Wednesday, 27 April, 2022
A tale of two stock markets; Scotland’s whisky powered cars; Patty Mills and Daniel Riccardo are two good sports; and fake child soldiers in Ukraine
LINKS
Whisky-powered cars: https://www.celtic-renewables.com/#elementor-action%3Aaction%3Dlightbox%26settings%3DeyJ0eXBlIjoidmlkZW8iLCJ2aWRlb1R5cGUiOiJ2aW1lbyIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOlwvXC9wbGF5ZXIudmltZW8uY29tXC92aWRlb1wvNDU2MTY0NDAzPyN0PSJ9
Tina Rahimi in the ring: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-26/australia-select-first-muslim-woman-for-comm-games-boxing-team/101015172
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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For those of you starting to learn about percentages, two per cent probably doesn’t sound like a lot. But when you’re talking about the Australian Stock Exchange dropping almost two percent in value yesterday, that means a loss of $50 billion dollars – that’s billion with a B – in one day.
Slow down, Amanda, I hear you cry. What’s a stock market? Well, it’s a place where people buy and sell shares, or little pieces of companies. Companies offer these shares for sale so they can get money to improve their businesses. If a company is doing well, or if people think it will do well in the future, they buy the shares, and that makes the price go up. If a company is doing badly, or people think it will, its price goes down.
Yesterday, share prices of Aussie companies that work in energy and mining dropped, largely because of fears that COVID-19 lockdowns in China will mean that Chinese companies buy less of Australian iron ore, and other products.
But over in America, the stock market went crazy, after it was announced that Tesla and Space X billionaire Elon Musk was going to buy the social media platform Twitter for a whopping $61.4 billion Australian dollars. That made Twitter’s share price go up, and it was joined by lots of other companies whose shares are sold on the American stock exchange. A good share day in America, not so good in Australia. Stock markets are like that.
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 Scotland, where whisky-powered cars have started driving on local streets. Scotland is famous for its whisky, which is made primarily from barley, and every day Scottish distilleries make and ship almost four million bottles all over the world. Each year, that whisky-making process also produces 684,000 metric tons of solid waste, and over 2 billion litres of liquid waste. Some of it is fed to animals, but a lot was just dumped… until a biofuel scientist had a brilliant idea: turn the whisky by-products into environmentally friendly fuel for cars! A test car is already zooming around using whisky biofuel… I wonder if its exhaust smells like a cocktail? I’ve popped an animation of how the biofuel process works into your episode notes.
SPORT TIME
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The Commonwealth Games get underway on July 28 in Birmingham, England, and over the coming months, we’ll be hearing lots about who’s made the Aussie team. Yesterday, Sydney boxer Tina Rahimi made history with her selection as the first Muslim woman to box for Australia… just four years after her very first fight! There are 11 members of the boxing team, and 8 of them will be going to their first Games. Tina, who is 26, was working as a make-up artist when she started boxing, and says she’s never been afraid of getting punched. I’ll pop a link in your episode notes to some video footage of her fighting… she’s fierce!
In other sporting news, two Aussies scored points for sportsmanship over the weekend. Patty Mills, who is a guard for the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, won the NBA’s Sportsmanship Award for 2021-22. And on Sunday, Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo was praised for his classy apology to Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, whose car he accidentally hit on the first lap, causing Sainz to leave the race. Ricciardo said he felt terrible, and Sainz said there were no hard feelings.
NEWSHOUNDS
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It’s Wednesday… which means that Squiz-E the Newshound is back in the studio to tell us about misinformation he’s sniffed out online… and this week, his nose started twitching as soon as he saw a tweet from the American TV news station CNN about “brave” Ukrainian children signing up to fight in the war against Russia.
Squiz-E thought that was fishy, not just because he remembered that fake accounts had been created before to impersonate CNN … but also because he would be VERY surprised if responsible journalists would use positive language like “brave” if children were being recruited into a deadly war.
Squiz-E used his Newshound skills and learned that the story was a fake, and NOT posted by CNN. The photo of kids in uniform that was used on social media was taken in 2017, at a summer camp. So why was this fake created? Squiz-E says there are two main reasons, and they’re both about damaging reputations: if you didn’t stop, think, and check, you’d have a very poor opinion of the Ukrainian army, for taking in child soldiers, and of the western media, for being positive about kids going to war. Thanks for making sure we don’t fall for misinformation, Squiz-E!
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 sport will Tina Rahimi represent Australia in?
- Which social media platform is billionaire Elon Musk buying?
- Where are scientists using whisky by-products to power cars?
SHOUT OUTS
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It’s April 27 – Freedom Day in South Africa, where on April 27, 1994, the country held its first free democratic elections for ALL its citizens. If you want to learn more about South Africa – including the Big Five animals, its 11 official languages, and the history of apartheid, check out this week’s episode of Squiz the World. I’ll put a link in your episode notes to a free trial of our fabulous special episodes… because who doesn’t want more Squiz Kids in their life?
It’s also a special day for Jennifer from Forest Lake, Addison from Glengowrie, Ellie from Clifton Hill and Georgina from Yass. Happy birthday, all of you!
And because a bunch of you celebrated your birthday over the Easter Holidays … we’ve got a backlog of belated birthday shout outs which we’ll be working our way through all this week … Zoe from Concord West, Maxwell from Thorneside, Loukas from Helensvale, George from Abbotsford, Andrew from Forest Lake, Lyra from Brighton, Allan from Ringwood North, Caleb from Shellharbour, Estelle from Warragul, Casey from Ashmont, Lea and Addison from Melbourne, Sven from Cannon Hill, Kaizen from Innaloo, Nora from the Blue Mountains, Eleanor from Wingham, Bodhi from Mansfield and Jemima from Saint James.
And classroom shoutouts today go to … Miss Green and class 2G at Ambarvale Public School, Miss Fairclough and class Bandaarr at Quirindi Public School and to the year 5’s in room 7 at Bicton Primary School with their teacher Mrs Bonwick. Finally, a special shoutout to my friends Clara and Abi, who are MOST excellent roadtrip companions.
The S’Quiz Answers:
- Boxing
- Scotland