The Magic of Curiosity!

Learning Focus: Curiosity, asking questions, critical thinking, learning from real-life curiosity heroes, and a love of learning. 

Why do giraffes have long necks? How do cats flip in mid-air to land on their feet? How are bananas berries? 🦒🐱🍌

This episode explores the magical superpower inside all of us: curiosity! Learn how asking questions can lead to amazing discoveries, and how curiosity helps scientists, inventors, and everyday explorers.

 Perfect for young minds who love to ask “why?” and “how?”  🔍

💡✨ Sparks imagination and learning.

🧠 💪Get to know about some real life curiosity heroes, and see how their questions led to amazing discoveries!

🧚‍♂️”Parenting Pixie Dust” to spark curiosity at home.

🤩 “Fun Curiosity Challenge” kids can try at home.

After this episode, you’re sure to keep asking what, why, and how and being curious! Who knows maybe one day you will make an awesome discovery that will change the world.

If you like listening to our podcast, you can find us on Instagram and YouTube @momandimakemagic for more educational content, behind-the-scenes moments, magical creations, and fun updates! 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/momandimakemagic?igsh=bXN1dTc3c3Rma3Fn&utm_source=qr

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hi everyone!

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to our podcast, which is called Mom and I make Magic! Let's play a game. I'm going to ask you a question and you try your best to answer. So the question is, why do giraffes have long necks?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

First of all, this is a little bit of a long explanation. So giraffes, they they probably only eat the leaves on the tree, so their neck has to be tall. Their body cannot be too big.

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Great job! That was the correct answer. You are a smart cookie. Okay, so here is another question for you. Have you ever wondered why cats usually land on their feet? Yeah. Cats usually land on their feet because of something called the writing reflex. The writing reflex allows them to adjust their body in mid-air and position it in a way that they would land on their feet first. This writing reflex comes into action when the cat starts to fall. Isn't that cool? Cats also have a very flexible spine that allows them to twist and turn in mid-air and position their bodies in a way that they would land on their feet. And that leads us to our topic, which is the magic of curiosity. Curiosity is a natural desire to learn and explore. It is a big part of discovering something new, gaining knowledge, and helping our brains grow. If it wasn't for curiosity, you wouldn't learn anything new. Curiosity has helped develop science and technologies. It is something natural and common in humans, from babies to adults, and also in animals, such as cats, rodents, and apes. These animals like to explore the environment they live in and try to understand new things. Curiosity is like an appetite for gaining knowledge. So make sure you don't let this appetite ever go away. Have you come across a new gadget or a toy and immediately felt like figuring it out and what it does? Do you know curiosity can make you happier? It feels fun to learn new things, make new discoveries, and understand how things work. Learning something new also makes you feel better by removing your doubts and it helps you understand things that may have been confusing before. No wonder curiosity can indeed make us happier and healthier. Here are some fun facts to spark your curiosity. Okay, look at these two fruits in your imagination. A strawberry and a banana. Which one do you think is a berry? Say it out loud. Ready? Surprise! It's the banana. Banana is actually a berry. I know strawberries look like berries, but nature likes to play silly tricks sometimes. So you see, inside flowers there is a tiny little seed house. Scientists call it an ovary, but I like to call it a seed house. So bananas grow from one seed house. Strawberries grow from lots of seed houses. So bananas are berries, and strawberries are not true berries. Let's just say they are tricky fruits. Now let's talk about a very special animal. The octopus. Put one hand on your heart and feel it go. We all have one heart, right? But an octopus has let's count together. One, two, three! Three hearts! And guess what? Octopuses don't just have one brain, they have any guesses? They have nine brains. Do you know how do they have nine brains? Maybe my host can tell me.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

So they have eight tentacles and each tentacle has a brain. And uh there's one brain that controls everything more than all the other eight brains, and it's the ninth one. It's like the one it's like the one brain we have at the top.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

You are the smartest host. Here is another mind-blowing curiosity fun fact. Did you know there are more stars in the galaxy than grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts on Earth? That means if you scooped up a handful of sand and tried to count every tiny grain, the stars in the sky would still be significantly more. Scientists think there are about 1 septillion stars in the universe. That number is so big it's a 1 with 24 zeros after it. Now here's the amazing part. All the grains of sand on every beach and desert on Earth add up to 7.5 quintillion grains. That's a huge number too, but it's much smaller than the number of stars in the sky. Curiosity is a superpower, and we all should nurture the superpower in us. Meet some real-life curiosity heroes whose curiosity led to important discoveries we know today. The discovery of gravity. Isaac Newton was a scientist who discovered gravity, which is an invisible force that pulls us down. He discovered that by being curious and asking the very important question, why? Legend has it that he was sitting under an apple tree when an apple fell near him and it made him think, why did the apple fall straight down instead of sideways or up? Such a simple thing led to him wondering and asking why and how, which led to an important discovery that we all know today. Isaac Newton discovered this wasn't just about apples. This invisible force is the same force responsible for pulling us back down on the ground when we jump. And keeping the moon orbiting the earth and planets orbiting the sun. The discovery of evolution. Charles Darwin was a scientist from England. But before he was a scientist, he was a very curious child. Charles loved nature. He liked watching animals, studying plants, and noticing small details. He asked questions like why do animals look different, how do they survive, and what helps them live in different places? These were very big questions and his curiosity helped him keep asking such questions. When Charles grew up, his curiosity took him on a long journey. He traveled on a ship called the HMS Beagle for five years. And on this journey, he found lots of plants, fossils, and animals. He explored islands, mountains, and oceans and he noticed something important that living things that lived in different places looked different too. Charles began to wonder, what if living things changed slowly over a very long time to help them survive where they live? Not quickly, but slowly, and over many generations. So this was a big idea. He found that living things have traits. Traits are features like beaks, fur, colors, and strength. Some of these traits help animals find food, find shelter and stay safe and live longer. When an animal has traits that work well in its environment, it is more likely to survive. And when it survives, it can reproduce. Reproduce means it can have babies. And those babies often have similar helpful traits. Charles Darwin called this idea natural selection. Natural selection means that nature helps choose which traits work best. Over time, helpful traits become more common. This happens slowly and across many, many generations. Charles also studied species. A species is a group of living things that can have babies together. Over time, species can change and adapt. These changes help them survive in the world around them. Charles Darwin shared his ideas in a book called On the Origin of Species. In his book, he explained how living things change over time. His work became very important to science and made big contributions to modern biology. The discovery of radioactivity. Mary Curie was a Polish French scientist whose discovery and radioactivity led to x-rays taking such accurate and clear pictures. Mary Curie was a super curious scientist. She loved asking questions about everything around her. She looked at rocks, metals, and all sorts of things to see which secrets they were hiding. One day, she discovered two magical elements called polonium and radium, special rocks that gave off invisible energy. Mary even gave this invisible energy a name, radioactivity. Imagine finding something invisible but powerful, like a hidden superpower inside rocks. Thanks to Mary's curiosity, people learned how to use this invisible energy called radioactivity to make x-rays. X-rays are those magical pictures that let doctors see inside our bodies without needing to open anything up. Isn't that amazing? Mary showed everyone that asking questions, experimenting, and never giving up can lead to amazing discoveries that help the whole world. So every time you say I wonder or what if, remember that you might discover something magical too, just like Mary Curie. Mary Curie kept making impressive achievements in science. She was the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, first woman to win a Nobel Prize, first person to win it twice, and she is the first until now the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences. And here's a fun fact: her parents were teachers and taught her the importance of education. Do you have a favorite curiosity hero? Learning about them is very inspiring, and I hope that it will keep your curiosity ignited. You know something funny? Children are already amazing at curiosity because you ask why, what, how all day long. Am I right? My little kiddo asks so many questions, but good questions. And her favorite words used to be, but why? All of this means that your curiosity magic is already turned on. But today I want to share some extra magic words you can all use at home, and these words are words that curious children love to say. You can say them with me if you want or just listen. So the first words are I wonder. You can ask, I wonder how birds fly. Next, how does this work? You can use these words for learning how to use a new toy, or learning how to put up your zipper, or learning how to close your shirt buttons. Why is it like that? These words make your brain stretch. You know that a brain is a muscle. What will happen if these words are okay to use when you're doing something like a safe experiment or making silly guesses. Can I try this? Now these are brave curiosity words. Next is I don't know this yet. Now these words are very powerful because learning is an ongoing adventure. It's not a race. You always will learn something or the other. And now the last magical words are let's find out. These words turn questions into discoveries. So next time you are at home or outside or even in the car, try one of these magic curiosity words because you're not just asking questions. You are being an explorer, and that in itself is pretty awesome and magical. And now, here is some parenting pixie dust to spark curiosity in your children. Show children that being curious is awesome. When grown-ups will ask questions and explore new ideas, it will teach children that curiosity is something to be proud of. Help children believe that their questions are important. Sometimes children hold back because they are unsure if they can find the answers. By guiding them step by step, you will build their confidence and help them become independent thinkers. Make it easier for children to explore their curiosity. Sometimes children will hold back from asking questions because they will worry about being judged or asking a silly question or feeling rushed. Remind them that both home and school are welcoming and safe places where wondering and asking questions is always encouraged. Okay friends, it's time for a curiosity challenge. I'm going to ask you three questions, and you don't need to have correct answers for that, but all you have to do is just think about them and let your imagination fly. If you could invent a new animal, what would it be? What would a world without colors look like? Why do we dream? You can have fun discussing these questions with your grown-up. Want to keep your curiosity going? Head over to our Instagram at mom and i make magic where we have uploaded fun curiosity sheets for you and your grown-ups to enjoy together. We hope it will keep your curiosity super strong by questioning, exploring, and discovering together. I hope you had fun discovering the amazing superpowers of curiosity. We should all nurture the superpower in us. Until then, keep exploring new things, keep wondering about the world around us, keep being curious, and never stop being magical. Bye from us. Parents and caregivers, if you like listening to our podcast, you can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Mom and I Make Magic for more educational content, behind the scenes moments, fun updates, and our magical creations. Join us here next time.