Wednesday, 3 November, 2021

Saving the world’s forests; Dubai’s giant humans; a Verry Elleegant Melbourne Cup; and Roblox goes down.

 

LINKS

Dubai’s giant human statues: ​​https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/mobility-pavilion-alif-expo-2020-dubai-weta-workshop-spc-intl/index.html

 

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

Australia has joined more than 100 countries from all around the world in an important agreement to stop forests from being cut down as the climate change summit in Glasgow kicks off. 

The agreement between countries who – between them – have 85% of the world’s forests – means that a global effort will be made to stop what’s called ‘deforestation’ within the next nine years.

Deforestation is the process of cutting down trees and clearing forests. And it’s often done to create land for livestock like cattle to graze or for certain crops to be planted. 

Cutting down trees is a problem because trees are like great big carbon dioxide vacuums – meaning they absorb one of the gases that contributes to global warming. Oh – and they also produce oxygen … which we need to, you know, breathe and stuff. 

Sometimes referred to as the ‘lungs of the earth’, forests play a really important role in absorbing greenhouse gases. Which is why it’s not only important to protect the trees we have: but also plant lots of new ones. 

The agreement between countries at the COP 26 Climate Summit is a great first step for the big meeting which will take place over the next ten days in Glasgow, Scotland.

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If you’re one of the many teachers who has signed up for Squiz Kids for Schools – our new daily suite of classroom resources – you’ll receive a special Squiz Kids Short Cut to Climate Change at the end of this week. If you haven’t signed up yet, our Squiz Kids for Schools offering is free to trial for the remainder of Term 4. Sign up at squizkids.com.au.

 

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 Dubai – the city in the desert in a country called the United Arab Emirates … where the clever people behind the Lord of The Rings movies have been hard at work creating a trio of 16 metre tall, spookily life-like humans for the World Expo being held there.

As part of an exhibition celebrating the evolution of mobility throughout human history … the folk who created the creatures in the Lord of The Rings movies have made three enormous statues of the Arab world’s most important explorers – Al Bakri, Ibn Battuta and Ibn Majid. 

They have what looks like real human skin, real beards on their enormous faces, and eyes that look like real human eyes. The giant statues are so big they required one and a half kilometres of fabric to dress them – and some 20,000 tiny holes had to be drilled into their faces to poke in the fake hair for their beards. 

Boom … mind blown.

I’ve stuck a link to photos and video in today’s episode notes so you can marvel at them yourself. 

 

POP CULTURE CORNER

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And …. breathe. All is once again right with the world. Everyone can stop freaking out … after an unexpected server crash on the weekend, the world’s most popular online game, Roblox, has resumed normal service. 

More than 43 million people play Roblox around the world every day. Wowsers … and that means a whole lot of people were left being forced to find other forms of entertainment over the weekend – like, you know, going outside and kicking a ball, for instance – while the computer engineers at Roblox worked frantically to get the platform working again. Yesterday, things were starting to return to normal in the virtual Roblox world – with users gradually being let back in. 

 

SPORT TIME

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It was a Melbourne Cup victory of firsts for Verry Elleegant – the horse who crossed the finished line in at the head of the pack yesterday.  

It was the first time the jockey and trainer had won the famous race. The first time a horse that started out in barrier number 18 had won the race in its 160 year history. And the first Cup victory for the six year-old mare from New Zealand.

What’s a mare? It’s the name given to a female horse.

The horse that was the favourite, the Queensland born and bred Incentivise, put in a brave effort to come second. And a special shout out to the horse called Billy Ocean … who came in last. 

Because remember: sometimes just taking part is an achievement.

 

NEWSHOUNDS

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Every Wednesday, our dogged reporter Squiz-E the Newshound sniffs out a fishy story on the internet, and gives us tips on how to Stop, Think, and Check if it’s true. Today, Squiz-E has a real stinker. There’s a video doing the rounds online about how the oil from a cypress tree can make people super smart. The video, and the website selling the cypress oil, have pictures and rave reviews from people who supposedly became astronauts, or got into top universities, or were cured of diseases. Problem is, it’s all a fake. 

Squiz-E did something really simple to check: he did a Google reverse image search. That’s where you take the picture from a website, and drag it into the google image search box. He discovered that the photos of those supposedly happy customers are actually what’s called stock photos … images sold by a photographer to be used by anyone for any story. The pictures had also been used in ads for cars, nursing homes and a law office! 

Google image searches… what a great idea. As Squiz-E says: if you come across something online that smells fishy – remember to Stop. Think and Check.

 

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 …

  1. What was the name of the horse that won the Melbourne Cup yesterday?
  2. Which city in the United Arab Emirates is hosting the World Expo?
  3. Which massively popular online game crashed over the weekend?

 

SHOUT OUTS

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It’s November 3…birthday of Aussie cricket star Elysse Perry, and Indigenous poet, Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

It’s also a special day for these Squiz Kids celebrating a birthday today…Bonnie from Kempsey, Amelia from Emu Plains, Louie from Rosebery, Oscar from the Gold Coast, Ezra from Eastwood and William who’s listening all the way over there in Hong Kong.

And a belated birthday shout out goes to… Jamie from Nelson Park.

Classroom shout outs today go to…class 5B and Miss Byatt at North Ryde Public School, Year 3 and Mrs Dheem at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic School in Greystanes, to Year 4 Smith and Ms Singleton at Rozelle Public School, class 2/3F and Mrs Frost at Burnside Public School, in North Parramatta, to Year 3 and Mr Carrs at Santa Sabina College in Strathfield and to classes 3/4W and 4/5L at Balgownie Public School.

 

The S’Quiz Answers:

  1. Verry Elleegant
  2. Dubai
  3. Roblox