Answer their questions this Christmas!

Why do carrots grow underground? Why aren’t rivers salty? Why do bouncy balls bounce? What’s the Moon for? Why don’t human eyes glow like cats’ eyes? Why does ice stick to your skin? Why do we shiver? How is fire made? Why do people have different accents?

If there’s a curious child in your family who never stops asking ‘why?’, Whizz Pop Bang could be just the answer you’re looking for! Give a gift subscription this Christmas and help your scientist-in-training to understand the world around them. Get a free Science Joke Book worth £6.99 with every subscription!

Keep reading to find the answers to these questions written by Whizz Pop Bang’s expert team of scientists, and discover why endless questioning is a really important part of your child’s development (even when finding the answers can be challenging!)

Why do children ask so many questions?

Questioning trusted adults is a crucial way for children to understand, and form their own ideas, about the world around them. But it can be exhausting at times – Paul L. Harris, Professor of Education at Harvard, estimates that a child asks 40,000 questions between the ages of two and five.

Every issue of Whizz Pop Bang is packed with fascinating facts, simple scientific explanations, and experiments designed to demonstrate the answers to some of your child’s burning questions. Our team of expert scientists (including our all-knowing robot, Y) are on hand to answer our readers’ questions every issue, too – so if you can’t find the answer to your child’s latest conundrum here, why not email us at y@whizzpopbang.com and see if we can help?

Meanwhile, here are the scientific explanations of a few wonderful questions we’ve been asked recently…

Whizz Pop Bang’s resident robot, Y.

Why do carrots and other vegetables grow underground and not above ground?

We eat at least six different parts of plants. Sometimes we eat the leaves (e.g. lettuce and kale and cabbage). Sometimes we eat the stems (e.g. celery, asparagus, and rhubarb). We eat seeds, such as sunflower seeds and sweetcorn. We eat flowers (such as broccoli) and fruit. And we also eat roots and tubers. A carrot is the main root (or tap root) of a carrot plant. As well as soaking up water and minerals from the soil, it acts as an underground food store for the plant. That makes it a great food for us, too!

Why aren’t rivers salty, like the sea? 

Rain isn’t salty because when water evaporates, anything dissolved in it is left behind. Rivers are topped up by this rainwater, so they aren’t very salty either. But rivers do pick up some salt as they rush over rocks. Eventually, this salt ends up in the sea. Rivers around the world carry 3.6 billion tonnes of salt to the oceans every year! But the oceans don’t just get saltier and saltier, because about the same amount of salt sinks to the seabed each year, becoming part of new rocks.  

Why do bouncy balls bounce and don’t just stick on the ground like a rock?  

Unlike rocks, bouncy balls are made of elastic materials, such as rubber. Elastic materials are flexible – it’s easy to change their shape. But they return to their original shape after being squashed or stretched. When the ball hits the ground, it is squashed out of shape. Some of its movement energy is changed into elastic energy, stored very briefly inside the ball. Once the ball has come to a stop, this elastic energy is released as the ball returns to its original shape. The ball pushes against the ground and the ground pushes back, sending the ball back up into the air.  

Why do we need the moon?

About 4.5 billion years ago, a giant space rock the size of Mars crashed into Earth and knocked off a chunk of our planet. This chunk of rock became the Moon, and it still orbits Earth, roughly once every 27 days. The Moon is big enough and close enough that its gravity causes bulges in Earth’s water that sweep across the planet’s oceans and seas, causing the tides. Many living things have adapted to depend on the tides for shelter and food. Humans who live near coasts also depend on the tides for catching certain fish and sea creatures, and for sports like surfing. But if the Moon suddenly disappeared it wouldn’t just be coastal life that was disrupted. All life depends on the Moon, because it helps to keep Earth’s climate stable.  

Develop your child’s problem solving skills with the Whizz Pop Bang Science Riddle book!

Why don’t human eyes glow like cats’ eyes do in the dark?

Want to know why cats’ eyes glow? They shine in the dark because each eye has a thin layer of crystals at the back. This layer is called the tapetum lucidum. Its job is to bounce light back into the cat’s eye. This extra light helps cats to see better in the dark. Lots of other crepuscular and nocturnal animals have this light-reflecting layer too. Most animals that are awake in the daytime don’t, including humans. However, you’ll sometimes see human eyes glow red in a photograph, when the bright light of a camera flash bounces off the back of our eyes. 

Why do ice cubes stick to your fingers and ice lollies stick to your tongue?

Heat always moves from a warmer place to a colder place. When you lick a lolly, heat flows from your toasty tongue to the, erm, icy ice. If the lolly is very cold, the saliva coating your tongue drops below 0°C before your body can warm it back up. The saliva freezes and becomes part of the chunk of ice along with the lolly! The same can happen with wet fingers and a very cold ice cube. Never pull your skin away – use room temperature water to melt the ice and set yourself free! 

Why do your teeth chatter when you’re cold?

Want to know why do we shiver? Deep inside your brain, your hypothalamus (say hi-po-thal-a-mus) is busy monitoring your core body temperature. It’s your inbuilt thermostat! But instead of turning on the central heating when you drop below 37°C, the hypothalamus triggers reactions that help keep your organs warm while you find shelter! One of these is shivering. Muscles produce heat as they contract – think how warm you get when you exercise. Shivering is your body’s way of making your muscles contract and relax as you stand still. As your jaw muscles shiver, your lower jaw moves up and down quickly, bumping your teeth together. 

How does fire form?

Heat is one part of the ‘fire triangle’ – the three things needed for a fire to start. The other two are fuel (something to burn) and oxygen (from the air). The heat – from a burning match, lightning or even the Sun’s rays – starts a reaction between the fuel and the oxygen. This produces gases, including water vapour and carbon dioxide. It also releases energy as heat and light. This heat keeps the reaction going until the fuel or oxygen runs out, or the fire is cooled.  

Why do people have different accents?

People can speak the same language with very different accents. This is because we aren’t born speaking a particular language, but with a brain that is brilliant at absorbing and imitating any sounds it hears. This amazing ability to learn is why people tend to speak with the accent they heard most often when they were very young. By the time we are a year old, we are less able to hear different sounds and it becomes harder to pick up a new accent. The ability to imitate stays with us though, so accents can change as people move around, or even during a conversation. In fact, scientists have found that mimicking each other’s speech patterns can help two people to understand each other better, and make friends more quickly.  


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Teaching Light in year 6

Teaching the unit ‘light’ in year 6 builds on the foundations they will have learnt in year 3, and also in year 5 when they covered ‘Earth and Space’. Pupils should already know how shadows are formed and that light is reflected from surfaces, as well as that we have night and day due to the Earth’s rotation. In year 6 you should be able to build on this, but in your first lesson it is a good idea to revisit and secure their understanding to avoid gaps in knowledge before you move on.

Our ‘constellation torch’ lesson is a great way to start your topic. At the beginning of the lesson, elicit the pupils’ understanding by asking them to name different light sources and tell you how shadows are formed. Creating a simple brainstorm mind map in their book with the word ‘light’ in the middle is all that is needed. Give the children ten minutes to complete it and then start your lesson, discussing their ideas or addressing misconceptions. At the end of the topic, get them to use a different-coloured pen and add what they have learnt to their mind map; it is a brilliant and easy assessment.

In this lesson pack, pupils will play around with making star constellations by using simple printable templates, cardboard tubes and single-bulb torches. They will consider how light travels. They will then draw a simple diagram to show that light travels in straight lines, that light will travel through the holes in the paper, and that it is reflected from a surface into the eye.

As part of your sequence of lessons, include our activity of making a periscope. It is a great way for pupils to build on their understanding that light travels in straight lines and is reflected into the eye. Our lesson pack includes simple instructions and a scientific explanation for teachers – we know how hard it is to remember everything, so we always explain the science behind every lesson. There are also some ten-minute science activities around the topic of light, which are great for creating science discussions in your classroom.

Our ‘Starry Skies’ edition of Whizz Pop Bang delves into the wonders of the universe, which children are enthralled by and often have loads of questions about! Our resources include several reading comprehensions linking to the topic of light.

Using quality science text in your reading time helps to squeeze a little bit of extra science into the day!

Whizz Pop Bang magazine and teaching resources are brilliant ways to enhance your school’s science teaching:

  • We provide downloadable science lesson plans, PowerPoint presentations, hands-on investigations and science reading comprehensions written by primary school teachers.
  • Whizz Pop Bang teaching resources link to the National Curriculum, ensuring correct coverage.
  • All of our resources are year group specific, ensuring progression between the years.

Prices from as little as £197.99 per year for a copy of Whizz Pop Bang magazine through the post each month and whole-school access to our ever-growing library of downloadable teaching resources, with unlimited teacher logins.

We’ve also launched a new individual membership option so teachers and home educators can access all of our amazing downloadable resources for just £20 for the whole year


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COMPETITION CLOSED: WIN a bumper bundle of gifts!

📣 We’re super excited to announce that we’ve teamed up with Den Kit Company and Tim Peake for October’s online competition which we are running on Instagram and Facebook only! Head over to our socials to find out how to win this bumper prize! ⭐

You could win:

⭐ The new Potions Making kit from Den Kit Company. Take your Potion Making Kit on an outdoor adventure and collect any special petals, leaves, grasses or soil to create a marvellous mixture of your own making. Add a pinch of natural colour, a splash of water, a sniff of sunshine – and just imagine the spells you could cast. Find it here.

⭐ Astronaut Tim Peake’s brand new book – A Cosmic Diary of our Incredible Universe. Are you bursting to know the answers to REALLY BIG questions? Like, how are stars made? What will we find in a black hole? Which fruit can create antimatter? What even IS antimatter? Put on your seatbelts and blast into space with your guide, astronaut Tim Peake (and a host of expert STEM characters) in this fascinating adventure through space, time and the diary of our truly incredible universe. Find it here.

⭐ A bumper bundle of 6 magically intergalactic issues of Whizz Pop Bang magazines that will have any scientist-in-training zooming to the Moon and cooking up peculiar potions, all with items you will probably find you already have in your kitchen cupboard. Each issue is jam-packed with science news, fun makes, puzzles, jokes and more!

To enter this competition please head over to Facebook or Instagram to find out more!

T&C’s: This giveaway closes at midnight on Monday 31st October 2022. One winner will be selected at random from all entries via Facebook and Instagram and will be contacted in the first week of November. This competition is open to UK residents only. Winner will be informed via the original comment you made on the appropriate platform and will be from @whizzpopbangmag – please be wary of scams, do not give personal details or follow any links from other accounts. For full terms and conditions visit http://buff.ly/3ij98Q3?fbclid=IwAR0eEqSY-V9JtUvvaYsKhjvmSRBURmapUOmYBaR7hl5XESRIS3hdqsWTqHI. This competition is in no way affiliated, endorsed, sponsored or administered by Instagram or Facebook.


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COMPETITION CLOSED: WIN 30 Easter science booklets!

🐰 We’ve got an EGG-citing Easter competition for you! 🐰

We want to treat a whole class of children to some epic Easter science, so we’re giving away 30 copies of our Easter Eggs-periments booklet! Children deserve a cracking treat to celebrate the end of this very unusual term, so here’s a chance for teachers to win a set for their class, or parents to win a set for their child’s class.

Whizz Pop Bang’s Easter Eggs-periment booklet contains 12 pages of awesome science fun to keep children busy this holiday, including…

🐰 8 Easter Activities
🐰 Quiz Questions
🐰 Riddles
🐰 Jokes
🐰 Eggs-traordinary Egg Facts

To enter, simply answer this question in the comments.

Which of the below is NOT part of an egg?

A. Albumen
B. Bitumen
C. Chalaza

🐣 🐣 🐣 🐣 🐣

Claim your free Easter science experiments booklet!

This booklet is also available with every purchase from our website until 28th March! To claim your free booklet, simply use the code EASTER21 when you purchase any Whizz Pop Bang product or subscription*.

🐣🐣🐣 Find out more about this offer here 🐣🐣🐣

🐰🐰🐰 Visit our shop to browse Whizz Pop Bang goodies 🐰🐰🐰

* Offer valid until midnight on 28th March 2021 on Whizz Pop Bang shop products and new subscriptions only, whilst stocks last. Not valid in conjunction with any other offer.

This competition closes at midnight on 23rd March 2021. The winner will be contacted on 24th March and must provide their details within 24 hours, otherwise another winner will be drawn (we’re really keen to get these booklets to children in time for Easter!) Whizz Pop Bang competition terms and conditions are here.


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COMPETITION CLOSED: WIN a 12 month subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine!

It’s DAY ONE of WHIZZ POP BANG’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS PRIZES and we’re kicking off with a big one! 

A subscription to Whizz Pop Bang magazine is the perfect gift for curious kids!

Every day until 12th Dec, we’ll launch a competition to give you and your budding scientists a chance to win awesome prizes. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for another chance to win! 

Today one lucky winner will win A 12 MONTH SUBSCRIPTION TO WHIZZ POP BANG MAGAZINE! 12 science-packed issues will land on a winner’s doormat throughout 2021, inspiring them with 12 amazing topics, 50+ things to do, 50+ jokes, 50+ riddles, 50+ puzzles, countless incredible facts, beautiful images and so much more! 

Find science gifts for kids in our shop!

To be in with a chance of winning this perfect prize, just answer this question in the comments:

What is the closest star to Earth called? 

A Proxima Centauri
B Andromeda 
C The Moon

This competition closes at 7am on Wednesday 2nd December 2020. Whizz Pop Bang competition terms and conditions are here.

Good luck!

This competition closes at 7am on Wednesday 1st December 2020. Whizz Pop Bang competition terms and conditions are here.


Whizz Pop Bang is a top-quality, gender-neutral, advert-free science magazine for families everywhere. Each issue is packed with experiments, activities, amazing facts, puzzles, jokes, riddles and more. Find out more here!


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Watch a water spider in action!

If you’re wondering how arachnids breathe underwater, you won’t believe this spider’s amazing trick!

Perhaps you’ve been reading about this smart insect in Whizz Pop Bang: Splash! Want to find out more? It’s on sale in our shop!

Tiny water spiders spend their lives underwater, even though they need to breathe air! They collect large air bubbles from the surface and carry them underwater. The bubbles absorb oxygen from the water, meaning each can last more than a day! If you catch one pond dipping, look for a silvery air bubble clinging to its hairy body.

This water spider, or diving bell spider, has a nifty trick for breathing underwater!


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How to nurture curious and inquisitive young minds

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.” 
Professor Stephen Hawking

Why are curiosity and inquisitiveness important?

The confidence to question is one of the greatest gifts we can give our children. The ability to answer questions comes further down the list – it’s that sense of wonder that is such an important building block. 

This skill isn’t only important for scientists, either – it’s vital for navigating the wide world. Knowing how to question, for example, if a news story can be trusted, whether a politician’s promise can be believed, how to find out how something works, and so on, is crucial for us all. 

We’re all born with an innate curiosity. First words soon form first questions: “Why shoes? Why breakfast? Why moon?” Let’s be honest, this isn’t always adorable – but reframing the ‘why’ phase as ‘a wonderful first glimpse into an enquiring young mind,’ might help us appreciate it more! Who knows what great questions our children may ask throughout their lives – and what incredible answers they might be driven to find. 

So how can we encourage this curiosity and help to shape the next generation of inventors, engineers, medics, educators, change makers and more?

1. Question everything

Children are little sponges, so sharing your own enquiring mind with your curious children can encourage their own questions. 

On a journey, you might wonder: 

“Where does that road lead?”

“What will that new building look like when it’s finished?” 

“How does gritting the road stop us from slipping?” 

While cooking lunch, you could ask: 

“Will turning the heat up make this cook faster?”

“How do these food scraps turn into compost?”  

At bedtime, read the start of a story, then prompt: 

“What happens next?” 

Who knows what other questions, lively debate or answers you’ll inspire (and, let’s be realistic, the occasional “Shhhhh mum/dad!” is inevitable too!)

2. Foster a “give it a try”

Answers aren’t the aim of this game: it’s the confidence to speak out when something has got you wondering. Helping your child to understand that you don’t have to know or understand everything, but instead that the process of learning itself can be exciting and rewarding. Add the word “yet” onto the end of frustrated cries of “I don’t know how,” “I don’t understand” and “I can’t do it” to turn defeat into the start of a voyage of curiosity.

3. Celebrate mistakes

Getting things wrong can be annoying and hard for any of us to handle, but mistakes can also be funny, informative and surprising. Did you know that Play-doh, Saccharin sweetener and the microwave were all the result of accidental discoveries? Help your child to understand why something hasn’t worked as expected, get excited about any surprising results, then work out how you can vary the process to get a different outcome next time!

4. Add a little Whizz Pop Bang!

Picking up the latest issue of Whizz Pop Bang is enough to awaken anyone’s curiosity, so surprise your scientist-in-the making by setting up a lab in your kitchen and getting stuck in to some experiments. Need more inspiration? Click here to take a look inside the Planetary Adventures issue where you can find out how to cook potato planets, craft a solar system model and read an interview with a Martian (aka someone who has lived in an environment set up to mimic Mars!)

Mission: Awaken curiosity accomplished!


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Whizz Pop Bang magazine arrives in paper envelopes!

Previously delivered in plastic wrap, children’s science magazine Whizz Pop Bang will now be posted out in recyclable FSC certified paper envelopes.

As a small, independent magazine publisher, it’s been our mission to react quickly and do the right thing; for the environment, for our readers and for the future. We’re thrilled to announce that, starting from today, our monthly magazines will be sent in eco-friendly, sustainably sourced, recyclable paper envelopes. We’ve added a fun, science-themed design to the envelopes that will change every few months and add to the joy of receiving magazines through the post.

We’re also helping kids to understand the need to recycle, with a message directly to the children on the envelope saying, ‘Please recycle me’, giving the reader a sense of responsibility to think about what happens to our waste.

Look out for the extra activities on our envelopes – they change every few months!

Whizz Pop Bang magazine regularly features articles about the environment, recycling and the problems caused by plastic waste. The next issue of Whizz Pop Bang also sees the start of a new Eco Club, with an activity on upcycling a plastic milk bottle.

We’re super proud of our new paper envelopes!

Whizz Pop Bang science magazine for kids is available via subscription from our website: whizzpopbang.com


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Whizz Pop Bang round logo

Mission Impossible? 53 Science experiment for kids for the summer holidays!

Bundle of six Whizz Pop Bang science magazines

KIDS: STEP AWAY FROM THE SCREEN!!
Your inner curiosity and brain cells are calling you…

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to groom yourself like a cat, to drain the rain, to feel the force and to alter your sense of touch. Taking it to the next level, your mission is to make your own fake blood, loop the loop and snore louder than your Dad without going to sleep. Then it gets tricky: could you grow your own stalactites and stalagmites? Could you lift your Mum off the ground? Could you move water with fire? 

How is this possible? For 6-11 year olds across the globe it is possible with science magazine WHIZZ POP BANG!

Buy now and put your child to the test – can they become world class mini scientists? Six copies for £20, free delivery and not a screen in sight: https://whizzpopbang.com/shop/all/


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Children's author Isabel Thomas joins Whizz Pop Bang team

Children’s author Isabel Thomas joins the Whizz Pop Bang team!

Isabel Thomas joins the WPB team

We’re excited and proud to announce we have children’s author and science writer Isabel Thomas joining the Whizz Pop Bang team! Author of shortlisted book ‘How to Change the World’ and ‘Self-Destructing Science’ Isabel will be writing features on science topics in Whizz Pop Bang.

A big warm welcome to Isabel, we’re thrilled to have you as part of the editorial team and can’t wait to get cracking (btw that’s a clue for the next issue which features Isabel’s first article) and you’ll be needing one of these… can you guess the topics we’re uncovering in issue 13?

magnifying glass

Happy experimenting everyone 🙂

 


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