Wednesday, 25 May, 2022
LINKS
Kangaroos far from home: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61518058
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
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
THE LOWDOWN
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What’s worse than La Niña’s heavy summer rains?
How about La Niña sticking around for autumn, winter, and spring?
In case you’ve forgotten what La Niña is, it’s a combination of wind systems and warm ocean temperatures that results in, you guessed it, lots of rain. It usually happens once a decade, but American climate researchers predicted yesterday that we might need to keep our wellies on for three La Niñas, all in a row! They studied tides and temperatures from Tahiti to Darwin, and said there’s a 60 percent chance that the La Niña clobbering us now will continue into winter… and a 50 percent chance that it will go right through until spring… making what’s known as a triple La Niña. That’s only happened three times in the last 120 years. Aren’t we lucky.
Sydney has already had the wettest start to the year in history, with rain falling on 96 out of 144 days so far. And it’ll stay wet for the rest of this week all along the east coast. There are also warnings for hazardous surf from Fraser Island, in Queensland, all the way down to Bateman’s Bay, on the south coast of NSW. Stay safe out there, people!
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 England, close to Stonehenge. You know Stonehenge, right? It’s an ancient circle, made out of enormous stones, that is aligned to the sun. Historians are still debating exactly how and why Stonehenge was built about 5,000 years ago. But now, at least, they know what the builders were eating… thanks to five pieces of ancient, fossilised poo.
Known scientifically as coprolites, the poos were found near the site of a prehistoric village. In good news, the poo had absolutely no smell to it, after all those years. In yuck news, examination of the poo suggests that the builders of Stonehenge were eating raw or undercooked cow liver and lung. Please don’t make me say that sentence again.
Still, archaeologists – those people who dig up old things to learn about ancient cultures – found way more pigs’ bones than cattle at the rubbish dump near the village, so it’s likely these ancient people were eating more pork than internal cattle organs. I guess that’s a good thing?
ANIMAL KINGDOM
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Villagers walking along the edge of a forest in eastern India recently spotted three VERY strange creatures. They had short, reddish brown fur, powerful back legs with big feet, and a strong, long tail that they used for balance while hopping around. Sound familiar to you? Well, these people had NO idea what they were looking at—they were in India, after all—and it was only after they alerted forest officials that they learned the animals were kangaroos.
It turns out that it’s become very trendy in India to have an exotic animal as a pet, and all kinds of creatures are being smuggled, which means snuck illegally, into the country. Officials had been trying to catch smugglers by checking cars entering the state of West Bengal, and they suspect that the kangaroos were dumped on the side of the road by smugglers trying to avoid getting caught. Sadly, one died, but the other two are recovering in a safari park. They’ll have to spend the rest of their lives in a zoo, because India is not their natural habitat. Video of them has gone viral, and more ‘roos are now being spotted in the wild… let’s hope they get to safety soon, too.
NEWSHOUNDS
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It’s Wednesday! Which means that Squiz-E the newshound is back to tell us about fishy things he’s sniffed out on the internet today. And he’s got a really stinky one today: Uranus!
Beloved by giggling school students everywhere, the name for the seventh planet from our sun actually comes from the Greek God of the sky, not the body part we all have that excretes solid waste. But an article online has caused a lot of excitement lately because it says that in the American state of Florida, the government has banned 54 school books because they use the word “Uranus”.
Now the word for the day, Squiz Kids, is SATIRE. If something is labelled as a satire, it means that the work isn’t true… it’s using humour or exaggeration to expose something ridiculous. In this case, the online article is very clearly labelled “Satire”. Florida’s government did not ban the word “Uranus”… although they did recently ban some maths book. That’s what the article was making fun of. As far as Uranus goes, though, as long as school kids are talking about the planet, and not bums, you’re safe. Phew.
THE SQUIZ
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This is the part of the podcast where you get to test how well you’ve been listening …
- What’s the name of the weather system causing all this rain?
- What is coprolite?
- Uranus is named after what?
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s May 25… Happy Independence Day to Jordan! Did you know that almost a quarter of this middle Eastern country’s population is made up of refugees? Or that they do NOT make their money selling oil? To learn more about Jordan, listen in to this week’s Squiz the World episode. The superfast, supersonic Jetliner is landing in Amman, the capital, as we speak. Available to all SK4S and Apple Specials Subscribers… there are links to free trials in your episode notes.
It’s also a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today …
Will and Addy from Quirindi, Jenna from Exeter, Ping Hui from Wheelers Hill, Twigsy from Geelong, Eva from Otford, Charlene from Kew, Berry from Paddington, Lucinda from Caringbah and Sebastian listening over in New York City.
And classroom shoutouts go to… Class 3/4 Manta-rays at Grahamstown Public School, class F3 and Mr Salvaire at Hammond Park Primary School, class 3/6 Peach and Miss Hills at Bowen Public School in Orange and lastly to class 5/6 scarlet and Mrs Hawkins at Ashmont Public School.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- La Niña
- Fossilised poo
- Greek god of the sky