Thursday, 23 February, 2023
Voyager’s promise fulfilled; happy nyan nyan nyan day; Saturn’s spoke season; and fish raining from the sky.
Squiz Kids is an award-winning, free daily news podcast just for kids. Give us ten minutes, and we’ll give you the world. A short podcast that gives kids the lowdown on the big news stories of the day, delivered without opinion, and with positivity and humour.
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LINKS
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Today’s Quick Links:
Promise, by Voyager: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agG7ShZGfJM&t=72s
Saturn’s spoke season: images and explanation https://www.space.com/saturn-spoke-season-hubble-telescope-photo
Lajamanu’s fish from the sky: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-21/outback-community-fish-rain-sky-weather-event/102002588
Raising the flag on Iwo Jima: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_the_Flag_on_Iwo_Jima
Posts tagged for Japan’s cat day on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/nekonohi/
and on Twitter: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NekoNoHi&src=typeahead_click&f=live
Nintendo’s merch for Japan’s Cat Day: https://gonintendo.com/contents/16463-pokemon-co-reveals-sprigatito-merch-line-for-national-cat-day
National Cat Day festival, featuring appearances by Japanese celebrity cats (Google can translate the page): http://tgs.jp.net/event/neko-break/
Samurai Cat film: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3185154/?ref_=tt_sims_tt_i_1
Dig Deeper:
Voyager’s 2022 popular vote-winning song, Dreamer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae23F6zQo98
Eurovision Contest YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRpjHHu8ivVWs73uxHlWwFA
Why cats are important to Japanese culture: http://www.japanculture-nyc.com/happy-neko-no-hi-and-the-importance-of-cats-in-japan/
Japan’s cat cafes: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2314.html#
Japanese pronunciation guide for 222: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duiMovj0c1c&t=2s
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THE LOWDOWN
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You know the saying “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again?”
After trying for almost a decade, Perth-based band Voyager has finally succeeded in being selected to represent Australia at the international song contest Eurovision, with their song Promise. They are the first Aussie band to make it – all our previous entrants have been individual performers.
Voyager has seven albums under its belt, and regularly tours Australia and the world. Ever since Australia was admitted into the Eurovision contest in 2015, they have set their sights on representing the country. Every year, they’ve written and submitted a song. Last year, they won the popular vote, but not the overall … And finally, in 2023, the rock-pop band with lots of hair made it!
Voyager will take the stage in May in Liverpool, which is a city in England. Usually, the country that wins Eurovision hosts the next year’s contest, but you might remember that Ukraine was victorious last year, and due to the ongoing war with Russia, they were unable to host.
Between now and May, Voyager says they’ll be practising their song, learning choreography, and sewing a lot of sequins onto jackets—Eurovision is known for its glitzy stagecraft. I’ll put links in your episode notes to their song Promise, as well as to the Eurovision YouTube channel, which highlights some of Voyager’s competition.
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 Japan, where National Cat Day was celebrated yesterday. Japan loves its cats! It is the home of Hello Kitty… the world’s first cat cafes… the waving lucky cat you see in many Japanese shops … there’s even a Japanese samurai cat film.
February 22, which of course was yesterday’s date, is written 2-2-2, which in Japanese is “ni-ni-ni”… and in Japanese, the sound a cat makes is “nyan nyan nyan” – which, if you think about it, sounds quite a lot like a cat, and a bit like the word for ‘2’. So, February 22 is Neko no Hi, or Cat Day.
This is one of those stories where pictures are worth thousands of words, so you’ll find in your episode notes some images from yesterday of people wearing cat ears; Nintendo’s cat hat line, released especially for Cat Day, and other treats.
SPACED OUT
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After 14 years, Saturn’s spoke season has returned!
Now, you would be forgiven for wondering… what is “spoke season”?
You know how a bicycle’s wheel has spokes? Those things that radiate out to the edge of the wheel? Well, every fourteen years, Saturn develops mysterious spokes on its rings, during the planet’s equinox.
The “equinox” of tilted planets like Earth and Saturn happen when the planet is at a specific angle to the sun, making the length of day and night exactly the same.
Earth has four seasons in one year, and two equinoxes per year.
On Saturn, ONE season lasts SEVEN years, not three months… so they only have an equinox every fourteen years, and it lasts for much longer. The current equinox that’s just starting will be at its strongest in May 2025!
And the spokes, captured recently by the Hubble space telescope? Scientists believe that they’re caused by Saturn’s magnetic field interacting with solar winds, causing some particles in Saturn’s rings to levitate higher and create the spoke lines. I’ve put a link to a video with more explanation and images.
BELIEVE IT OR NOT
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We’ve all heard people say it’s ‘raining cats and dogs’ when in reality, all that’s falling from the sky is a lot of water. But in the remote outback community of Lajamanu, it has literally rained live fish from the sky. Lajamanu is on the edge of the Tanami desert, and locals were amazed when a big rainstorm also dropped large, live, spangled perch from the sky. Spangled perch are one of the most common freshwater fish in Australia, and sometimes, a strong tornado can suck fish out of a river or creek, and then drop them hundreds of kilometres away. As long as the perch aren’t sucked too high up, and don’t stay out of the water too long, they land when they’re still wriggling. And although I do understand that this was a huge surprise to the Lajamanu community – imagine how it was for the fish!
THE SQUIZ
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This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you’ve been listening …
- How long does one season last on Saturn?
- What kind of fish fell from the sky in Lajamanu?
- What is the name of the Perth band that’s going to Eurovision? Bonus point if you can name their song.
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s February 23 – and on this day in 1945, six American marines raised their flag in a place called Iwo Jima, in Japan, during the final stages of WWII. I’ll put the photo in your episode notes… I’m pretty sure you’ll recognise it.
It’s also a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today… Ashlee from Munno Para, Madi from Clairvaux, Brooke from Glenmore Park, Max from Lake Bolac, Elliot from Camden, Ashton from Waverley, Ashton from Austinmer, Harry from Clifton Hill, Jack from Traralgon, Ben from Victoria and Liam from Spring Mountain.
Belated shoutouts go to… Austin from Bathurst, Jack from Brisbane, Stuart from Melbourne, Mia from Darwin, Darra from Waverley and Maya and Hannah from Palmerston.
Classroom shout outs go to…classes 5 Red and Blue with Mrs Weier and Miss Kay at St Agnes Primary School in Mount Gravatt, class 3E and Miss Eller at Lane Cove West Public School, class 5MC and Mrs McTavish at Scots All Saints College in Bathurst, class 5/6ES with Mr Evers & Mrs Spence at Leumeah Public School and lastly class 5J with Mrs Borge and Mrs Davis at Lilli Pilli Public School.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- Seven years
- Spangled perch
- Voyager, and the song is Promise