Friday, 11 March, 2022
Kids on the front line; Antarctica’s amazing shipwreck discovery; Ben Simmons’ awkward homecoming; and it’s raining spiders!
LINKS
Ukranian girl sings Frozen in bunker:
The Endurance is found: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/09/ernest-shackleton-wrecked-ship-endurance-antarctic
Giant spiders that fall from the sky: https://www.axios.com/local/washington-dc/2022/03/09/giant-joro-spiders-east-coast-may
Woolworths Fresh Food Kids Discovery Tours:
https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/fresh-food-kids/discoverytours
Squiz Kids for Schools: https://www.squizkids.com.au/squiz-kids-for-schools/
Squiz Kids Apple Subscriber Content: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/squiz-kids/id1494238283
How To Become A Squiz Kids Correspondent: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FH2HA28InnLU6UxE91wrLBAbCMT40Mua/view
Squiz Kids Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/squizkids/?hl=en
Got a birthday coming up and you want a shout-out? Send us an email at [email protected]
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
THE LOWDOWN
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As war rages in Ukraine, and men and women there take up arms to defend their country, there were reminders this week of the toll that being on the front line has taken on Ukrainian kids.
News sites were filled with the story this week of 11 year-old Hassan, who was sent alone across the country by his mother, to the safety of Slovakia.
Slovakia is a country next door to Ukraine. And Hassan’s mother – a single mum who had to stay behind to look after Hassan’s grandmother who couldn’t be moved – put her son on 1200 kilometre train journey with only a small red backpack, his passport and the phone number of Slovakian relatives written on his hand.
Hassan was looked after by fellow refugees at the Slovakian border and eventually reunited with his relatives in the Slovak capital of Bratislava. Remember we talked about refugees last week: they are people forced from their homes by war who have to find a new home in a new country. And so far during this conflict, some 2 million Ukranians have fled their homes to seek refuge in another country.
Meanwhile, the internet was captivated yesterday with a video of a little girl singing the Frozen song, Let It Go, in a bunker in the Ukranian capital, Kyiv.
What’s a bunker? In this case, it’s a place underground that people go to for protection when their city is under attack. Not somewhere that I hope any of you have ever been or ever have to go.
The girl’s voice echoes like an angel’s in the bunker, as fellow anxious citizens watch on, captivated.
The video has been watched over 15 million times – and prompted the composers of the original song to tweet: “Dear little girl – the way you sing it is like a magic trick that spreads the light in your heart and heals everyone who hears it. Keep singing! We are listening!”
I’ve stuck a link to a video of the little girl singing in today’s episode notes.
SPIN THE GLOBE
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Each day we give the world globe a spin and find a news story from wherever it stops … and today, we’ve landed in Antarctica, where Ernest Shackleton’s wrecked ship, the Endurance, has finally been found.
Who was Ernest Shackleton, you ask? He was a famous British explorer who set out in 1914 to attempt the first land crossing of Antarctica. But his ship, the Endurance, became trapped in ice, and it was crushed, and then sank, in November 1915.
Incredibly, Shackleton and his 27 crew members all lived to tell the tale, in one of the greatest survival stories of all time. They spent months drifting on ice floes—that’s f-l-o-e, meaning a sheet of floating ice—before Shackleton and 5 others made a dangerous and gruelling journey of 1200 km—in a lifeboat—to get help.
And now, 106 years later, what has been called the “world’s most challenging shipwreck search” is over. The Endurance was found under the ice by high tech underwater vehicles, and because of the freezing waters and the lack of wood-eating organisms there, it’s one of the best-preserved wooden shipwrecks that experts have ever seen. I’ve popped some footage in your episode notes so you can see for yourselves. It’s A-MAZING, … Safe to say The Endurance really did endure.(DAD JOKE ALARM) .. oops, there goes the Dad joke alarm…
SPORT TIME
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Spare a thought for Aussie basketballer, Ben Simmons – whose Friday night is going to be totes awkward …
Ben – who’s one of Australia’s most successful basketball players in the prestigious NBA league in America – recently moved to the Brooklyn Nets, after spending a painful couple of months trying to transfer out of his old club, the Philadelphia 76ers – during which he didn’t play a single game and became VERY unpopular with 76ers fans in the process.
Well tonight, his new team the Nets have to travel to Philadelphia to play the 76ers – and Ben has to front up in front of his old home crowd who will be certain to make him feel as unwelcome as possible. Chin up Ben – just focus on the basketball. Everything else is just noise.
ANIMAL KINGDOM
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Interested to know what the weather forecast is going to be along the east coast of the United States this May? How about cloudy with a very good chance of giant spiders …
A university in the US state of Georgia has this week announced that spiders the size of a child’s hand are expected to be falling from the sky from as early as May this year.
Wait. What?? It’s going to be raining spiders?
Yep. The Joro spider is native to Japan – but it’s believed to have hitched a ride across to America on a container ship – and now they are all over eastern parts of the US. And when it’s breeding season, they make little parachutes with their webs and float on the wind. Hence the falling from the sky thing. Yikes.
They’re not poisonous and their fangs are too small to break human skin – but just the same. Ain’t nobody wants a spider the size of a child’s hand landing on their head …
I’ve stuck a link to photos of the spider in today’s episode notes …
FARMER Q+A CALL OUT
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Ever wondered why an avocado is a fruit, not a vegetable? Or why they might make you fart?
Well now you can find out, thanks to our podcast partner, Woolworths Fresh Food Kids Discovery Tours!
Over the next few weeks we’ll be strapping on our gumboots and heading out to the farm to talk to Aussie farmers to find out where our food comes from.
We’ve already mentioned potato farmer Marco and citrus farmer Tommy. And for our final visit we will be heading to Queensland to talk with Avocado agronomist Bridgette. What’s an agronomist you ask?… Well, it’s a fancy word for a scientist who specializes in plants and crops.
And like the digital Discovery Tours – these farm visits are interactive: meaning we want to ask questions you’ve sent in.
So if you have a question for Marco the potato farmer, Tommy the citrus farmer or Bridgette the avocado agronomist – send it on through now to [email protected].
Meanwhile: teachers head over to Woolworths.com.au/DiscoveryTours now to request a free classroom kit – and bring the fantastic world of fresh food to your class.”
THE S’QUIZ
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This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you’ve been listening …
- What team in the NBA did Aussie Ben Simmons used to play for?
- What sort of animals are predicted to be falling from the sky in eastern parts of the US this year?
- What’s the name of British explorer Ernest Shackleton’s famous ship which has just been found deep in Antarctic waters?
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s March 11 .. the Moomba Festival begins in Melbourne today .. Happy Moomba Melburnites … plus it’s World Plumbing Day .. how good is plumbing?
It’s also a Friday – and you know what that means …a good excuse to crack out the birthday reggae tune .. hit it ..
It’s a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today … Tom from Oatley, Dean from Vermont South, Summer from Windsor, Alexander from Moonee Ponds, Luca from Woodlands, Jackson from Strathmore Heights and Alex from Canberra.
And a belated birthday wish goes to Neveah from Kempsey.
Not forgetting of course those Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday over the coming weekend…Lottie from Vermont South, Hywel (pronounced Howell) from Alfred Cove, Harvey from Sydney, Hugo from Abbotsford, Tayden from Forest Lake and Eli from Wishart.
And it’s a very big welcome to Tracey Lew, another home educator who has just signed up to a Squiz Kids for Schools Membership. We are delighted to have you aboard Tracy!
The S’Quiz Answers:
- Philadelphia 76ers
- Spiders
- The Endurance