06x07 - Hawaii

[bunniefuu]

This time on Dragonfly TV GPS, we're

hiking through hot lava,

snorkeling with sea turtles, and

stargazing on the tallest mountain in the

world. Major funding for

Dragonfly TV is provided by

the National Science Foundation,

supporting education and research across

all fields of science and engineering.

The National Science Foundation. where

discoveries begin.

PBS has been inspiring new ideas and

creativity for generations of bright

young minds. Arby's, proud sponsor of

Dragonfly TV and PBS.

It's Dragonfly TV, Dragonfly

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You've just landed on Dragonfly TV.

We're swimming into our adventure at 21

degrees N, 157 degrees

West. That's the farthest W we've ever

been.

This place is so unique. It has its very

own time zone. Although it's one of the

smallest US states, it's still the

widest. It's known for its big time

waves, erupting volcanoes,

and a state fish with a gnarly name, the

Humu Humu Nukunuku Apua.

Of course you know it. Aloha Hawaii.

Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific

Ocean, 2000 plus miles from

the California coast. The state is

made-up of eight main islands, all of

which were created by volcanoes.

Later on, we'll visit two other islands,

the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the

Big Island and the Maui Ocean Center on,

you guessed it, Maui. Right now, we're in

Honolulu on the island of Oahu.

Did you know that surfing was invented by

Hawaiians?In the old days, only royalty

was allowed to surf. But now this sport

is for everyone.

Diamond Head is one of the most famous

landmarks in Hawaii. The circular-shaped

mountain was formed after a brief

volcanic eruption roughly 200,000

years ago. These days, when it comes to

volcanoes, the Big Island is where it's

at, home to the world's most active

volcano. And Julia and Brianna know that

there's no better place to investigate

lava flows than Hawaii Volcanoes National

Park.

I'm Julia. And I'm Brianna. We live on an

active volcano.

Though we're not afraid, we love

volcanoes. We especially love visiting

the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

The part sits on a volcano called

Kilauea. Wow. Look at

that. You can explore many past eruptions

on Kilauea. The lava has cooled and

hardened to rock. But you have to stay

away from the active parts, where the

lava is still flowing.

There are five volcanoes on the big

island, and two are still active. In

fact, Kilauea is the world's most active

volcano, spewing lava almost every day

for over 20 years. In Hawaiian,

Kilauea means spewing, describing how its

lava erupts. We actually live on the

second active volcano, Mauna Loa. Yep,

Mauna Loa is the largest mountain in the

world. But it starts at the bottom of the

ocean. The top pokes out of the sea and

makes up over half of the land of the Big

Island. We're lucky enough to go to a

school right near the Volcanoes National

Park, and it's called Volcanoes School of

Arts and Sciences.

We study stuff on volcanoes every day. We

need to do a science fair project for our

class, but we don't know what to do yet.

We could create our own volcano.

Yeah, it's just I did that in

kindergarten. Maybe we could measure how

hot the lava is. We can't get that close.

That's too dangerous. Maybe we should

visit the Kilauea Visitor Center for some

inspiration. The Visitor Center is a

great start to any trip here in the

Volcanoes National Park. It's got a ton

of cool information on volcanoes, plants,

and animals that you can see here in the

park. Look at the Hawaiian Islands. That

must be the hot spot. The hot spot makes

all of our volcanoes. The Visitor Center

also told us about the ecology of the

park. The lava flows are mostly just

gray lava rock. There are places where

seeds take root, right in the rock. There

are many different kinds of plants and

seedlings that grow on the volcano. It

says here that the seeds are kept in

small wooden capsules. Looks like they're

dispersed by winds. We found there are

different ways that plant seeds travel

across the islands. By wind and by

birds. It's yohella berries. Do they get

dispersed by the wind too?I don't think

so. They're carried by birds in their

droppings.

The lava flows look like the moon or a

giant parking lot. There's not a plant in

sight on the recent lava flows.

But the older ones have plants growing on

them. Answering how plants grow back

after a lava eruption would make an

awesome science fair project.

We asked the park Ranger for some help to

get started and then head off into Mana

Ulu parking lot. And that's where you can

see lots of old lava flows there. She

said to look at the Mana Ulu eruption

from almost 40 years ago. Mana Ulu

started erupting in 1969 and kept

flowing for nearly five years. It had

amazingly high lava fountains. Some of

the fountains reached nearly 2,000 feet

high.

A single hotspot created all of the

Hawaiian Islands. The Western Hawaiian

Islands were created first, and the Big

Island to the east is the newest island.

It's only 800,000 years young.

I think I just gave you a clue to our

science secret. Something's changing in

Hawaii. Big time. Think about

it, because we'll find out the answer

later on. Now it's back to our

lava-loving ladies, Julia and Brianna.

We headed out to Mana Ulu. We want to

know how plants and animals return, where

lava once flowed. So we'll search older

lava flows for signs of living things.

There are two different types of lava

that flow in Kilauea. One is called

pahoehoe. Wow, that's cool.

It looks like a BLOB and smooth.

This other type of lava is called a'a.

It's more sharp and pointy. A'a lava

happens when the lava flow starts to

harden and breaks up into chunks. Look,

it's a pahoehoe flow. Look, another one

on top of it. Oh, yeah, we learned that

in school. The lava on top is newer than

the lava below. So first the pahoehoe

lava came, and then the aa came on top of

it. Look, it's a forest. Do you think

this stuff came back after the lava flow?

No, I think it's a kipuka. A kipuka

is a patch of plants and trees that the

lava flowed around, but didn't destroy.

So it wasn't touched by the Mount Ulu

lava flow?Nope, that's why the plants and

trees are so big.

Look, it's an ohia tree. And look,

there's a flower. Wow, look at all the

kupu-kupu ferns. They're really big.

There's some ohello berries. They're in

the kipuka, too. We wrote down the types

of plants we saw in the kipuka. The three

native plants we saw were the ohia tree,

the Kupa Kupa fern, and the ohello plant.

We kept hiking farther on the trail

towards the vent where the Manu Ulu

eruption started. Hey, look, it's an

ohello plant. Is it growing in lava?It

looks like it's growing in the cracks. We

looked for new seedlings in both pahoehoe

and all lava flows. It's another ohello.

This time it's growing in awe. Look, it's

a baby ohia. And it's growing in a crack.

It's surrounded by a broken up rock. We

saw these same kinds of plants in the

kipuka we walked through earlier. Look,

it's a kupa kupa fern. It was growing in

the cracks of the lava rock, too,

after we collected enough data about the

Mana'u lava flows. We returned to the

visitor's center and put it all together.

On the Mana'ulu Trail, we saw three

different types of native plants growing

on the lava. The ohia, the kupu kupu

fern, and the ohello berries. They all

seem to be growing in similar places.

Yeah, they were all growing in cracks in

the lava. But I

wonder how the seeds from the plants get

in those tiny cracks in the lava flow.

Well, we learned in the visitor center

that seeds from the ohia tree and spores

from the kupu-kupu fern float on the

wind. And the ohalo berries get eaten by

birds, like nenegeese, so they move the

seeds to different areas of the lava

flow. You know, we saw all the

same plants in the kipuka. I bet the new

plants came from there. The wind must

blow them out of the kipuka. And the

birds must eat the berries from the

kipuka. So there must be enough nutrients

and water in the older lava flow cracks

for the seeds to grow. Wow, these plants

are sure well adapted. They give mine

even the smallest places to grow in the

lava.

The lava flows from Mana'ulu are almost



plants growing there. Yeah, I wonder how

long it takes for the plants from the

kipupa to regrow again in the lava. I

think we need to do more investigating.

Maybe we should finish one science

project before we start on a whole new

one.

I can see why slippers are so popular

here, but that's nothing compared to

molten lava. It can reach up to



that's smoking. But Hawaii isn't just a

hot spot for volcanoes. Scientists from

all over the world travel here to get a

glimpse of the night sky. It's time to

meet another scientist whose work is

truly out of this world.

Let's go! We're here inside the Gemini

telescope, and it's very cold.

Hi, I'm Marianne. I'm an astronomer.

We're here outside Gemini telescope on

top Mauna Kea, Hawaii. On the top Mauna

Kea, it's pretty much zero degrees. All

through the year.

Mauna Kea is good because there are no

other mountain ranges nearby, and so the

air is pretty still. There is very little

turbulence. We're at 14,000 feet above

sea level. Being up high, you have less

atmosphere, you have less junk. There are

very few cities, so we don't get a lot of

light pollution. Astronomers just die

to get a night to observe here.

I was born in Chile. My mom says, of

course you were always supposed to be an

astronomer because you never went to

sleep at night as a baby. When I was four

years old, I was running with my dad to

the store and I could see the moon and I

was just flabbergasted. I remember going

a lot to the beaches and just looking up

and at awe, just looking at all the

stars. I really wanted to know about the

size of the universe. I remember as a

little one thinking, where did I come

from?Why am I here?How long are we going

to be here as human beings?I wanted to be

able to study a field, study something

that would actually allow me to pursue

these questions. I look at

galaxies with as big a telescope as

I can get, and I try to understand how

they came to be. It's like I want to see

what they're going to be also. So I want

to know everything. So what I do is I

look at the galaxies, and I get to see

what lines are there. And that'll tell me

what this galaxy's made out of. It

takes time for light to arrive. The light

that comes out of the sun takes about 8

minutes to reach us here, and the sun is

really close to us. The stars that are

closer to us, it's about one light year.

So if they stop shining, we would not

know about that for about a year. So

galaxies are much farther away than any

of the stars. For example, if I were to

look at a Galaxy which is like 70 million

light years from us, it is not as how it

is today. It's how it was 70 million

years ago when the dinosaurs were roaming

here on Earth. I want to know what stars

the galaxy has, what the stars are made

out of, what chemicals are inside the

stars. The more carefully you

look at a galaxy, the more special it is.

Like all of us, the more you look at each

other, the more special we are.

The summit of Mauna Kea has more

scientific observatories than anywhere

else in the world. But you don't need

your own giant telescope to play around

with science. Just a few simple things

like this do it.

Make a ping pong ball jump out of water.

You'll need a cup, a sponge, a ping

pong ball, and some water. Put about an

inch of water in the cup. Put the ball in

the water. Hold the cup over the sponge a

few inches and drop it. The ball doesn't

bounce out. Try dropping the cup from a

bit higher. The ball still doesn't bounce

out. Now swirl the cup, then drop it.

Whoa, the ball jumped out. How else

can you get the ball to jump out of the

cup?Surf on over to the

Dragonfly TV website at

pbskidsgo.org. Stream a

cool DFTV video, play an awesome

game, or try a surprising duet. And don't

forget to tell us what you're doing with

science. We want to hear from you.

There's a place in Hawaii that's going

through some huge changes. Think you've

figured it out?The answer to a super hot

science secret coming up. But now it's

time to relax Hawaiian style.

In this island paradise, there's no

better place to party or pig out than at

a luau.

Koi is a luau staple. It's a paste made

of cooked and mashed taro root.

Well, it must be an acquired taste, but

the taro plant is amazing. People have

been eating taro for thousands of years.

This veggie packs some power, and these

kids take their tarot seriously.

yeah It's great.

You're being that 50th state.

We dance a little in Tahitian, and we

also learn things about our culture.

We were planting some more taro.

Taro is so important to Hawaiian culture

because this is a food that you can live

off. Besides the kalo part of the taro,

you can also eat the leaves. The taro

takes around six months to a year to

grow. Most taro in Hawaii is grown

in water. It's better for it to grow in

water, 'cause then it will taste better.

I want to go back to my fish and boy.

Playa is made from the root, which is

called halo. You have to smash it until

all the lumps are gone.

Masterpiece. Ohh

There are more endangered species in

Hawaii than in any other state in the

U.S. The island biosphere is

unique, and its biggest threats are

foreign plants and animals brought to the

islands by us, humans. Let's hook

up with Devin and Zach at the Maui Ocean

Center as they try to help out another of

Hawaii's threatened species, the green

sea turtles.

Oh, we need some Dawn Patrol today. Yeah,

but then a lot of people dropped in.

I didn't like that time I went crawls

either. Did you do any

floaters or any rips?

I like living in Hawaii because it's

really nice, you know?People are

friendly. Whenever you want to go to the

beach, it's just right there. The funnest

thing to do on Maui is probably to surf.

He's actually a good teacher. He's

teaching me. He's a fast learner.

We're not surfing. We're still usually in

the water. Snorkeling. Let's go.

There are a ton of beautiful creatures

that live off of the coast of Maui.

Every time we snorkel, I can't believe

all the stuff we see.

Our favorite animal to see out here is

Mahono. That's the

Hawaii name for the green sea turtle.

Yeah, they're so amazing. And they're so

big. We have to be careful not to

disturb the honu, so we stay a good

distance away from them while snorkeling.

We try to never swim directly above them.

Honus are amazing swimmers. They stay

underwater for a long time. But they

breathe air just like you and me, so

eventually they have to come up for a

breath.

Unfortunately, here in Hawaii, the honu

are threatened. Yeah, and in other parts

of the world, they are in danger. We

wondered if we could help the honu.

So, we headed to the Maui Ocean Center to

learn more about the turtles.

Oh, look at this cool tunnel. I know,

we're surrounded by water. Look at the

giant stingray.

The Maui Ocean Center is an incredible

aquarium with all kinds of native

Hawaiian animals for us to see. The black

and kind of greenish-gray is the manini.

I wonder where the black tip wheat shark

is. Oh, there it is. Look.

Wow, look at all these amazing jellyfish.

I know, they're so cool.

Finally, we found what we were looking

for, the honu. Whoa, look, it's the honu.

The aquarium has

six sea turtles, all about 1 1/2 years

old. The Mali Ocean Center has tons

of information about the honu. We learned

that they can live up to 100 years old,

grow to be over 100 centimeters long, and

weigh more than 400 pounds.

Each year, scientists count the number of

nests that turtles lay their eggs in.

Turns out that the number of nests in the

main Hawaiian islands keeps getting less

and less. Which means less and less

turtles. When baby honos are first born,

they're about the size of a ping pong

ball. Wow, that's really tiny. Looks like

once a hono is born, its troubles have

just begun. Only one in 1000

turtles survives to be an adult. Most

turtles get preyed upon by birds, crabs,

and even people before they reach the

ocean. Once they do reach the ocean, they

have other preys to worry about, like

sharks. What's a home to do?The

Maui Ocean Center will take care of all

these turtles until they're about three

or four years old. Then they will be

released into the ocean. That way, they

are bigger, stronger, and healthier and

have a much better chance at becoming

adult honu. That helps all the honu.

Yeah! We decided to find out how the honu

are doing here at the aquarium. We

formulated our plan on investigating how

big the honu will grow. Break it down for

me, fellas. First, we will weigh the honu

and then compare the weight at different

ages. Next, we're gonna measure the

diameter of the shell. And see how big it

grows as it gets older. Then we'll add

our data to data recorded previously

at the aquarium. We spoke to an aquarist

at the Ocean Center about our

investigation. He agreed to help us out.

This was a really special opportunity for

us to get close to the honu. First,

an aquarist had to get the turtles out of

the pool. That's not as easy as it

sounds. The turtles are feisty when they

don't want to be picked up. Jim got on

the skill with each one of the turtles.

We subtracted his weight to find out the

weight of the turtle. 192. We then

measured the length of the turtle's shell

from the head to the tail. It was about



data for the first turtle. Nice work.

We repeated the same measurements for the

remaining honors.



Good job, guys. Want to kiss the turtle?

That's OK. Pretty cool, huh

Yeah, it's fascinating.

Then we asked the aquarist for the

turtle's previous measurements. We

decided to make two charts. One which

tracks the owner's weight over time. In

August, turtle number four was seven

pounds, Zach. Then, he was 8.5. And

today, we measured him as 13.5 pounds.

And another to track their shell size.

Turtle number two in

August was 29.5

centimeters. Today, in November, turtle

number two was 36.7

centimeters. We graphed the

shell size and weight of all six of our

turtles. The lines are going up,

so it shows the turtles are growing and

gaining weight as they get older. Yeah,

in August, it looks like the turtles were

about six to seven pounds. Then after

three months, they've gained almost

double their weight. Now let's look at

the shells chart. Look at the lines.

They're all going upwards. That means

that the turtles' shells are growing. And

that the size of their shell is about 27

centimeters to about 37 centimeters.

Since our graph showed us how fast the

honu were growing, we extended the line

out far enough to predict how big they

might be when they are three years old.

When they're three years old, it looks

like that they will grow to be about 50

pounds. It looks like when the turtles

are about three years old, their shells

will be 70 centimeters long. Now that we

have our predictions, let's go find out

how big the turtles are when they're

released. Yeah, come on, let's go. The

aquarium has released turtles in the

past, so we used that previous data to

compare with our prediction. We found out

that a three-year-old hodu grows to 40

pounds, not 50. We were 10 pounds off.

Yeah, just like the shell. We thought it

would grow up to 70 centimeters long, but

really, it grows up to 50. We drew a

straight line, but turtles don't actually

grow like that. So the hodu, as they get

older, they start to grow slower. Then

that means it has a long way to go and

reach 400 pounds. And one meter long.

I wonder how big they will grow when

they're about 10 or maybe even 20 years

old. Maybe we can track them as they get

older and older. Yeah, but they have

really long lives, so they might be

tracking till we're grandpas.

Devin and Zach's snorkeling adventure

looks so awesome, I just had to give it a

try. And it's

a good thing I cooled off, because it's

time for the answer to our glowing hot

science secret. What's changing here that

isn't changing anywhere else in the US?

Because of the volcanoes, Hawaii is

growing. Here's more.

The Big Island of Hawaii is constantly

growing and shrinking. My

name

is Andrea, and I'm a park Ranger here at

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Behind

us, we have lava entering the ocean in

two spots. Where the lava enters the

ocean, it forms new land. Approximately



lava is entering the ocean every day. In

the last 20 years, the Big Island of

Hawaii has gained approximately 525 acres

of new land. And these sections of

new land are called lava deltas. When

these lava deltas get so large, the

intense weight causes these

lava deltas to break off and fall back

into the ocean.

All eight Hawaiian islands were formed by

volcanic eruptions. They have experienced

this exact thing that's going on right

now here at Kilauea Volcano. So we have

creation and destruction going on here in

Hawaii. Volcanoes National Park.

A new Hawaiian island is forming under

the sea. But don't book your vacation

just yet. The new island won't reach the

surface for tens of thousands of years.

But I can't wait. Another island to hula

on. Hula dances were traditionally done

by men to chant stories.

Surf on over to the Dragonfly TV website

at pbskidsgo.org. Tell us what

you're exploring in science museums where

you live. We want to hear from you. Want

to watch Dragonfly TV again?You can

download videos of everything you see on

our show. Coming up on

Dragonfly TV GPS.

Pack your bags for next time on Dragonfly

TV G PS:. In Hawaii,

aloha is an expression of affection,

compassion, love, and much more. It's

used as a greeting and a way to say

goodbye. But this place is much too

beautiful to say goodbye to. So instead,

I'll say a hui h*, which means see you

later. Surf here again to see where we

come ashore next. A hui h*!

Major funding for Dragonfly TV is

provided by the National

Science Foundation. supporting

education and research across all fields

of science and engineering. The

National Science Foundation, where

discoveries begin.

PBS has been inspiring new ideas and

creativity for generations of bright

young minds. Arby's, proud sponsor of

Dragonfly TV and PBS.