Tuesday, 8 February, 2022
Fire alert in WA; Being safe on the internet; Belgium’s cartoon passports and why we’re all on echidna poo patrol.
LINKS
Safer Internet Day: https://www.esafety.gov.au/
Echidna app:
On Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.scruffmonkey.echidnaCSI&hl=en_AU&gl=US
On App Store: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/echidnacsi/id1260820816
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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It was another tense night for many in Western Australia last night as bushfires burned out of control following a week of extremely high temperatures and special firefighting crews were flown in from other states.
Residents of towns east and south of the capital Perth were yesterday told to evacuate their homes as fires raged and firefighting crews battled to control them.
The fires come just ten days after Perth endured a record six-day heatwave – with temperatures for the whole time over 40 degrees. Sending you all our stay safe and stay cool vibes, WA Squiz Kids …
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How much time do you spend on the Internet? Where do you surf? What apps do you use? And how safe are you while you’re there?
Today, around the world, is Safer Internet Day … a day where we’re all encourage to take stock of how much time we spend on the internet, and how safe are the places we visit online.
To mark the occasion today, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner – which is an office filled people whose job it is to keep us all safe online – will release a report that shows parents don’t know the half of the bad or negative experiences their kids are having online.
To help out families, today will see the launch of a family tech agreement for five to eight year olds – for kids and their parents, guardians or teachers to sit down together and have a conversation about the safest ways to surf the net – and the importance of asking for help if ever they run into trouble. There are links to the reports and other e-safety resources 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 Belgium, where the world’s coolest passports have been revealed. A passport is a little book that you use when you travel to another country, to prove who you are and where you come from. Usually, a passport has your name, age, photo, and pictures printed faintly on each page of the book. The Aussie passport, for example, has a picture of Parliament House in Canberra on page 2; the American passport has a bald eagle. But Belgium has gone one better – starting yesterday, all new passports feature comic book characters! You may not have known that the little blue Smurfs were drawn by a Belgian artist… and so were the detective Tintin and his adorable dog Snowy, along with many other famous comic strip characters. I loved Tintin as a kid! Those lucky Belgians. The government in Brussels, the Belgian capital, points out that the passport redesign isn’t just cool… It also features 48 new security features, including laser-engraved photos and barcodes. Happy travelling!
SPORT TIME
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If you’re a lover of basketball – and particularly the NBA, and particularly Aussies who play in the NBA – you’ll know that this Friday is a big day.
It marks what’s called the Trade Deadline in the professional basketball world in the United States – where teams swap players in a high-stakes game of musical chairs. And there’s no one potential trade that’s attracting more attention than Australia’s own Ben Simmons. He hasn’t played for his team, the Philadelphia 76ers for the entirety of this season – and been fined an eye-watering $26 million, according to reports. And yesterday, the coach of the Brooklyn Nets shot down rumours that he’d be traded for All Star player James Harden in a deal said to be worth over $300 million. Which means the lad from Melbourne has only a couple of days left to find a new home – otherwise, he’ll likely be out for the rest of the season. As they say in the classics: watch this space…
ANIMAL KINGDOM
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What have you got planned for this weekend? How about going on echidna poo patrol? It’s easy enough to do: you just scamper about your garden or bushland that happens to be close to you, and collect any echidna poo you come across.
Why on earth would you spend your weekend collecting echnida poo, I hear you ask? It’s all part of a science project to count how many echidnas there are in Australia: where they live and what they eat.
So far, about 11,000 Aussies have downloaded the Echidna app to their phones and used it to report sightings of the spiny critter in their neighbourhoods.
Some more committed citizen conservationists have even answered the scientists’ call and collected echidna poo and sent it in for analysis. By examining what’s in an echidna’s poo, scientists can get a better idea of what they’re eating and whether the habitat they’re in can continue to sustain them – or provide food for them.
So what are you waiting for? Download the app – there are links in today’s episode notes – then start sniffing around for poo. You know you want to .
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 …
- Which country has just introduced cartoon characters to its passports?
- What’s the name of the Aussie basketball sensation sweating on a trade in the NBA?
- What are amateur echidna watchers being encouraged to collect?
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s February 8 … Federal Parliament convenes today for the first time this year .. that means all of our elected officials will be popping up in Canberra today. And with an election coming soon – things are really heating up.
It’s also a special day for the following Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today…Thomas from Coolangatta, Ruby from Shoal Bay and Morgan from Kingston.
Belated birthday wishes go to the following Squiz Kids who celebrated birthdays over the recent holidays… Aaron, Jude, Emilia, Gretl and Isabella from Cannon Hill State School.
Classroom shout outs today go to…class 3/4C and Mr Cattley at West Wallsend Public School and class 4/5E and Mrs Ellwood at Blaxland Public School.
And a special shout out to Mrs Vantarakis and her class at Livingstone Primary School in Vermont South who have just signed up to Squiz Kids for Schools. Welcome aboard.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- Krill
- Peanut allergy
- Platypus