerals were piled upon the earliest rocks. Geologists can tell what eyents formed and changed these crusty minerals.
Many earth scientists are still probing the secrets of the ice ages. But the fascinating study sprang from the bold imagination of one man, about 130 years ago. For 25 years, he was a professor of zoology at harvard university. By the grave of this great scholar rests a boulder  a boulder from a swiss valley where it was left by the glaciers of ice ages.
Jean Louis Agassiz was born in a swiss valley surrounded by the glaciers which crown the lofty alps. His boyhood curiosity led him to study such things as rocks, fishes and fossils, and he became a great man because he never lost the wonderful curiosity of his youth. Agassiz won renown in 1829 at age 22. He had classified 1000 fossilized fish plus other ocean animals found. In the earth's crust far from the sea.
Later, he became a professor of ichthyology at a swiss university. There he gathered and classified more strange facts. He wondered about the boulders and beds of gravel in the valleys, for they did not seem to belong there. They were made from rock found high on the steep shoulders of the alps. Agassiz used his imagination to account for these strange facts.
Suppose, he argued, the world is much older than we think. In the remote past, much of europe may have been covered by ice sheets more massive than those which still linger on the lofty peaks. He built a but and lived out on an ice field to study the movements of glaciers. He became sure that the glacial drift of misplaced boulders and gravel in the valleys must have been carried there by vast ice fields as they advanced over the land and receded.
Agassiz's enthusiastic lectures left the world of science agog. If his theories of past ice ages were true, then the world was much older than anyone had dared to imagine. In 1866, Agassiz came to lecture and to study the footprints of the ice age glaciers in North America. And here the great scholar spent the rest of his valuable life.
The Agassiz Museum of Zoology at harvard was founded by the man who dared to imagine the stupendous ice ages and trace their records in the rocks of the earth's crust. The tall, handsoene scholar was always ready to smile ahd enjoy challenging discussions with his students, with children and with those who were not experts in science. The book of nature, he said, is always open  and he never tired of observing the wonders of the world around him.