01x04 - Water

[bunniefuu]

This week on Dragonfly TV,

we're catching waves,

swimming with dolphins,

weighing a whale,

and riding crazy water slides.

Major funding for Dragonfly TV is

provided by. Best Buy

We're excited to see kids like you

exploring the world of science and

technology because what you're learning

is going to change the way we live. Best

Buy The future looks fun.

And by the National Science Foundation,

supporting education and research in

science, mathematics and technology.

The National Science Foundation.

America's investment in the future.

Additional funding is provided by the

Donald Wiesner Charitable Trust

Foundation.

It's Dragonfly TV. Dragonfly

TV.

This is Dragonfly TV, where real kids get

down with real science. I'm Mariko. And

I'm Michael. Today's show is all about

water. It covers 2/3 of our planet. Water

is everywhere. Besides rivers and oceans,

it's locked in glaciers and floats in the

clouds. It's in our bodies, trees, desert

flowers, and waters even in this block of

concrete. That can't be right. It's part

of the concrete and you can't squeeze it

out. Okay, enough already. Let's dive

right in. We're about to meet Karsten,

who's the real deal, a bonafide

California surfer. And he's leaving

nothing to chance in his search for the

perfect wave. So get jazzed, get psyched,

get ready, 'cause we're getting wet.

Surfing's all about having fun. Superman.

Being free. And catching a great

wave.

The comfort of the sun.

My name is Kirsten. I've been surfing for

six years. Riding a wave

is really fun.

And I get this really natural feeling

when I'm out there. Here's all my

troubles. Just so free and open.

Sailing up,

up and away. You feel so great after you

pull out of a great wave. But the trick

is finding the perfect wave.

Come, come, comeA lot of things affect

wave formation. Bottom contours, storm

systems, wind, tides,

and swell direction.

There are

many ways I can learn about what's

happening to affect waves in the ocean. I

look at maps, I read books,

I watch the Weather Channel, and I check

out weather and surf sites on the

Internet. I'm interested in learning

how waves are formed. about how

landscape affects the waves. Get busy!

The more I know about waves, the better I

am at surfing. Let's get busy! Since the

landscape of the coastline has a lot to

do with how waves are formed, my friends

and I are going to check out two

different landscapes. We decided to go to

beach break and reef break and test out

the waves at their different locations.

This is a reef break. It's where waves

break on rocks at the bottom of the ocean

floor. What are you looking at?

I'm going to try and catch as many waves

as possible and compare my best rides in

each location.

Anthony times me with a stopwatch, Dan

counts my maneuvers, and I rate my

speed on a one to five scale, 5

being the fastest.

Ohh

We're putting together a chart of our

results. First, we're writing down what

the landscape looks like and a

description of the waves. The reef rake

waves were tough. My longest time on the

waves at the reef break was 6 seconds.

I had four maneuvers, and I rated my

speed at a three.

I see the beach! Surf's up!

Hands down! Time to check out a beach

break.

A beach break is where waves break over a

shallow sandy bottom. Let's go check it

out. Gone, take

the test. Oh, that was a good cutback.

Oh, that was a good trick. Cool. That

was good. My longest time on the waves at

the beach break was 15 seconds.

I had nine maneuvers, and I rated my

speed at four and a half. Surfs up,

hands down. Today

we found out that reef brakes were

generally harder than beach brakes. Get

out! Get out! We found out that the rides

were longer, there were more maneuvers,

and the speed was better on the beach

brakes.

I bet there are other things that can

affect your surfing. Dragonfly

contestants, you have five seconds to

list six surfing factors. The time of

day. Sports size. Tides. Surfing skills.

Seasons. The weather. Whoosh! Finding a

good wave is not so simple. What sport

can you test in the water?When you're

surfing the web, make sure to tell us all

about it. We'll let you know how later.

But now it's time to test your know-how.

Jump, dive, and jump Jump, dive,

and jump

You have from now until the end of the

show to answer this question. How'd you

weigh a whale?Got any ideas?We'll put you

a clue in a while.

See how pushy air can be. Use a hair

dryer and a ping pong ball. Turn the hair

dryer on the high, cool setting and point

it up. Let the ping pong ball go over the

air string. It pushes the ball right up.

Now, tilt it. You would think that the

air would just send the ball flying away.

But watch. Air is always pushing

everything. A long time ago, a scientist

named Bernoulli found that fast-moving

air doesn't push as hard as calm air.

When the ball begins to fall, it moves

into the calm air. The calm air pushes it

back up. Do you think you can tilt the

hairdryer even further without

dropping the ball?

My name is Hilary, and I'm 10 years old.

I've been volunteering at the Dolphin

Research Center for a couple of years

now. The

Dolphin Research Center is located in the

Florida Keys. The center is home to 18

Atlantic bottlenose dolphins and is

devoted to education. Hi, Percy.

Volunteering is a lot of work starting

right here in the fish house. Here's

where we prepare the dolphin's meals.

Here's the dolphin's favorite snack. I

help send out brochures and newsletters.

I help out on tours.

And I take out the trash. I'm an expert

at recycling.

But when the work's done, I get to do

what I really love, spend time with my

dolphin friends. AJ.

On very rare occasions, I get to swim

with the dolphins.

Dolphins are mammals just like us, so

they have to breathe air. They breathe

from a hole on top of their head called a

blowhole.

My work at the Dolphin Research Center

has inspired me to learn more about

dolphins. Right now, I'm studying pair

bonding. Sometimes two male dolphins

stick together a lot and seem to be best

friends. That's called pair bonding.

There are three pairs of dolphins here

that aren't officially declared to be

pair bonded. But because the dolphins and

each pair spend a lot of time together,

there are relationships that are worth

investigating. My question is, how

much time does each pair spend together?

Welcome to the exclusive Dolphin Club.

First, let's meet the pairs. Here's

Selfie and Kitty. Talon and AJ,

and Rainbow and Buff.

With the stopwatch and the help of

Danielle, a trainer, I time to see how

long each pair spends together over a



Okay.

How long has it been?Two minutes and

almost 30 seconds. Excellent. I

record my data on forms that I created.

With this information, I can make charts

like this. Charts help me read my data

easily.

There isn't a lot known about pair

bonding. That's why I'm excited about

researching this area. I did my research

for a week. Research is something

that you don't do just for a few days, so

my results are not conclusive and I need

to research a little bit more.

I think it's really exciting and really

fun. I love dolphins because they're

really cute and adorable. I think they're

really smart and friendly too. That's why

I like them. Move

it. Swimming with dolphins. Hilary is 1

lucky kid. I wonder if she understands

any dolphin language yet. But does anyone?

HuhI wonder how dolphins communicate.

Sorry. I was listening to dolphin sounds

and I downloaded it off the internet.

Check it out. Who

gets to analyze dolphin language?Oh, what

a cool job. Maybe other animals,

like your pets, pair up and communicate

in their own languages. Write us and tell

us what you'll find. Here's how. Surf on

over to the Dragonfly TV website. It's at

pbskids.org. Once you get there, tell us

what questions you're investigating and

what you found out. Or you can write us

at Dragonfly TV, 172 E 4th

St. St. Paul, MN 55101.

We want to hear from you. OK, you've had

a few minutes. Have you guessed how to

weigh a whale yet?David and Anthony think

you might be able to weigh it in water.

Whoa, it's Bella. Let's go get thewhales.

We're wondering if we can weigh a whale

in the water.

These whales weigh the same out of water,

but will they weigh the same if one is in

water?Let's find out.

Come, come, come, come on

Whale in water seems to weigh less. The

water must be pushing up on the whale and

affecting the weight. I don't think you

can weigh a real whale in water, 'cause

the weight wouldn't be accurate. I wonder

if everything weighs less than water. I

don't know. Let's try weighing some other

things.

Things that make you wonder.

Okay, so if you can't weigh a whale in

water, that kind of narrows it down. You

have less than 10 minutes to guess how to

weigh a whale. Because soon, we're

hanging to SeaWorld to see how they doit.

How much of the Earth's water is okay to

drink?One percent, 10

percent, 50 percent.

One percent.

Let's go! Hi, I'm Carlos de la Rosa. I'm

an aquatic biologist, and this is my

office.

I'm the director of the Riverwoods Field

Laboratory here in Florida, where we're

working towards the restoration of the

Kissimmee River. An aquatic biologist is

a person that studies what happens and

what lives in bodies of water, like

streams, rivers, and lakes. I concentrate

in the study of aquatic insects. We can

use aquatic insects to measure the

quality of water where they live.

This guy's really starting to bug

me.

Identifying insects is like a little

mystery project. You learn the history of

an insect, the Natural History by

observation. Oh,

this is the one that I was looking for.

The dragonfly nymph has one of those

neat adaptations to catch prey. It's a

predator. It has part of his mouth part

that's called a labian that is right

underneath his mouth and it uses to grab

prey and bring it to his mouth. Let me

show you this really close. See how long

it is?It can extend very long and has

teeth in the front. You

see that?

When I'm done collecting outdoors, I come

to my indoor lab to look at the things

that I collected in more detail. The cool

thing about working in the lab is that

you get to use really neat gadgets like

microscopes and special lights and tools.

all of which allows you to identify your

organism and find out what it does and

how it does it.

You don't have to be in an exotic

location in the tropics or in Florida to

discover new things. You can discover new

things in your own backyard. Whoa, dude,

what's that?

I belong to the Summer Science Club, and

we test the environment for certain

things that might be affecting it.

what lives in the grass, what lives in

the stream that runs near your property,

or what lives in the pond. We know the

river's healthy when there's a bunch of

things living in it, so we're gonna see

what we can find. This is a caddisfly,

and they're kind of like worm kind of

creatures, I guess you could say. Oh,

doggies, that's nice!

When we're catching fish, we use a net

called a seine. It's a big net, so it

helps us catch more. Lift it,

Nate. Whoa, it's

rolling down!

This is a D-frame net, and it's called

that because it's in the shape of a D. It

is very useful, because it sits flat on

the bottom, and it makes it easier to

catch bugs. When

we find something new, it's really fun.

So we're like, yeah, we found something

new. We have Flathead Mayflies.

Is this the first one we found?Yep.

Make for yourself a journal, a book where

you write down what you find, where you

do illustrations, you do your own

drawings and your sketches, take

photographs of you, have a camera, and

build slowly a memory of all your

discoveries.

There are many scientists doing the exact

same thing we are, and they use an index,

just like this one, to identify what they

found. We found ten different kinds of

invertebrates today, and we're going to

add them to the index and then send it

off to the scientists.

Our work, I think, is important because

what we find are changes, and

some changes are for the better and some

changes aren't. And if I can do anything

to help this river, it would mean for the

better for me, but it also means better

for all the other animal species that

live in this river, and if I can help

them, that'd mean a lot to me.

Growing up in Venezuela in the tropics,

it's almost impossible not to be

associated one way or another with

nature. Every kid loves to

play with the mud, loves to play in the

water, and to me it's just really

fantastic to be able to do that and get

paid for. If you were an insect, I would

look at you like this.

It's wild that research on creepy crawly

swimmers is such a big help to us land

mammals. What's lurking in the waters of

your neighborhood?Worms?Tadpoles?Skimmers?

Check it out. What about the water you

drink?Here's your chance to help a real

scientist with her research.

Hi, I'm Lisa Harnick. I'm a scientist at

the University of Minnesota.

I study what people eat and drink. Bessie

here drinks 25 gallons of water everyday.

You've got to drink a lot of water to get

enough fluids in your body. If you're

drinking soda instead of water, fruit

juice, or milk, you may not be getting

enough of some of the nutrients you need,

like calcium.

I'm wondering if your choice of beverage

is related to how much TV you watch. I

need your help. I want you to do 2 things

for me. First, keep track of what you

drink and how much TV you watch for a

whole week. Second, enter your

findings on the Dragonfly TV website and

you'll get to see the results for kids

across the whole country.

If you want to help Lisa, here's what to

do. For one, we keep track of how much

soda, juice, water, and milk you drink.

Then come to our website, put in your

data, and we'll tell you if you're

getting enough nutrients and how you

compare to other kids. And we'll send

your results on to Lisa.

What is the longest U.S. river?

Colorado, Mississippi,

Suwannee,

Mississippi.

Let's get wild, yeah!

What makes a great water slide?That's

what we're going to figure out today.

We've decided two things that make a

great water slide: the speed and how wild

the ride is. We're going to

measure the salsa twist and the flash

flood to see which one's faster and more

wild. That was the most coolest

story I've ever had!

OhhFirst, I'm going to time myself on the

flash one. One, two, ready,

go!

So now Valerie's going to time herself on

the salsa twist. In

order for our experiment's results to be

right, everything has to be the same for

each test. 21 seconds!

Write that down!One,

two, ready, go!

We found out from the waterpark manager

the Flash Flood is 86 meters and the

Salsa Twist is 80 meters. If we

divide the distance by our time, we'll

get my speed per second. Let's do the

math. The

average ride for the Flash Flood was four

and one half meters per second. The

average ride for the salsa twist was four

meters per second. Yo, what's up?

Move it!

Since the best rides make you feel kind

of queasy, we figure a good

ride tosses you around a lot.

We've come up with a maze-ometer. And I'm

gonna try and follow the maze as I'm on

the ride. The less Margie's able to stay

inside lines, the better the ride, 'cause

that means it's tossing her around a lot.

Ohh Oh,

yeah.

Margie can stay in the light of the

flashlight. But she had a harder time on

the Salsa Twist. So the Salsa Twist

is a wilder ride. Even though the

Salsa Twist ended up being slower, it

tossed us around more than the Flash

Flood. So maybe that's why we like it

better. Yeah! But there may be other

things we're not considering, like

twists, turns, and inclines.

So we have some more things to measure.

Knock, knock!Water. Water. Water who?

What are we waiting for?

Let's

go! Oh, what is this?Oh ohh yeah. A

mesometer measures different kinds of

rides. We tried the bus. I sat in the

front and had a pretty smooth ride. I sat

in the back. Is your bus this bumpy?If

you don't ride the bus, check out your

parents' driving or amusement park rides.

Remember, when you do try your mesometer,

make sure you give us the results. Time's

up. Let's see to guess right. We're

headed to SeaWorld to find out how they

weigh a whale.

Well, there are several ways we could

weigh the whales, but it would be very

hard to weigh them when they're actually

in the water. You see, they're very

buoyant when they're swimming around, so

we need to come up with another way of

weighing them. Can you weigh a whale on a

scale?

The best way to weigh the whales would be

to train them to slide up out of the

water onto a dry scale. Now, this would

be like standing on top of your bathroom

scale at home, but obviously, this scale

needs to be much bigger. And the way it

is... 4,990

pounds. That's 2,270

kilograms of whale. That's equal to 16

refrigerators or just one stretch limo.

Wow. We want to know about you and your

ideas. That's how we find kid scientists

for Dragonfly TV. This is your show. Let

us know what you'd like to see featured.

Visit our website or write us. To find

out more about Dragonfly TV, head to PBS

Online at pbskids.org. More experiments,

Dragonfly Magazine, teacher's guides, and

a place for you to send us your

investigations. Or write us at Dragonfly

TV, 172 East 4th Street, St. Paul,

Minnesota, 55101.

Dragonfly TV is all excitement all season

long. Check us out when we storm chase a

tornado. Get wet with the inventor of the

Super Soaker. Send some coconuts into

outer space. Let's go! And float up, up

and away in a hot air balloon.

Dragonfly TV doesn't happen without kids

like you. Investigations across the

nation. See y'all next time.

Major funding for Dragonfly TV is

provided byBest Buy.

We're excited to see kids like you

exploring the world of science and

technology, because what you're learning

is going to change the way we live. Best

Buy. The future looks fun.

And by the National Science Foundation,

supporting education and research in

science, mathematics, and technology.

The National Science Foundation.

America's investment in the future

Additional funding is provided by the

Donald Wiesner Charitable Trust

Foundation.

Hands down. The beach is the happiest

place around. My favorite, most

favorite love of the place was when the

man and the water meet face to face. I

can stand in the sand and see far out to

sea. The world comes away and now feels

so free. City

streets and the traffic noise melts away.

Some warm white sand by the water I

play.

PBS Kids!

If you're a parent or teacher and you

want more ideas for great science

investigations, check out our Teacher's

Guide and other publications. Write to us

for more info at Dragonfly TV, 172

East 4th Street, St. Paul, Minnesota,