Philip Dugan, age 10, of Gorham, Maine, for his question:

To what continent does Hawaii belong?

When our ancestors settled down to live in groups, they invented governments to help them to get along together and drew borders around the countries in which they lived. These man made borders often have nothing to do with the natural divisions of geography such as the Earth's continents.

As a man made division, the Hawaiian Islands form one of the 50 states of the U.S.A., 4 of which are in North America. The people who live there are Americans, just as the people of the state of Maine are Americans. But in geography, their islands are not part of the North American continent. They are mid Pacific islands, far from all the large land areas, and they are not pieces or part of any of the geographic continents.