Curious Kids and Imagine This: two neat ways to get young minds thinking this school holiday season

Mum, why do we get the hiccups? Dad, why is the Earth round? How do echidnas breathe underground? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Mum? Dad?

Yes, school holiday season is once again upon us (starting tomorrow for some states, early October for others). Perhaps you’re looking for ways to keep questioning kids happy and engaged during road trips, long afternoons at nan’s house - or while mum or dad furiously try to get some work done with a kid in the background.

If you’ve got some inquisitive young minds in your household, we’d love you to check out the podcast Imagine This. It’s a co-production between ABC KIDS listen and The Conversation, based on The Conversation’s Curious Kids article series (where we ask academic experts to answer real questions from real kids).

Read more: Imagine This: a new podcast tackling tricky questions from inquisitive young minds

After a fantastic season one – which covered such topics as how snakes say “ssss” with their tongue poking out and why the moon sometimes appears in the daytime – Imagine This is now back with a terrific season two.

This season, host Brianna Peterson and a star-studded cast of academics unpack such tricky topics as hiccups, the shape of our planet, itchy bites and many more. Ten episodes of Imagine This will be released weekly from Wednesday September 5th – and they have produced some amazing little animations starring academic experts as turtles, birds and kangaroos, of course. You can find them over here.

You can read all the Curious Kids articles on these topics here, and I’ve listed a few of my recent favourites below. I hope our older readers enjoy them as much as our younger ones do.

Happy holidays!

• How do you know that we aren’t in virtual reality right now?

• Why do people get the hiccups and how do you get rid of them?

• Where do clouds come from and why do they have different shapes?

• Why is the Earth round?

• How does an echidna breathe when digging through solid earth?

• Where are all the other galaxies hidden?

• Do butterflies remember being caterpillars?

• How do snakes make an ‘sssssss’ sound with their tongue poking out?

Read more: Trust Me, I'm An Expert: How augmented reality may one day make music a visual, interactive experience

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

Please tell us your name, age and which city you live in. We won’t be able to answer every question but we will do our best.