February 12, 2025 • 16 mins
This episode highlights the urgency of planetary defense against a potentially threatening asteroid while also addressing the importance of educating children about responsible pet care and empathy towards animals. The discussion emphasizes two critical areas where science and compassion converge: the efforts to monitor and understand asteroid 2024 YR4 and the promising outcomes of the Animal Guardians intervention program for children at risk of animal harm.
• Bunsen's health update emphasizing the emotional connection between pets and their owners
• Current threat level of asteroid 2024 YR4 and NASA's response
• Insights on the James Webb Space Telescope's role in asteroid research
• Overview of the DART program for diverting asteroids
• Discussion on child-animal harm and its implications
• Key findings from the Animal Guardians program highlighting improvements in empathy and care
• Importance of education in changing future behaviors toward animals
• Closing thoughts on the responsibility of guardianship for both space and animals
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello everybody and welcomeback to the Science Podcast.
This is episode two of seasonseven.
A little Bunsen update beforewe get to the main show.
As mentioned in pet chat, hehad an MRI which showed a
(00:45):
bulging disc or a slipped discin his spine, kind of like in
between his shoulder blades.
So he's on very strict rest fora while.
He's a good candidate forsurgery.
The hope is, with rest he won'tneed it.
So he's been kind ofsequestered in our front room to
limit where he can move in theday.
It's been really adorable.
But Ginger, our cat, she's beenspending the entire day with
(01:07):
Bunsen, you know, in and aroundhis pen, or she actually hops
into his pen like parkouringaround to get inside and she
just is with him.
They don't really interact,they don't play, she just sleeps
in his pen, sleeps by the crate, just to be with him.
It's really sweet.
On the Science Podcast this weekin science news, uh-oh, there's
(01:30):
an asteroid heading towards theearth.
It's asteroid 2024 YR4.
So Chris and I are going tobreak down that whole
development and in pet scienceit's a rather heartbreaking
topic.
But there's some really goodnews that came out from this
study.
It was more of a study into anintervention technique for
children that may harm animalsand how to curb that.
(01:51):
Okay, on with the show.
There's no time like sciencetime this week in science news,
chris, what are you doing in2032?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I'm really hoping that I'm avoiding being hit by
an asteroid.
What are you doing in 2032?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I don't know how many years is that from now?
Eight years, oh, I'm going tobe so old in 2032.
That's so far away it's hard tothink of.
But yes, I'm also hoping I'mnot going to get smoked by an
asteroid.
So this news item has beenmaking the rounds on the the web
(02:33):
right.
I was actually going to coverthis last year, like at the end
of the year, in december 2024,because there was a very slim
possibility that this asteroidthat was that was found by
astronomers would be on acollision course with earth, but
the chance of it hitting theearth was effectively zero.
(02:55):
Now the spooky thing is that Iswear every day or every week,
the chances of it hitting theearth has gone up.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Right now it's 1 in 43 odds.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I've heard some circles calling it a 2.5% chance
.
Not one month ago it was as lowas a 1% chance and, as I said
last year in December, it wasbelow a 1% chance.
This has got NASA so spookedthat the James Webb Space
Telescope has been grantedemergency use to study the
(03:31):
asteroid.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Absolutely, and this is big news, because they have
basically timed theirobservations to the minute and
every resource that they'relooking at is allocated to a
certain amount and they onlyhave a few extra designations
that can meet that criteria.
So the James Webb SpaceTelescope will be observing the
(03:55):
asteroid twice in the upcomingmonths, in March and May 2025.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Now the main reason why is they want to get a handle
on two things 2025.
Now the main reason why is theywant to get a handle on two
things.
The first and most important isthe actual size of the asteroid
, because estimations have beendone up to this time.
It's estimated to be about 55meters across, that's 180 feet,
roughly the size of the LeaningTower of Pisa.
(04:22):
Now, if that hit the earth, itwouldn't kill us all.
Right, this is not big enoughfor a mass extinction, but it
would cause regional devastation.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It would ruin somebody's day not somebody's
day, like a good portion of acountry's day if it hit Like the
Tunguska Impactor, whichhappened in 1908, roughly the
same size and it flattened 80million trees and the other
(04:54):
reason is they want to see ifit's really on a collision
course with Earth, because theactual size may be larger,
because we can only test itbased on the ground-based
observation, and that isdefinitely affected by our
atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And the asteroid's actual size could be what?
Chris, this is the spooky part.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
It is.
It could be anywhere between 40meters or 130 feet and 90
meters, which is 295 feet indiameter.
So this is where the importanceof the James Webb Space
Telescope comes in and theobservations that it can do
outside of our atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Now we shouldn't freak anybody out, even if it
had a 100% chance of hitting theEarth.
We, chris or I, actually,before you're part of the team
last year I covered NASA's DARTprogram.
Do you remember me talkingabout DART?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I do remember you talking about DART.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, so DART stands for Double Asteroid Redirection
Test and DART was a kamikazesuicide probe that NASA sent as
fast as it could at the asteroidDimorphos.
The probe was about the size ofa refrigerator and it had one
purpose and one purpose only,and that was cut to kamikaze
(06:16):
into dimorphous and attempt toboop it off its current path.
Nasa was successful Dart smokedthe asteroid and moved it ever
so slightly that in the bigscheme and the scale of the
universe, if it was on thecollision course with earth, it
would miss by hundreds ofthousands of kilometers.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
That's pretty sweet actually.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, there's a good quote.
I read somewhere that it isexpensive to have all this space
stuff, but the dinosaurs spentzero dollars on space research
and it didn't really work outfor them in the long run.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
You're suggesting we invest more in space exploration
.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I don't think we need to call Bruce Willis and a
ragtag group of oil riggers.
We just need to know if it'sgoing to hit the Earth and send
a little refrigerator-sizedprobe to boop it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Okay, I can agree with that.
So James Webb, the spacetelescope is going to use
infrared instruments to measurethe asteroids heat.
It is hoped that that willprovide a more accurate size
determination by measuring thatemitted heat Okay, rather than
the reflected light that ourobservation or ground based
(07:30):
observation is using now.
And the James Webb SpaceTelescope will give a better
understanding of the surfacecomposition, which that's cool.
To know what's coming at you,knowing what's on the surface of
it, and that will help refinethe impact probability and
potential risk assessment.
Knowing what's coming at you, Ithink, is as important as
(07:51):
knowing what size it is, thecomposition and the size.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Do you remember the summer?
Both Armageddon and then DeepImpact came out.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Jason, those aren't necessarily movies that I really
love to see, but I think I sawboth of them with you.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, I love me a good space disaster movie.
And it was just so wild thattwo okay, to be fair, deep
Impact was about a comet and theother, armageddon, was about an
asteroid, very different tomovies in tone, but, yeah, both
resorted to hending a spaceshipat it and nuking it, so that's
(08:27):
not something we're probablygoing to be looking at.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
No, so I talked about earlier that there's going to
be two observations one in March2025.
And that is going to happenwhen the asteroid is at its peak
brightness.
And then in May 2025, that'sgoing to be the second
observation and that's going toshow the asteroid moving farther
from the sun.
And actually those are the lasttwo chances to observe the 2024
(08:56):
YR4, which is what this iscalled until its next close
approach in 2028.
So hopefully they get a goodlong look at it.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So if we find out it's going to hit us in 2028, we
still have four years to plan.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Do a dart.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That's right.
Send dart at it.
I love that they called it adart.
Isn't that what Canadian slangis for a cigarette?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, it is actually.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
There you go.
We got a little Canadian slang,if you're listening.
That's science news for thisweek.
This week, in pet science, wehave an article from Anthro
Zoo's journal that was publishedon February 3rd.
Now, before we get into it, weare going to be talking about
something that's disturbing andsad.
The end result, though, of thestudy is really hopeful.
(09:48):
This is all about child animalharm, and that's when children
hurt animals.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And child animal harm .
Cah is linked to poorpsychological outcomes,
delinquency and violent behavior.
So this study is really greatbecause there's actually few
established interventions forchild animal harm and actually
no prior research evaluating theeffectiveness of the
(10:21):
interventions.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So this occurred in Scotland.
The target group was primaryschool children and the program
duration was about two and ahalf months, with one-to-one
sessions in school settings, andthey had some really like very
hopeful core focus areas.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
The core focus areas was understanding animal
sentience and emotions.
What that allowed theresearchers to do was evaluate
whether the Animal Guardiansprogram improved the belief in
animal sentience and tying thatto knowledge of animal welfare
needs, as well as assessing forempathy and care for animals,
(11:04):
and they also wanted to focus onthe correct handling and
behavior towards animals.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
The study had 48 kids in a matched cross sample.
24 of the kids were referred toanimal guardians, so these were
kids that had incidents ofanimal harm and 24 were the
control group they were.
They had no intervention.
There was no incidences ofanimal harm in their past and
there were some really hopefulkey findings from the study of
(11:32):
working with these kids for twoand a half months.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The Animal Guardians Program.
What they found in terms of theeffectiveness of it is that
there were significantimprovements in animal welfare
knowledge so knowledge is powerand an increase and a
significant increase in achild's belief in animal
sentience.
They also noted positivebehavior towards animals, as
(11:58):
well as cognitive and behavioralempathy expressed.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
They also looked and broke down the data with gender,
age and severity of harm.
That means, like the kids thatwere referred to them based on
how much they hurt the animalshard to talk about, but, good
news, there are no genderdifferences.
So the program was equallyeffective for boys and girls,
and the youngest children showedthe greatest improvement than
older children.
(12:23):
But older children generallystarted with more of this
knowledge than the younger kidsdid, and the program was
effective across all the levelsof the severity of harm.
So low, medium and high riskkids ones that did the most harm
to animals or were thought tobe at risk to do the most harm
to the ones that were the lowest.
This is a small sample size andit's a self-reported behavior.
(12:46):
There is biases and when youhave a limited sample size, of
course your data might be skeweda bit.
We can conclude that AnimalGuardians is an effective
intervention for reducingbehavioral risks associated with
hurting animals.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So education is power .
Speaker 1 (13:02):
It's really hard to think about kids hurting animals
, but I love the fact that thereare intervention programs like
this out there and the dataseems to support as you and I
know, Chris, that when youeducate kids, you change
behaviors for the future, sothis is good news.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It is, and there are some next steps that we could
also include in assessinglong-term effectiveness of
programs and basically seeing if, like five years down the line,
if someone who went through theprogram still exhibits those
behaviors, those positivebehaviors towards animals.
But then also expand the agerange from three to 16 years old
(13:44):
would be a great start.
The child does have to becognitively aware enough to
answer some basic questions, butit's never too late to start,
and so even having children upto the age of 16 in a study or
part of a program I think isbeneficial yeah, and the last
(14:06):
thing is for any new parents outthere with, like, little kids
that a lot of little kids theydon't just grow up knowing how
to interact with animals.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
I think of the the terrible but funny story of your
niece when she was little,wanting to see the cats and she
would put on oven mitts so shecould see the cats, because they
did not want to see her.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
No, or when Amy had puppies and she's all be nice to
the puppy and she wasn't reallythat nice to the puppy.
So we had to definitely havesupervision and teach her how to
be nice to the puppies.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, and of course, that really helped, and I mean,
your niece is now an absolutelywonderful person with animals.
Yes, all right, that's petscience for this week.
Well, that's it for this week'sshow.
As I mentioned, we're nothaving an interview every single
episode, so it does make theepisodes a little shorter.
In the future, we'll haveanother science item that Chris
(15:04):
and I will talk about, but I'mpresenting this week, so I'm
kind of in a time crunch.
I have to actually pack my bagsright after recording this to
to get ready to go to Calgary topresent at the Calgary teachers
convention Very exciting.
That aside, thanks forlistening, and a special shout
out to our top tier patrons onthe paw pack top dogs.
(15:25):
One of the perks of being a topdog is you get your name
shouted out by Chris in thepodcast.
Take it away, chris.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Amelia Fettig Rhi, oda Carol Hainel, jennifer
Challen, linnea Janik, karenChronister, vicky Otero, Christy
Walker, sarah Bram, wendy,diane Mason and Luke Helen Chin,
elizabeth Bourgeois, marianneMcNally, katherine Jordan,
shelley Smith, laura Steffensen,tracy Leinbach, Anne Uchida,
(15:56):
heather Burback, kelly TracyHalbert, ben Rather, debbie
Anderson, sandy Brimer, maryRader, bianca Hyde, andrew Lin,
brenda Clark, brianne Hawes,peggy McKeel, holly Burge, kathy
Zerker, susan Wagner andcuteness.
Hello science enthusiasts.
I'm Jason Zukoski.
And I'm Chris Zukoski, we'rethe pet parents of Bunsen,
beaker, bernoulli and Ginger.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
The science animals on social media.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
If you love science.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
And you love pets.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
You've come to the right spot, so put on your
safety glasses and hold on toyour tail.
This is the Science Podcast.
Hello everybody and welcomeback to the Science Podcast.
This is episode two of seasonseven.
A little Bunsen update beforewe get to the main show.
As mentioned in pet chat, hehad an MRI which showed a
(00:45):
bulging disc or a slipped discin his spine, kind of like in
between his shoulder blades.
So he's on very strict rest fora while.
He's a good candidate forsurgery.
The hope is, with rest he won'tneed it.
So he's been kind ofsequestered in our front room to
limit where he can move in theday.
It's been really adorable.
But Ginger, our cat, she's beenspending the entire day with
(01:07):
Bunsen, you know, in and aroundhis pen, or she actually hops
into his pen like parkouringaround to get inside and she
just is with him.
They don't really interact,they don't play, she just sleeps
in his pen, sleeps by the crate, just to be with him.
It's really sweet.
On the Science Podcast this weekin science news, uh-oh, there's
(01:30):
an asteroid heading towards theearth.
It's asteroid 2024 YR4.
So Chris and I are going tobreak down that whole
development and in pet scienceit's a rather heartbreaking
topic.
But there's some really goodnews that came out from this
study.
It was more of a study into anintervention technique for
children that may harm animalsand how to curb that.
(01:51):
Okay, on with the show.
There's no time like sciencetime this week in science news,
chris, what are you doing in2032?
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I'm really hoping that I'm avoiding being hit by
an asteroid.
What are you doing in 2032?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I don't know how many years is that from now?
Eight years, oh, I'm going tobe so old in 2032.
That's so far away it's hard tothink of.
But yes, I'm also hoping I'mnot going to get smoked by an
asteroid.
So this news item has beenmaking the rounds on the the web
(02:33):
right.
I was actually going to coverthis last year, like at the end
of the year, in december 2024,because there was a very slim
possibility that this asteroidthat was that was found by
astronomers would be on acollision course with earth, but
the chance of it hitting theearth was effectively zero.
(02:55):
Now the spooky thing is that Iswear every day or every week,
the chances of it hitting theearth has gone up.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Right now it's 1 in 43 odds.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I've heard some circles calling it a 2.5% chance
.
Not one month ago it was as lowas a 1% chance and, as I said
last year in December, it wasbelow a 1% chance.
This has got NASA so spookedthat the James Webb Space
Telescope has been grantedemergency use to study the
(03:31):
asteroid.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Absolutely, and this is big news, because they have
basically timed theirobservations to the minute and
every resource that they'relooking at is allocated to a
certain amount and they onlyhave a few extra designations
that can meet that criteria.
So the James Webb SpaceTelescope will be observing the
(03:55):
asteroid twice in the upcomingmonths, in March and May 2025.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Now the main reason why is they want to get a handle
on two things 2025.
Now the main reason why is theywant to get a handle on two
things.
The first and most important isthe actual size of the asteroid
, because estimations have beendone up to this time.
It's estimated to be about 55meters across, that's 180 feet,
roughly the size of the LeaningTower of Pisa.
(04:22):
Now, if that hit the earth, itwouldn't kill us all.
Right, this is not big enoughfor a mass extinction, but it
would cause regional devastation.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It would ruin somebody's day not somebody's
day, like a good portion of acountry's day if it hit Like the
Tunguska Impactor, whichhappened in 1908, roughly the
same size and it flattened 80million trees and the other
(04:54):
reason is they want to see ifit's really on a collision
course with Earth, because theactual size may be larger,
because we can only test itbased on the ground-based
observation, and that isdefinitely affected by our
atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And the asteroid's actual size could be what?
Chris, this is the spooky part.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
It is.
It could be anywhere between 40meters or 130 feet and 90
meters, which is 295 feet indiameter.
So this is where the importanceof the James Webb Space
Telescope comes in and theobservations that it can do
outside of our atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Now we shouldn't freak anybody out, even if it
had a 100% chance of hitting theEarth.
We, chris or I, actually,before you're part of the team
last year I covered NASA's DARTprogram.
Do you remember me talkingabout DART?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
I do remember you talking about DART.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Yeah, so DART stands for Double Asteroid Redirection
Test and DART was a kamikazesuicide probe that NASA sent as
fast as it could at the asteroidDimorphos.
The probe was about the size ofa refrigerator and it had one
purpose and one purpose only,and that was cut to kamikaze
(06:16):
into dimorphous and attempt toboop it off its current path.
Nasa was successful Dart smokedthe asteroid and moved it ever
so slightly that in the bigscheme and the scale of the
universe, if it was on thecollision course with earth, it
would miss by hundreds ofthousands of kilometers.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
That's pretty sweet actually.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, there's a good quote.
I read somewhere that it isexpensive to have all this space
stuff, but the dinosaurs spentzero dollars on space research
and it didn't really work outfor them in the long run.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
You're suggesting we invest more in space exploration
.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
I don't think we need to call Bruce Willis and a
ragtag group of oil riggers.
We just need to know if it'sgoing to hit the Earth and send
a little refrigerator-sizedprobe to boop it.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Okay, I can agree with that.
So James Webb, the spacetelescope is going to use
infrared instruments to measurethe asteroids heat.
It is hoped that that willprovide a more accurate size
determination by measuring thatemitted heat Okay, rather than
the reflected light that ourobservation or ground based
(07:30):
observation is using now.
And the James Webb SpaceTelescope will give a better
understanding of the surfacecomposition, which that's cool.
To know what's coming at you,knowing what's on the surface of
it, and that will help refinethe impact probability and
potential risk assessment.
Knowing what's coming at you, Ithink, is as important as
(07:51):
knowing what size it is, thecomposition and the size.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Do you remember the summer?
Both Armageddon and then DeepImpact came out.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Jason, those aren't necessarily movies that I really
love to see, but I think I sawboth of them with you.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah, I love me a good space disaster movie.
And it was just so wild thattwo okay, to be fair, deep
Impact was about a comet and theother, armageddon, was about an
asteroid, very different tomovies in tone, but, yeah, both
resorted to hending a spaceshipat it and nuking it, so that's
(08:27):
not something we're probablygoing to be looking at.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
No, so I talked about earlier that there's going to
be two observations one in March2025.
And that is going to happenwhen the asteroid is at its peak
brightness.
And then in May 2025, that'sgoing to be the second
observation and that's going toshow the asteroid moving farther
from the sun.
And actually those are the lasttwo chances to observe the 2024
(08:56):
YR4, which is what this iscalled until its next close
approach in 2028.
So hopefully they get a goodlong look at it.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
So if we find out it's going to hit us in 2028, we
still have four years to plan.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Do a dart.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
That's right.
Send dart at it.
I love that they called it adart.
Isn't that what Canadian slangis for a cigarette?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, it is actually.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
There you go.
We got a little Canadian slang,if you're listening.
That's science news for thisweek.
This week, in pet science, wehave an article from Anthro
Zoo's journal that was publishedon February 3rd.
Now, before we get into it, weare going to be talking about
something that's disturbing andsad.
The end result, though, of thestudy is really hopeful.
(09:48):
This is all about child animalharm, and that's when children
hurt animals.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And child animal harm .
Cah is linked to poorpsychological outcomes,
delinquency and violent behavior.
So this study is really greatbecause there's actually few
established interventions forchild animal harm and actually
no prior research evaluating theeffectiveness of the
(10:21):
interventions.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
So this occurred in Scotland.
The target group was primaryschool children and the program
duration was about two and ahalf months, with one-to-one
sessions in school settings, andthey had some really like very
hopeful core focus areas.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
The core focus areas was understanding animal
sentience and emotions.
What that allowed theresearchers to do was evaluate
whether the Animal Guardiansprogram improved the belief in
animal sentience and tying thatto knowledge of animal welfare
needs, as well as assessing forempathy and care for animals,
(11:04):
and they also wanted to focus onthe correct handling and
behavior towards animals.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
The study had 48 kids in a matched cross sample.
24 of the kids were referred toanimal guardians, so these were
kids that had incidents ofanimal harm and 24 were the
control group they were.
They had no intervention.
There was no incidences ofanimal harm in their past and
there were some really hopefulkey findings from the study of
(11:32):
working with these kids for twoand a half months.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
The Animal Guardians Program.
What they found in terms of theeffectiveness of it is that
there were significantimprovements in animal welfare
knowledge so knowledge is powerand an increase and a
significant increase in achild's belief in animal
sentience.
They also noted positivebehavior towards animals, as
(11:58):
well as cognitive and behavioralempathy expressed.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
They also looked and broke down the data with gender,
age and severity of harm.
That means, like the kids thatwere referred to them based on
how much they hurt the animalshard to talk about, but, good
news, there are no genderdifferences.
So the program was equallyeffective for boys and girls,
and the youngest children showedthe greatest improvement than
older children.
(12:23):
But older children generallystarted with more of this
knowledge than the younger kidsdid, and the program was
effective across all the levelsof the severity of harm.
So low, medium and high riskkids ones that did the most harm
to animals or were thought tobe at risk to do the most harm
to the ones that were the lowest.
This is a small sample size andit's a self-reported behavior.
(12:46):
There is biases and when youhave a limited sample size, of
course your data might be skeweda bit.
We can conclude that AnimalGuardians is an effective
intervention for reducingbehavioral risks associated with
hurting animals.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
So education is power .
Speaker 1 (13:02):
It's really hard to think about kids hurting animals
, but I love the fact that thereare intervention programs like
this out there and the dataseems to support as you and I
know, Chris, that when youeducate kids, you change
behaviors for the future, sothis is good news.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
It is, and there are some next steps that we could
also include in assessinglong-term effectiveness of
programs and basically seeing if, like five years down the line,
if someone who went through theprogram still exhibits those
behaviors, those positivebehaviors towards animals.
But then also expand the agerange from three to 16 years old
(13:44):
would be a great start.
The child does have to becognitively aware enough to
answer some basic questions, butit's never too late to start,
and so even having children upto the age of 16 in a study or
part of a program I think isbeneficial yeah, and the last
(14:06):
thing is for any new parents outthere with, like, little kids
that a lot of little kids theydon't just grow up knowing how
to interact with animals.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
I think of the the terrible but funny story of your
niece when she was little,wanting to see the cats and she
would put on oven mitts so shecould see the cats, because they
did not want to see her.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
No, or when Amy had puppies and she's all be nice to
the puppy and she wasn't reallythat nice to the puppy.
So we had to definitely havesupervision and teach her how to
be nice to the puppies.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Yeah, and of course, that really helped, and I mean,
your niece is now an absolutelywonderful person with animals.
Yes, all right, that's petscience for this week.
Well, that's it for this week'sshow.
As I mentioned, we're nothaving an interview every single
episode, so it does make theepisodes a little shorter.
In the future, we'll haveanother science item that Chris
(15:04):
and I will talk about, but I'mpresenting this week, so I'm
kind of in a time crunch.
I have to actually pack my bagsright after recording this to
to get ready to go to Calgary topresent at the Calgary teachers
convention Very exciting.
That aside, thanks forlistening, and a special shout
out to our top tier patrons onthe paw pack top dogs.
(15:25):
One of the perks of being a topdog is you get your name
shouted out by Chris in thepodcast.
Take it away, chris.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Amelia Fettig Rhi, oda Carol Hainel, jennifer
Challen, linnea Janik, karenChronister, vicky Otero, Christy
Walker, sarah Bram, wendy,diane Mason and Luke Helen Chin,
elizabeth Bourgeois, marianneMcNally, katherine Jordan,
shelley Smith, laura Steffensen,tracy Leinbach, Anne Uchida,
(15:56):
heather Burback, kelly TracyHalbert, ben Rather, debbie
Anderson, sandy Brimer, maryRader, bianca Hyde, andrew Lin,
brenda Clark, brianne Hawes,peggy McKeel, holly Burge, kathy
Zerker, susan Wagner andcuteness.
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