Thursday, 15 December, 2022
Dreaming of a White Christmas; cheering for Africa’s underdogs; a clean power breakthrough; and Australia’s golden girl strikes again
LINKS
White Christmas official Bing Crosby video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5ryZdpEHqM
Skiing Santas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWKodc0wMHE
Women’s 4x100m (Emma McKeon at 2:35): https://wwos.nine.com.au/swimming/fina-world-swimming-championships-2022-emma-mckeon-australian-4x100m-womens-freestyle-relay-team-wins-gold-breaks-world-record-video/25e50b6f-abab-4c12-85d9-77f41d8a9e6a
Just Cuts https://www.justcuts.com.au/
Newshounds—Get started on our free media literacy resource for classrooms www.squizkids.com.au/newshounds
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
THE LOWDOWN
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I’m willing to bet that if you’ve been to the shops lately, the song White Christmas has been on. You know the one… the singer is “dreaming of a White Christmas”… “where treetops glisten… And children listen… To hear sleigh bells in the snow.” Okay, that’s more than enough singing from me. If you still don’t know what I’m talking about, check your episode notes! Bing Crosby does a much better job, and there’s a cute animated video.
Anyway… my point is that usually in Australia, we get sandy, salty, sweaty Christmases. If an Aussie wants to see snow on December 25, they need to buy a plane ticket to the Northern Hemisphere, where Christmas happens in winter.
But, thanks to some wacky weather patterns in south-east Australia, snow is falling this summer, just 10 days before Christmas! In fact, in some parts of Tasmania and the Australian Alps, there may be enough on the ground today for a summer ski! Imagine that. I wonder if everyone there can put on a Santa suit, and make a video like the one that came out recently in America, with hundreds of Santas skiing the slopes together. (I’ll put that in your episode notes, too!)
Our friends over at the Bureau of Meteorology say that it’s too soon to forecast what’s going to happen with the weather on Christmas Day, but it should stay cold until at least December 20. So, if you’re dreaming of a white Christmas… head to the southeast of Australia, you might be in luck!
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 Morocco, where, as I’m recording the podcast this morning, just about every TV in the country is tuned to world cup soccer. You see, the Moroccans are the first African team to EVER make it to a world cup semi final, and I think it’s fair to say that the entire African continent is hoping that Morocco will win, and continue on to Sunday’s championship match. Yesterday, Lionel Messi and his Argentinian teammates beat Croatia to secure their spot in the final.
Starting at 6 o’clock this morning Australian Eastern time, Morocco kicked off against France … which, by the way, ruled over Morocco until they got their independence in 1956. Over the 92 years that the World Cup has been contested, only countries from South America and Europe have ever made it to the final. So it would be a really BIG deal for Morocco, which is ranked 22nd in the world, to make it to Sunday’s big game. Billions of people are watching this morning, and I have a feeling many of them are cheering for the African underdogs. No offence, France.
SPACED OUT
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Do you have any idea what powers the sun and other stars? It’s something called nuclear fusion… and scientists in California have announced a major breakthrough in their efforts to make nuclear fusion work safely here on Earth.
Why is that important? Well, nuclear fusion could provide our planet with an energy source that would NOT cause pollution and greenhouse gases, like burning coal and gas does … and it would NOT create dangerous radioactive waste, which is what happens at existing nuclear power plants.
Those nuclear power plants use a process called nuclear fission, which SPLITS atoms to make energy. But nuclear fusion means JOINING atoms together. And when that happens with certain atoms—particularly hydrogen—HUGE amounts of light and heat energy can be created.
Hydrogen is the “H” in H2O, and in their announcement yesterday, the California scientists said that one glass of water contained enough hydrogen to power a house for a year. Wow!
Up until now, scientists on Earth have never been able to produce more energy from nuclear fusion than they USED to make the atoms combine. But the California lab blasted 2 megajoules of laser energy at hydrogen atoms … and created 3 megajoules of energy. Three is bigger than two, so—they created more energy than they used! They say it will be a few decades before a nuclear fusion power plant is possible… but we are definitely one big step closer to clean energy.
SPORT TIME
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Australia’s most successful Olympian in history, swimmer Emma McKeon, has brought Australia home to another gold medal, and a WORLD record, in the world swimming championships’ 4x100m freestyle relay. When Emma dove in, Australia was in third place… but her blistering 100m had the home crowd, and Aussie commentators, going nuts. I’ll put a link in your episode notes.
These are the short course world championships, meaning that all the events are held in a 25m pool, instead of a 50m Olympic pool. They started in Melbourne on Tuesday, and finish on Sunday. So far, the Aussies are on the top of the medal table… and Emma told Channel 9 after the race that she loved having Aussie kids in the crowd, because she remembers watching her sporting idols compete when she was a young swimmer. I wonder if one of the kids watching in Melbourne this week will wind up on a podium one day, too?
HAIRCUT CHALLENGE
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All week we’ve been asking you to email us with your ultimate haircut. The hair style you would like to have if you could have any hair style at all – and the responses have been epic.
Sage has written in to say two braids with rainbow extensions is her ultimate haircut, Chloe would go for rainbow braids into a Viking bun, Noah from NSW is all about the mullet – and Aashi from Melbourne says a Hermione Granger mop is the ultimate do …
It’s all part of our banding together with Just Cuts to discover Australian kids’ ultimate hairstyle.
And it all comes to a head tomorrow. Yep – today’s your last chance to send in a suggestion for your ultimate hair style to go into the draw to win … get this … a year’s worth of style cuts for the whole family – plus a family pack of Just Cuts new range of kids hair-care products … the JUSTICE Professional Kids range – including Tutti-Frutti tear-free shampoo, tangle-free conditioner and a texturising wax .. for those days when you’re feeling super stylish. Exclusive to Just Cuts salons or available at justcuts.com. I’ve stuck a link in today’s episode notes …
We’ll be announcing the winners tomorrow in the pod.
So don’t just sit there … get busy imagining your ideal haircut and drop us a line at [email protected]!
THE SQUIZ
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This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you’ve been listening …
- Which country ruled over Morocco until 1956?
- California scientists have made a huge breakthrough in WHAT nuclear process?
- Name the “Golden Girl” swimmer who clinched the relay final for Australia…
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s December 15 … only 10 sleeps ‘til Xmas … Rudolph is polishing up his red nose in preparation …
It’s also a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today … Imogen and John from Canberra, Sterling P from Broken Hill, Jackson from Altona Meadows and Bedos from Cronulla.
And belated birthday shout outs go to Blake from Athelstone and Rumi listening in San Antonio, Texas!
And because a bunch of you will be celebrating birthdays in the second half of December, when we’re off-the-air, and we don’t want you to miss out – we’re going to be punching out ADVANCE birthday shout-outs … we’ll call them the Extra Special Xmas Baby Shout Outs …
Happy ‘early’ birthday to… Ralph from Goulburn, Ella from Raby, Leah from Athelstone, Mikayla from Cronulla, Isabeau from Dalkeith, Zoey and Lucas from Maroubra, Miranda from Appin, Maddin from Wentworth Falls, Felix from Mount Colah, Lucas from Valentine and Yuqi (pronounced Yuchi) listening in China!
Classroom shout outs go to… Room 11 and Miss Stewart at Sorrento Primary School, class 5/6J and Mr Jacobs at Beechwood Public School and congratulations to the grade 6’s graduating, year 4 with Mrs Trengove and Mrs Delvins at Walford Anglican School for Girls in Hyde Park, to Tom, Jack and Chloe – homeschooling whilst travelling around Australia and lastly to class 6J and Mrs Jackson at Claremont Meadows Public School – and farewell to Mrs Jackson who is retiring after 10+ years of teaching.
And a quick note on Classroom Shoutouts … we’ve got only onemore podcast left in the year and over 80 Classroom Shoutouts in the Squiz Kids mailbox queue – if you don’t hear your shout out in the episode tomorrow, please accept our apologies and get in touch with us when the school term resumes next year.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- France
- Fusion
- Emma McKeon