ABC Listen.
Hello there, my name's Emily and you're listening to Newstime.
Hello, Emily.
On today's episode, find out why your grown-ups received a letter in the mail just like everyone else in the country.
Plus, get ready to make lots of noise for a good reason and find out where we're headed today for Talk of the Town.
I'm ready!
On Tuesday 11 August, it's Census Night.
Every five years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics count every single person and household in Australia.
It's called the Census of Population and Housing, and it's a way to capture what Australia looks like today and how much it might have changed from the last census five years ago.
My mum signed her thing and then wrote my name on it.
Grown-ups around the country would have received a special form in the mail.
It asks questions about everyone who lives at your place, whether it's a house, a unit, a caravan, a houseboat, you name it.
Everyone gets counted on the census and there's lots of questions to answer.
What's your favourite food?
If you have a birthmark.
How many teeth you lost?
The star signs.
We don't get asked those sorts of questions, although I would love to know the star signs of all the Newstime listeners.
Instead, Australians get asked about their age, where they were born, their religion, their jobs and their studies.
The information we learn from the census helps the government make decisions about transport, schools, hospitals and heaps more.
To collect data about the people that live in what places.
Yeah, and knowing who lives in a place can help us figure out what supports they might need.
For example, if there are way more babies and young children living in an area now than there used to be, the government might decide that they need to build more schools in that area.
Or if there are lots more people who live with a disability, the government knows to give that area more community support to help people with disability live, work and play.
Do the people on like tiny islands near Australia get the postings too?
The census isn't perfect.
There are lots of people who won't get counted and little pockets of Aussies that might not have their information recorded correctly.
But census staff do their best to visit remote communities and speak to people experiencing homelessness too.
Census Night is the best way we have to understand Australia and the people that live here.
Plus, it's pretty cool to think that for one night every five years, we're all doing the exact same thing, filling in the same form.
Happy Census Night.
Can I have another story, please?
In the United States of America, there's a city called Chicago.
And in the town of Chicago, there's a group who meet up every week called the Scream Club.
They test who can scream the loudest, how much you can scream.
Look, you're not far off.
Hundreds of people in the Scream Club meet up each week on a bridge in the middle of the city.
They stand together, look out over the lake and scream as loud as they can.
Who's making all that racket?
I'd be speechless.
Outrageous!
The Scream Club was started by two people last year and it's become more popular than they ever could have imagined.
Because they hate water?
Yeah.
That's not it.
They're screaming as a way to release tension and stress.
The founders say that people might find it a bit silly to scream by themselves, but when they have permission to scream with other people, they feel confident to be able to let go and make as much noise as they want.
Stress relief.
Yeah, to, like, let out all of their anger and sadness.
Yeah, exactly.
The Scream Club welcomes people of all ages and it seems like they all scream for different reasons.
The groups start by screaming quietly together and then they build up the energy, getting louder and louder.
Some people even cry when they scream because they're dealing with lots of big feelings.
We can't always just make our way to a lake for a good scream, though.
So do you have any other ideas for some stress relief?
Start meditating.
Breathing.
Write it down in, like, a diary or something.
Nice ideas.
I'm not saying you should go around screaming every time you see a lake, but it's definitely a good idea to let our feelings out in a healthy way so they don't build up and get too big to handle.
Today we're heading to North Queensland to visit Townsville.
It's called Townsville, but really it's a city.
Situated on the lands of the Bindal and the Woogarookaba people, about 200,000 people call Townsville home and listener Juliette is one of them.
My name is Juliette and I live in Townsville.
In Townsville it can be very very hot or very very wet.
One thing I love about Townsville is all the cool hills and mountains.
I once ran up and down Castle Hill four times.
We also have many interesting animals that are very beautiful but some can be very dangerous at the same time.
Yep, Townsville has heaps of wildlife to keep an eye out for, dangerous animals like snakes, crocodiles and box jellyfish, and some not-so-dangerous animals too, like koalas, kangaroos and brilliantly coloured birds and bugs.
If you're there in the evening, you might even hear the call of a curlew.
Because Townsville is so far up Australia's coastline, it's an important place for Australia to connect with the rest of the world through trade and with our Defence Force.
There are some pretty cool festivals that happen in Townsville, including annual Greek, Italian and Indian festivals that celebrate the heritages of different people that call the town home.
And Townsville loves its sport.
If you walk around the streets on a day that the North Queensland Cowboys are playing, you'll see dozens of people proudly wearing their navy, yellow and white jerseys all day long.
Heaps of awesome sports people have come from Townsville too.
Including swimmer Libby Trickett, golfer Greg Norman and footy players Jonathan Thurston and Sam Byday.
Thanks for sharing Townsville with us, Juliet.
We want to hear from kids all over Australia about their towns, so ask your grown-ups to head to the Newstime tab of the ABC Kids Listen website to send us your message.
I hope you've been listening very carefully because it's time for today's quiz.
Question 1. Who's being asked to complete the census?
Everyone in Australia.
Question 2.
Where do the people stand while they scream?
On a bridge.
And your news noodler, can you think of some different ways people might be able to meet up and let out their emotions other than screaming?
Nice work, friends.
Thanks for your help on the countdown.
Thanks, Emily.
You're welcome.
Catch you Wednesday.
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