Attention kids of Australia, here's your chance to run the country.
Announcing PM for a Day, a brand new Squiz Kids competition where we ask you, our fabulous audience if you were Prime Minister for a day, what would you do to make Australia a better place to live?
The winner will win a trip to Canberra for a private tour of Parliament House, a chance to visit Question Time and receive a personal tour of Government House by the Governor-General herself.
You might even cross paths with the actual PM while you're there.
All you need to do is send a video to squizkids at thesquizcomau telling us the one thing you would do to make our country better if you were PM for a day.
But hurry, you've only got until March 13 to get your entry in.
Check out our website squizkidscomau for terms and conditions and details on how to enter.
Welcome to squiz kids.
Science shorts the show where we take your big, curly questions and unpack the science stories everyone's talking about, break them down into snack size science powered answers.
We sort the fact from the fluff, keep it fun, keep it fast and, whether it's happening in your body, your backyard or the big wide universe, we're here to explain the science behind the headlines.
Ever pulled a frozen jumper off the clothesline, stiff as a board, only to find it dry?
Wait what?
How can something go from icy, solid to dry without ever becoming a puddle?
Today's question is what are states of matter and why do they change?
Everything around you is made of particles, tiny building blocks called atoms and molecules.
You can't see them, but they're always moving.
In a solid, particles are tightly packed together.
They wiggle, but they stay in place.
Think kids sitting in assembly.
In a liquid.
They're still close, but they can slide past each other, like when the bell rings and everyone starts moving through the corridor.
And in a gas, particles are far apart and zooming around everywhere.
It's giving playground at lunchtime.
So what changes?
Energy.
At heat, particles move faster and spread out, take heat away, they slow down and snuggle up closer.
That's melting, solid to liquid, freezing, liquid to solid, boiling, liquid to gas, condensing, gas to liquid.
Think water droplets on a steamy bathroom mirror on a cold morning.
But sometimes matter can skip a step.
That frozen jumper, the ice didn't melt, it turned straight into water vapour.
That, my friends, is called sublimation, solid to gas.
It happens with dry ice too, if you've ever been lucky enough to see that in a cool literally cool science experiment.
And the opposite, gas can go straight to solid, that's deposition, like frost forming overnight.
Matter isn't disappearing, it's just rearranging.
But there's one more level that we know about.
If you keep adding a lot of energy to gas, something extra happens.
You see, atoms are made up of even tinier particles.
In the centre is a nucleus and around it move tiny particles called electrons, kind of like a mini solar system.
Electrons are much smaller than atoms and they normally stay attached or attracted to their nucleus.
But with enough energy, like inside the sun or even in a neon sign, some electrons get knocked free.
When that happens, the gas becomes plasma.
Plasma is a super energized state of matter where particles carry an electrical charge.
You'll find plasma in stars, lightning bolts and those glass plasma balls with glowing streaks.
And if plasma cools down, the electrons settle back and it turns into a normal gas again.
Solid, liquid, gas, plasma.
It's all about energy.
Had fun?
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Leave your questions in the comments or email me at squizkids, at thesquizcomau, and you might just hear your answer right here.
On next week's Squiz Kids Science Show.
