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- What do I know What do I want to know How will I find out
- What is renewable energy
- TRANSCRIPTS 06/05/08
- SOLAR SUBSIDIES
- WOMEN TRUCKIES
- QUIZ 1
- SEAL TRACKING
- QUIZ QUESTION 2
- "Riders at the gate - ready 3, 2, 1, beeepppp"
Vocabulary Habitat
Adapted Evolved
Predators Focus Questions How are the Weddell seals being used by researchers in Antarctica? What is happening to the waters around Antarctica? How did the researchers collect the data? What did they learn from tracking the seals? How deep can the Weddell seals dive? Why is it important that scientists discover how the ocean is changing? Finish the following sentence: `The saltier water is the…’ Explain the connection between ice formation and climate change. How is the food chain affected by how much ice there is? Do you agree with using animals to help with scientific research? Explain your answer. Seal Tracking Researchers have discovered that Weddell seals can hold their breath for up to an hour and a half. Their blood/oxygen adaptations have evolved to enable them to do this. Students will be investigating how the Antarctic Weddell seals have adapted to their habitat. Ask students to complete the following chart as they go through the inquiry process. This can be done individually, as a group or a whole class.
Students can consider food gathering, movement, warmth and protection from predators when they are researching. Students can choose to present the information in a number of ways: Powerpoint presentation Poster or brochure Written report Oral presentation Further investigations Students research the amount of blood in humans compared to Weddell seals. How does it relate to how long each can hold their breath under water? What are the percentages of blood in adult males and females as well as children? Students investigate how climate change is affecting the Antarctic region and make a model that shows the change. Create a poem, rhyme or song about Weddell seals or the Antarctic. 8 Related Research Links ABC News – Tagged seals go where no scientist has gone before http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/01/30/2149489.htm ABC News - Tagged seals shed light on Antarctic deep http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/29/2229776.htm Australian Antarctic Division website – Information about Weddell seals http://www.aad.gov.au/default.asp?casid=1770 Children’s BBC website – Antarctic food chain under threat http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/sci_tech/newsid_3981000/3981161.stm Information for students about Weddell seals http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/mammals/pinniped/Weddellsealprintout.shtml S  olar subsidies
Solar power seems to have a lot going for it. It doesn’t contribute to climate change and it’s a renewable source of energy. So why are so few people in Australia choosing solar power? F
Science and Society and Environment
Students will develop an understanding of how the sun is used to generate energy and what renewable energy is Students will need the following to conduct the experiment:
2 plastic drink bottles – 1 painted black the other wrapped in aluminium foil 2 balloons Heat lamp ocus Questions Describe what is happening at Mawson Lakes School. What are some advantages of solar power? What are solar cells made from? How are they made? Why aren’t more people installing solar cells to generate energy? Why is it difficult for solar power to compete with coal? What happened at Pittwater High School in Sydney? What are some people saying the Government should do to encourage solar energy use? Why is it difficult for solar power to compete with coal? Do you think the Government is doing enough to encourage people to use solar power? Explain your answer. Is the sun the answer? Students will conduct a simple experiment that explores how solar energy converts to heat energy. Ask students to make some predictions about what they think might happen before they begin the experiment. Place a balloon over the opening of each drink bottle. Make sure it is a tight fit. Put the bottles in a warm, sunny place or under a heat lamp (make sure the bottles are the same distance from the lamp). Record how long it takes to see a change in the balloons. What happened to the balloons? Why do you think it happened? What do you think would happen if the bottles were painted different colours? What is renewable energy? Ask students to come up with a description of what renewable and non-renewable energy is. Working in pairs, students share their definitions. Students now need to research what renewable and non-renewable energy is and add to or change their own definitions. What are some other renewable energy resources other than solar energy? Students share their findings with the class. Further investigations Do a solar audit of the school. Explore whether solar power is used in the school or
Sarah Larsen, Reporter INTRO: Now, do you have solar panels at your school? Do you have them at your home? Well according to some experts they should be everywhere but the reality is, not that many people choose to power their whole homes with solar each year. That's led to calls for governments to get more Aussies turning to the sun. Here's Sarah. SARAH LARSEN, REPORTER: Ever thought about what powers your classroom? REPORTER: Here at Mawson Lakes school in South Australia the power in here come from up here. This is a solar school. KIDS: We have 16 solar panels which power 10 per cent of our school Now solar power has a lot going for it. It doesn't pollute like coal power and the sun will always be there so it's renewable. So why aren't there solar panels on every rooftop in Australia? Well, it's not as simple as that. You see, power from the sun might be clean and renewable, but getting it is not free. REPORTER: Most solar cells are made of silicon, which starts out as sand. The sand's cheap, but making it into silicon isn't. It has to be heated to more than a thousand degrees and treated with chemicals. Then the cells need to be put together. At the moment buying one of these systems to power your house could cost around 20,000 dollars. You'd save on energy bills but it could take more than a decade for the savings to cover the cost. Mawson Lakes School had its panels provided by the State Government, but not every school is that lucky. This is Pittwater High in Sydney. They've just installed solar units to power 10 classrooms. They cost 85,000 dollars but the school had to raise that money with things like stalls and raffles. Their principal reckons governments should be doing more to help everybody use the sun and he's not alone. Some people are saying Australia is lagging behind other countries in the solar stakes even though we've got more sun than most! They want things like cheap loans to help people pay for panels and tax cuts for solar businesses. But why do they reckon they need help? One problem with new industries like solar is they cost a lot to get started. Australia already has a lot of cheap power because it has big reserves of coal so it’s hard for solar to compete. That's why its supporters say people need to be encouraged to make the switch. But the government says it's already doing heaps. It's given grants to help new companies. It offers people discounts on panels and there are some big solar projects being planned. So while they disagree, what's the future for solar? Scientists are working on ways of making it cheaper with new types of cells. And they're working on other problems, like, what do you do when the sun goes down? They're looking for better ways to store the sun's energy. Until that happens, solar can't solve all of our power problems. So the governments looking at all sorts of other options as well. Still, maybe one day Mawson Lakes will get all its power from the sun and maybe your school will too. ONLINE POLL Now what do you think about that? You can vote in our online poll. The question is: "Should all schools have solar power?” To vote go to our website at abc.net.au/btn THE WIRE Time for some more news now. Here's Sarah. A cyclone has killed more than ten thousand people in Burma. That's a country north of Australia in South East Asia, in between China and Thailand. Whole villages have been destroyed and thousands of people are still missing so there are fears the death toll could rise Burma is one of the poorest countries in the world so it's difficult for them to cope with the disaster. But countries around the world are promising to help. *********** In Chile in South America a volcano has erupted after being inactive for a thousand years. It's spitting out smoke and ash which is landing on a nearby town. Most residents have left the area. Those that stay are having to wear masks. *********** And questions are being asked about the security of information on Facebook after an investigation by the British broadcasting corporation. Facebook is meant to be secure but the report found that when users install applications like games, outsiders can crack into the system. They can then access user’s personal details and the details of their friends. The worry is your personal details can then be used by criminals. Facebook says it removes any applications which are dodgy and users can always change their privacy settings. WOMEN TRUCKIES Catherine Ellis, Reporter INTRO: When you see big trucks and semi's travelling along the road most people assume there's a man behind the wheel. But it seems we'd be wrong. more and more WOMEN are becoming truckies. The industry is trying hard to attract them because there's a big shortage of workers. In this story we get to meet one of the girls who's hitting the highway! CATHERINE ELLIS, REPORTER: It's often thought of as an industry for tough guys with tattoos – but this is Hayley Wood. She's wanted to be a truck driver ever since she was a little girl. She wanted to be just like her dad, who is also a truckie. HAYLEY WOOD, TANKER DRIVER: Dad used to drive a tanker himself and he'd come home every now and then or we'd go on the convoys they used to have and I always dreamed of doing it myself. I wanted to be just like dad. Because I was a girl I thought, well back in those days it was just not an accepted thing, so never went ahead with it. But yeah, that was my dream and I'm finally living it. She reckons the best thing about the job is the freedom - heading off on adventures across the country and getting paid for it! HAYLEY WOOD: Trucks these days aren't as scary as they used to be in the old days. They've got the power steering, they've got the airconditioning, there's no heavy lifting involved. And trucks are really snazzy inside these days. Of course there's all sorts of trucks on the roads, but I thought I'd look inside a prime mover - they pull semi trailers. CATHERINE ELLIS, REPORTER: Check this out; you've got your own bed, there's a tv, dvd player, microwave, even a mini oven! There's also a fridge, a CD player to play your music and the best part - (honking horn). It seems fun, but there's actually a major shortage of drivers. Older truckies who should be retiring are having to stick around just to get the work done. Graham Doyle is 73-years-old and still does overnight drives between Melbourne and Adelaide. He's been driving trucks since he was a teenager and can't understand why young people aren't taking it up. GRAHAM DOYLE, TRUCK DRIVER: People say, "When will you give it away, Doylie?" I say, "What am I going to do?!" You spend a couple of days at home, you're itching to get back behind the wheel. Why is it such a problem not having enough drivers? How important is the work they do? Well did you know every single grocery item on every supermarket shelf was delivered by a truck? It's also how mail arrives at every post office, petrol arrives at service stations, clothes, computers, video games arrive at department stores. And the list goes on. Without them it would be a disaster for the economy! So the industry is working hard to stop this from happening. They're running a promotion campaign in schools to get more kids behind the wheel. They're also trying to improve the image of the industry. HAYLEY: If you speak to people from a younger generation and ask them what they see as a truck driver usually they'll think that it's a job they've taken on because they're not educated well enough to do anything else and that's just not the case anymore. And what does Hayley's dad think about her being a truckie? HAYLEY: I think my dad's proud as punch that his little girl's following in his footsteps. QUIZ 1 Let’s do a quiz on that. How many gears do you think a typical prime mover has? a. 6 b. 8
c. 18 The answer is 18. INTERNET CENSORSHIP Nathan Bazley, Reporter INTRO: 18! - You'd get pretty strong arms changing all those! Now let’s talk about the freedom on the web. Supporters of the internet say it's one of the best inventions ever for democracy. Because there are so many sites around the world it gives people a lot more freedom to talk about different ideas and to criticise things they don't like. But while that's the case for most of the world in one country things are very different. Here's Nathan. Not being able to find information can be frustrating. That's why the internet is so great because you can look up anything. Well not always. Welcome to Shanghai in China. It's a huge city that looks as modern and free as any western one. But people here lack one basic thing - full access to the internet. In Australia we can look up whatever we want on the web. Youtube, photo sites, Wikipedia and the news are all just a click away. But over in China, clicking on sites like these might just get you this - it's actually being deliberately blocked. That's called censorship. It’s when someone controls what people see and hear. So why can't people in China look up Wikipedia? Well, the government there is a lot different to ours. They don't have lots of political parties arguing - they only have one and it doesn't like criticism. What they say goes. They want to control exactly what people see. To make sure of this, they've set up an internet police force. Reporter: Signing up for the internet in China is a lot different from here in Australia. Once you decide you want to log on, you have to register with the police within thirty days. That way they know exactly who you are and what you're looking at. Some people estimate there could be 30,000 web police surfing the net day and night, blocking sites the government doesn't like. This is how it works. If you google 'cat' in China it'll bring up heaps of different sites about cats - just like here. But if you type in 'human rights' something like this might happen. It's actually a filter and it blocks words the government doesn't want people to know about. One report says typing in things like revolution, equality or freedom can get you shut out. Some people are very angry that Google has helped the government do it. Reporter: Email is also controlled in China. If you write something the government doesn't like there's a good chance it will never arrive. That's the filter blocking things again. But unfortunately it gets a whole lot more serious than that. Because in China, getting caught saying the wrong thing online can mean serious jail time. This journalist was arrested for saying something against the government in an email. He used his Yahoo account but the government read it and with Yahoo's help, tracked him down and threw him in prison for ten years. For helping the Chinese government, the boss of Yahoo got into lots of trouble in the United States. He was told off and paid compensation to the journalist. So the question now is what will happen when all the athletes go to China for the Olympic Games later this year - will they be censored? Under pressure, China has agreed to remove its filters while the Games are on but most people think they'll put them back up straight afterwards. However it will give Chinese people a brief chance to see to see what they're missing. SEAL TRACKING Catherine Ellis, Reporter INTRO: When you're swimming under water how long can you hold your breath for? I bet not for an hour and a half!! Well thanks to some special technology, scientists have worked out that the Weddell Seal can hold its breath that long! The research is also very important because it could shed light on climate change. And the seals are also very cute. Check this out. REPORTER: You might want to rug-up, we're off to a place that's very cold! Look familiar? We're in Antarctica - the earth's southern-most continent. Now we're here, let's meet some locals - Weddell Seals - pretty cute ha! They look kinda lazy loafing about on the ice, but some of them are actually helping to collect information for a big research program. Scientists want to learn more about how the world's oceans are changing. CATHERINE ELLIS, REPORTER: You see the water around Antarctica is becoming less salty and this could have a big impact on ocean currents and climate - so they need to learn more! But as you can imagine, it's not easy collecting data from deep under the winter ice, so these guys are the perfect helpers. The scientists picked seven female seals and then made them look very silly by sticking one of these on their heads. It's a satellite transmitter, stuck on with road worker glue. It weighs half a kilo but apparently the seals don't mind. PROF MARK HINDELL, RESEARCHER: It's nice to work with an animal that doesn't get stressed when you're working with it. It makes life easier for everybody. Every time one of the seals comes to the surface, the transmitter sends info about where it's been to the satellite. The team has discovered the seals lurk beneath the dense pack ice all winter, only coming up to breathe through tiny cracks. They also dive very deep to feed off fish - sometimes 900 metres - that's a long time to hold your breath! PROF MARK HINDELL, RESEARCHER: I think ninety minutes is the record that we've got so far and that's - that's a big breath hold! The high-tech headwear will eventually fall off when the seal moults, but by then scientists will know even more about what these creatures do all winter. And about how the ocean is changing. The seals collect info on how salty the water is and that tells the team how much ice is forming. The saltier the water is the more ice forms and the less salty it is, the less ice forms. And ice formation is important because it could affect ocean currents and the earth's climate! Knowing how much ice there is is also important because it affects the food chain. You see, in the ice there's lots of algae that krill feed on and lots of animals feed on krill. So if there's less ice - there's less food for everyone! Anyway, the scientists are planning to run the program for several more winters, so I guess that means these guys will be busy workers for a long time yet! That is freezing!!! To warm up.. lets take a look at sport. Here's Sarah. QUIZ QUESTION 2 Ok quiz time again. If I tell you that a deep-freeze-unit runs at about -20 degrees celsius - what do you reckon the coldest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica is? a. -10 b. -29
c. -89 The answer is -89!! THE SCORE An NRL supporter is in big trouble for throwing a plastic football at a referee. The mini ball was thrown by a Penrith Panthers fan after his team lost to Paramatta on Saturday night. Police caught the man and threw him out of the stadium but Penrith coach Matt Elliot has called on the NRL to ban the supporter for life. ************ In the AFL Melbourne has produced the second biggest comeback in history for a side trailing at half time. The Demons were down by 50 points to Fremantle. But ended up wining by 6. ************ And world champion Australian Casey Stoner has been beaten into third place in the Chinese moto grand prix. The race was won by Italian Valentino Rossi. Stoner is now in 4th place in the championship. Before his race there was some speccy action in the 125ccs . Rain turned the track into a skating rink and quite a few riders tested their leathers. Luckily there were no serious injuries. OLYMPIC BMX Reporter, Nathan Bazley INTRO: Most kids would have raced around on their BMX's at some point or another - I made little tracks in my yard to muck around on. But while professional BMX competitions have always been really popular at the Extreme Games you'd never have expected to see them at an event like the Olympics. But this year in Beijing, cycling will hit the dirt for the first time and Australia's in with a great chance of a medal! "Riders at the gate - ready? 3, 2, 1, beeepppp" Reporter: Believe it or not this guy built this track in his backyard. Okay, so he is an Australian champion but this August he's hoping to to go one step further. LUKE: What better way to train than on a replica to the Beijing track? Yep, this is all training for the Olympics. But to get there Luke will have to do well in events like this. That's him on the far left - number 17. BMX racing is a mad sprint - going as fast as 70 ks an hour over bone-jarring jumps. This is the World Cup Supercross - a qualifier for the Olympics. So riders are going all out to make the cut. Another rider fighting for a place is Khalen. He's 23 and races professionally in the United States. KHALEN: You kinda just wing it I suppose, just won a couple of races in Australia and did the hard work and made the step to America and won a couple of races and got lucky then walked into a couple of good sponsors and yeah just really lucky I suppose. But why move to America??! KHALEN: I was sick and tired of being broke man riding my bike! I just wanted to make a career of it you know. I just got lucky and now I'm fortunate enough to have a couple of cars and a house and a fiancé. But while he's had heaps of success over there, it's not all fun and games. KHALEN: It has its good points and that but if you want to be professional BMX and make good money man you still gotta eat right, you can't party, you cant drink and stuff like that. You gotta take it kinda seriously. Another rider hoping to represent Australia in Beijing is Nicole. She's 20 and has her brother to thank for getting into BMX racing. NICOLE: I was three at the time and got sick of watching him riding round the track so I grabbed his bike and had a go myself. Since then nothing's been able to stop her. Not even huge stacks. NICOLE: I've had two knee recons in the last two years and some broken bones and yeah it is dangerous but you crash you get up and you do it again. With the games only a few months away, both Khalen and Nicole are pumped for their first chance at Olympics glory. KHALEN: When we did find out that BMX was going to be at the Olympics you know it kinda sat the back of your head all the time but when selection comes and when we actually walk on the dais at the Olympics I think that's when it'll actually hit home you know what I mean? NATHAN BAZLEY, REPORTER: You're pretty excited, looking forward to it? Yeah really excited, it's going to be great. But one thing the guys can't reproduce on these tracks is smog. There's a lot of that in Beijing. KHALEN: Once you actually get to Beijing, what do you think it'll be like? CLOSER Lets hope they do well. Just before we go lets have a quick look at TV's biggest night of the year the Logie Awards which were held on Sunday. Bindi Irwin won an award for her ABC show The Jungle Girl. Logies Presenter: Most popular new female talent… Bindi Irwin Bindi: I'd like to thank the ABC for helping me get the conservation message out. I'd definitely like to dedicate this to my mum and my dad…EEEHHH” Chris Lilley also won awards for Summer Heights High. Kate Ritchie won the night's biggest award the gold Logie. And that's it for today's show - if you want some more info on any of our stories go to our website at abc.net.au/btn. And remember every Monday to Friday at 5 to 6 we have BTN Daily which will give you a wrap up of the best kids news from around the world. Catch ya later. 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