Monday 7 June, 2021

Vaccinating the world; Cambodia’s hero rat retires; the second fastest woman in the world; and meet the dancing lemurs. 

 

LINKS

Magawa the mine-sniffing rat https://apnews.com/article/cambodia-rats-science-720b6c755bc0aac8ab4cd390759c142c

Dancing lemurs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A41YoxaNpj4

 

QUESTIONS FOR SQUIZ KIDS in VICTORIA – ‘My Lockdown Life’

Remember to answer in full sentences, with lots of good details! 

1) What was the best part and the worst part of your lockdown day today?

2) What do you miss the most about school? Why? 

3) How are your mum and dad coping in lockdown? And what about your brothers, sisters and grandparents?

4) What’s the one thing you think we should all do to beat this coronavirus once and for all?

5) Close your eyes and imagine the one place you’d rather be right now instead of in lockdown … where is it?

What To Do:

Get a big person in your house to sit down and record the questions and your answers on a smart device (a phone or tablet, for example). Try to do it somewhere quiet! And remember to make sure when you speak, you’re nice and close to the microphone! Then email the audio file to [email protected] – and listen all this week to see if you’ve been featured!

 

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]

Squiz Kids is proudly supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.

 

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

 

THE LOWDOWN

It was all about sending COVID vaccines to where they’re needed most yesterday, both here in Australia and around the world, as the race continued to get on top of the pandemic.

The Australian government announced that 330,000 COVID vaccines would be sent to Victoria – to help the state contain the recent outbreak that has sent Melbourne into the second week of its fourth lockdown. Sorry guys ..

While overseas, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called on the world’s richest countries to make sure the poorest countries didn’t miss out on COVID vaccines. 

It’s called ‘vaccine equity’ – and as the name suggests, it’s all about making sure the distribution of vaccines is equal around the world. 

And it will be a big topic of conversation at a big meeting of world leaders happening in England at the end of this week. The meeting is called the G7 – which is short for the Group of Seven. As in seven of the world’s wealthiest countries – namely: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. They get together once a year to talk about the most important problems facing the world. And as well as the pandemic, this year the talk will also be about climate change.

Australia has been invited to attend, along with India, South Korea and South Africa – and our Prime Minister Scott Morrison will fly to England later this week.

Flying to England – where it’s now officially summer – is something that sounds quite pleasant – especially given the polar blast that is going to be hitting south-east Australia this week. Weather forecasters are predicting that even parts of southern Queensland will get a light dusting of snow this week, as a large mass of freezing cold air pushes up from Antarctica across Tassie, Victoria and into NSW. Rug up people!

 

SPIN THE GLOBE

Each day we give the world globe a spin and find a news story from wherever it stops – and today, we’ve landed in Cambodia, in South-East Asia, where Magawa the mine-sniffing rat is going into retirement. 

Many years ago, Cambodia was caught up in a war. And during that war, lots of land mines were buried. Land mines are explosives that sit below the surface of the ground and go off when someone stands on them. They’re really nasty – and cause many thousands of dreadful injuries to people in war-torn countries around the world. Magawa, the African giant pouched rat, was trained especially to sniff out landmines so that people could find them before they hurt anyone. In much the same way you might have seen sniffer dogs at airports sniffing for stuff in people’s suitcases that they are not supposed to have. She’s been doing it five years, and in that time, has sniffed out land mines in an area of land equivalent to 20 soccer fields – making large parts of the country once again safe for Cambodians to walk on or use as farming land. 

What a clever rat! What a well-deserved retirement. There’s a link in today’s episode notes to a photo of Magawa. 

 

SPORTS TIME

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What is it about those Jamaican athletes and speed? Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce became the second fastest woman ever at the weekend by running the 100 metres in 10.63 seconds. Only one woman has ever run the 100 metres faster than that – American legend, Florence Griffith Joyner, whose record of 10.49 seconds still stands, more than 30 years after she set it. 

Fraser-Pryce, who won 100m gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, will now go into the Tokyo Olympics as the one to beat in the event that stops the world. 

Of course, the fastest man in the world, with a 100 m sprint time of 9.58 seconds, is fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt. They sure do breed ‘em fast in Jamaica.

 

ANIMAL KINGDOM

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Because it’s a Monday – and because a whole bunch of you in Melbourne are in lockdown and need some light relief – we proudly bring news of a pair of dancing lemurs who have sent the internet into a meltdown over the weekend. 

The two lemurs – called Beatrice and Elliot – are the newest arrivals at Chester Zoo in England. And by the looks of the video of them dancing, they’re pretty excited about their new enclosure. 

Dancing lemurs are a type of lemur native to Madagascar – which as well as being an excellent animated film starring Melman, who is easily my favourite – is also a great big island off the east coast of Africa. 

This particular dancing species of lemur is called a ‘sifaka’ – and they’re currently an endangered species. 

There’s a link to the video in today’s episode notes – guaranteed to put a smile on your dial.

 

My Lockdown Life 

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Ok Melbourne kids – what have you got on for the day? I’ll tell you what … you’re going to take five minutes to record your answers to the five new questions we’ve stuck in today’s episode notes and have your voice heard on this week’s episode of My Lockdown Life. 

What’s the worst part about lockdown? What’s the best part? Who in your house is doing it toughest? What are your top tips to pass the time? And what’s the one place you’d rather be right now?

So – how do you take part? It’s easy. Check out the five questions in the episode notes, record your answers and email them through to [email protected]. And be listening all week to see if you’ve been featured …

 

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 …

  1. What’s the name of the group of wealthy countries meeting in England later this week?
  2. In which country has Magawa the mine-sniffing rat been busy saving lives?
  3. Which country does the second fastest-woman ever, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce come from?

 

SHOUT OUTS

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It’s June 7… Western Australia Day … it’s a public holiday for our friends in the West, as they take the day off to commemorate the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829. 

It’s also a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today…  Charli from Goomalling, Orlando from Craigburn, Stella from Five Dock, Anita from Mansfield, Yasmine from West Wallsend, Eunice from Ermington, Will from Cronulla, Tom from Harden and Ridhi who’s listening in all the way from Benguluru, India.

Classroom shoutouts … Mrs Kime’s 5K class at St John’s Anglican College, class 3/4 Blue at St John’s in Richmond, class 5W in Baulkham Hills North Public School, and class 6F At St Brendan’s Catholic Primary School in Mackay. And a special shoutout to Chayse, from all your former classmates in Year 1’s JHW class at Brunswick North West Primary School. They were so sad that lockdown prevented them from throwing you a goodbye party! They’ll miss you very much.  

The S’Quiz Answers:

  1. G7
  2. Cambodia
  3. Jamaica