03x03 - SkyGirls

[bunniefuu]

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[girls] ♪ When I need help and I've got a question ♪

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♪ You've got to log on, post

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[Izzie] We need you!

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[Izzie] SciGirls!

[sniffs]

Hey, thanks for letting me borrow Fang

for my ten-second film, Jake.

No problem.

He's gonna pull out the most brilliant performance

by a mouse in a lead role ever.

Yeah,Fang Learns a Trick[/span]

is gonna take the Short, Short, Short Film Festival

by storm.

Now let's actually teach Fang a trick.

Come on, Fang.

Go around the cups.

Follow the stick.

Or not.

It's your show.

Genius talent like Fang's works in its own time.

But let me try.

[Fang snores]

[Jake] You got this, Fang.

You're the best mouse actor of our generation.

[Fang snores]

[sighs] Oh.

We need to make the stick more exciting than the cup.

My pants!

Huh?

I wore these pants for a month straight

three months ago for National Cheese-Eating Month.

[sniffs] Mmm.

Lint-aged cheese.

This should do the trick.

And it's Jake with the surprise performance.

Here, Fang.

I know you want this delicious lint-aged cheese.

Yes!

[Jake] That's my brilliant bud.

Go around the cups. Go, go, go. Go on.

[sighs] Oh.

This would be frustrating if he wasn't so cute.

Maybe the SciGirls can help.

Great thinking.

I'll keep this short.

SciGirls, help!

Hmm, this one just might do the trick.

- Whoo. Look at it. - Emma.

All right. Let her out.

[Lauren] Man, if we got in our swimsuits,

we could fly our kites from the ocean.

[laughs]

[Lauren voice over] I'm Lauren.

I really enjoy going to the beach

and doing hands-on things at the beach.

You can surf. You can boogieboard.

You can swim in the waves. You can build sand castles.

Guys, there are some great shells over here.

[Madison] Excuse the kites.

[Lauren] Emma and Madison--I've known them since second grade.

- Can anyone hook the tail? - Yeah.

- No, Emma! - Never mind.

[Emma] I'm Emma.

It's fun to just lay on the beach

and to look up at the clouds.

That one looks like a lizard.

That one looks like a grizzly bear.

You'll never see the same cloud twice.

But clouds are forever changing.

Hey, that cloud looks like a rabbit.

[Emma voiceover] And you might see a bunny one time

and then a turtle another.

I am flying a kite with no hands.

[Madison voiceover] My name is Madison.

I like clouds because I've always found them fascinating.

They're not very tangible,

and so it makes them all more interesting to study them.

We made this this morning.

We engineered a kite, and we attached a camera to it.

[Emma] Yeah, we recycled a soda bottle.

[Lauren] An old soda bottle.

And then we used the dowel and we stuck it

through the waterproof case.

And used some pretty sturdy string to tie it all together.

[Lauren] All you have to do is hit "record."

You ready, Lauren?

- Yep. - All right.

[Emma] One, two...

three!

- Ooh! - Awesome.

[Emma] Say hi to the sky.

- Hi. - Hi.

[Emma] You help Maddie.

- Got it, or you can help me. - Hold on, let me get my phone.

[both] Yay!

[Emma] This is awesome.

[all] Bring on the clouds!

[Emma] In class, we just finished our weather unit,

and now we want to learn more.

Hi, ladies.

[together] Hi.

Are you Emma, Madison, and Lauren?

[together]Yeah.

Hi, my name's Yolanda.

I am a NASA research scientist who studies the atmosphere.

Ooh, nice.

Our teacher Miss McDowell told Yolanda about us.

I thought I would teach you guys more

about clouds in the atmosphere

so you guys can learn a little bit more.

[Emma] Yolanda came to my house to tell us about S'COOL.

S'COOL is a citizen science program at NASA.

[Yolanda] S'COOL stands for Students' Cloud Observations On-line.

So it's "S"-cool.

It's a NASA program where scientists try to get

the help of students.

So you guys will be called "Rovers."

- Okay. - Awesome.

What we need is ground observations of clouds

so that we know how our satellites are doing.

There are two satellites, AQUA and TERRA.

[Lauren] They take pictures,

and they observe the different types of clouds

and also the different levels that they're at

during a certain time.

[Yolanda] We're looking at the Earth at two different perspectives.

There's a satellite looking from space down on Earth.

And we're looking from the ground up to space.

[Lauren] So these Rovers go out at the same time period

as the satellite, and then they take pictures

and observe what the different types of clouds are.

And you take your observations,

and then we can compare to the satellite to see

how close your observations

and the satellite's observations are.

So it's important that we take our observations

within minutes of the satellite overpass.

- We'll have to work quickly. - That's right.

You think you guys can handle it?

- I think so. - I think we can.

I think you guys can too.

So I brought my laptop for us to check out the observation times.

[Emma] We went to the S'COOL website

to find out the overpass times of AQUA and TERRA.

[Yolanda] We can click on "When to Observe."

[Madison] Okay.

[Yolanda] And select the satellite that we'll be using.

So we'll be using AQUA 'cause it passes over in the afternoon.

Yeah, I think that's when we'll be able to do our observation.

Time that it's passing over is...

[Lauren] :.

[Yolanda] That's right. It is :.

Okay.

[laughter]

[together] Whoo!

[Madison] Miss Yolanda drove us to the beach on a golf cart.

[laughter]

We made it.

[Lauren] I want to try.

[laughter]

[Emma] It looks great.

[Lauren] What?

On the beach, we learned S'COOL protocol.

We kind of have clouds that are on

generally three different layers of the atmosphere.

[Emma] The three layers-- there are low clouds,

there are middle clouds, and there are high clouds.

What can you tell me about stratus clouds?

They're low-lying like a thick blanket.

- Uh-huh. - Layer, you know.

I think I'm gonna go with stratus.

Stratus, okay.

So we're going flat and low,right?

Cumulus.

[Yolanda] What about cumulus clouds?

- The big, puffy ones-- - Fluffy.

- Look like pictures. - Yeah.

And then what about cirrus clouds?

They're high and wispy, look like little horse tails.

- Ice particles. - Yeah, right.

[Yolanda] And they're made out of ice 'cause they're high up.

Let's all be cumulus clouds.

Cumulus clouds.

[Madison] Then Miss Yolanda joined in our cloud dances,

and I thought it was very unique

that we had an actual NASA S'COOL scientist

joining in cloud dances.

[all] Whoo!

- We're one big cloud trail. - Whoo!

[all] Whoo!

Thank you.

By doing dances and poses,

it really helped the different cloud types

to stick in my mind.

[woman] cloud types--go.

Cirrus.

Cirrocumulus. Cirrostratus.

Um, contrails,

altocumulus, altostratus.

[laughs]

Cumulus.

Stratocumulus.

Cirrostratus.

Did I say that already?

[laughs]

Gosh. Stratus.

Cumulonimbus.

Nimbostratus.

Missing one. [sighs]

Did I say fog? No, I didn't. Fog.

Fog.

Fog.

So are you guys ready to do your first S'COOL Rover observation?

- Yeah. - Yes. Let's go.

Okay, how's the time looking?

[Madison] So since we're measuring with the -hour clock,

the hour is :,

so we're going to put for the hour

and for the minute.

Okay, so we're within minutes

of our overpass time, which was what?

Uh, :.

When you come up with Rover nicknames--

you guys are our Rovers.

We could do MEL for Madison, Emma, Lauren.

The satellite was about to pass over,

so we quickly filled out our report form.

Make sure we're looking straight above us.

S'COOL protocol is to make a "V" with your arms

and only count and measure and observe the clouds

that are inside that "V."

Okay, so you can kind of cut out a circle

with your arms.

And that's your circle of observation.

[Madison] Because that way, we can ensure that the satellite

is measuring the same clouds.

[Emma] We measured cloud type.

[Lauren] I see some cumulus clouds.

[Emma] Cirrus, altostratus, and altocumulus.

[Madison] When we go back-to-back,

if we have enough "V"s touching,

we can create a circle of observation,

so that way, we can get the whole sky observed.

[Emma] The total cloud cover is broken.

One of our observations that we take is sky visibility.

So this is our haziness.

I'd say it's somewhat hazy.

- Yeah, somewhat hazy. - Somewhat hazy.

There are some little spots where you can see the sky.

So we have to look out on the horizon,

so what if we look at the pier over there?

[Madison] I'd say somewhat hazy. I don't think it's too hazy.

[Yolanda] Yeah, I think that's--

'Cause you can see the sky through it.

Sure, sure. That's good.

And now sky color.

- I think it looks--yeah. - Yeah.

- It looks more like a blue. - Yeah, this is a blue.

We used a sky color chart to figure out

how blue the sky was.

[Emma] Okay, so it looks like a blue, like a deep blue.

[Yolanda] Yeah, yeah. Yeah, sounds good to me.

[Emma] So we measured cloud opacity.

Cloud opacity is a measurement that we take

to measure how much sun or light we can see through the cloud.

[together] Contrails.

[Madison] Look at it. It's so big.

So we can put that down in our category.

[Emma] We're gonna see a lot of airplanes passing by

that create contrails.

So we have our ground observations

at the bottom there.

Ground observations are what we view on the ground,

like whether it's raining, if the ground is dry.

- I'm feeling good. - Great.

I've never done this before, but it's really cool

that we're doing the same stuff a satellite is.

How cool is that?

- Yeah, we're like-- - It's S'COOL.

We're like NASA girls.

We're NASA girls. NASciGirls.

[both] NASciGirls.

Hi, I'm Madison.

Welcome to my home at Virginia Beach.

This is my dog, Samantha.

I love to sing, and I like to play the guitar as well.

Tennis is a great sport.

Bye.

We took the observations from the beach,

and then we went home to enter them on the S'COOL website.

The cloud coverage was broken.

Our sky visibility was somewhat hazy.

The sky color was blue.

The low-level clouds, it was cumulus.

The cloud coverage was scattered.

The temperature was degrees Fahrenheit.

[Lauren] Ready to submit?

- Yeah. - Drum roll.

Does everything look good?

Yeah, it looks great.

[together] And submit.

- Yay. - Yay.

[Yolanda] Good job, ladies.

You completed entirely your first observation.

Awesome job, guys.

Awesome, guys.

It says, "Your observation has been entered

"into the S'COOL database.

"CERES satellite data will be processed by FLASHFlux

in about a week."

Why does it take so long for the information from the satellite

to get down to us?

[Yolanda] What's taking a long time is, the program is sorting

through all of the satellite data

and matching it to the observations

that you guys took today.

Today we are filling out another one of our report forms

and observing the clouds at this time.

What time does the satellite come by?

At :.

:. What time is it now?

Let's check the official time.

Right now it's :.

So we got this. All right.

All right, ready? Let's do this.

All right, run. Let's go.

[Emma] Into position.

[Madison] Okay, okay, here we go.

Start with our high-level clouds.

All right, let's do our "V" now.

The "V"s.

[Madison] I see a few cirrus clouds.

[Lauren] Yes.

[Madison] Not only was I having a fun day on the beach

measuring clouds with my friends,

I was benefiting science.

And it's not raining, so no nimbo clouds.

- Yeah. - No nimbostratus.

[Madison] On a personal level, that was very cool for me.

[Emma] So what were those other types of clouds?

[Madison] For the high-level clouds,

we saw cirrus and cirrocumulus.

[Lauren] So for the first day's observations,

I think we're gonna be pretty accurate,

because we have Miss Yolanda to help us.

Compared to yesterday,

there was a great diversity in the clouds that we saw.

[Lauren] And I think that's gonna be probably the same

for the second day,

and I think the results are still gonna be pretty accurate.

More contrails, lots of people,

residential area.

And we have to wait five days

for NASA to send us back our S'COOL data.

[Emma] I think that looks great.

All right. Let's submit.

[all] One, two, three.

That is exactly what we needed,

a different point of view.

Hmm, from down here at Fang's level,

I totally get what he sees in those cups,

a place to hang out, like a den,

but for a mouse.

[Jake] I should have known.

I love to hang out in weird spaces too.

Your oddness gives me an idea.

Okay, I think we're finally ready to sh**t my film.

Fang, from the top.

And action.

Follow the stick around the cups, little buddy.

[Fang squeaks]

Yay! Good boy, Fang.

[Emma] Miss Yolanda invited us to NASA.

- Ooh! - I'm so excited.

[Emma] I thought it was amazing.

I never thought as a -year-old that I'd get to go to NASA.

I thought that was a really amazing experience.

[Madison] My favorite part was climbing

through the wind tunnel.

[Emma] We're about to take a weather balloon right here.

We're gonna fill it up with helium,

and then we're gonna launch it off into the atmosphere.

Oh, my, it's squishy.

Is this where all the measurements are taken?

That's right.

This is the little Styrofoam box,

all the instruments in it that will take temperature,

relative humidity, pressure, altitude.

It has the radio transmitter that'll send our measurements

back down to us here so we can see them soon.

It has a lot of information in that little box there.

[all] Three, two, one...

Whoo!

Whoo!

[man] Yeah!

That was so awesome.

That was so awesome.

All right, well, here's our data coming in.

Um, it looks like we've got a good amount of it.

- It looks interesting. - That's so cool.

Yeah.

[Madison] I thought it was very cool that we would be able

to chart where the weather balloon goes

and saw a graph based on the altitude and the temperature.

- Hi, Lin. - Hi, Yolanda.

What are you doing out here?

[Emma] During our NASA tour,

Miss Yolanda introduced us to a scientist

named Dr. Lin Chambers.

So you use our S'COOL data?

Yes, we do.

So what do you use our data for?

[Lin] We use the data to help us to validate the satellites.

So we have five satellites right now

that are up in orbit that are taking data.

It's really important for us.

I mean, scientists-- there's not that many of us.

So having other people help us with the observations

in places that we can't really go

is very useful.

[Emma] It was really great that this is actual scientific evidence.

It's really cool to be involved in something

that is all over the world.

Thank you so much. This has been an amazing day.

So we still have a couple days

before your data comes back.

In the meantime,

I have a contact at the Virginia Air and Space Center,

and they've been looking for a good cloud display.

You guys could think of some ways

to sort of display the different cloud types

that you learned this week.

- Okay. - Yeah, that's great.

Hi, my name is Emma,

and I volunteer at an animal shelter

to help dogs find their forever homes.

I love the beach and surfing.

Thanks for visiting.

[woman] Welcome to the Virginia Air and Space Center.

[Madison] Thank you for having us.

[woman] Yeah, we're excited you're here.

[Emma] Wow. That's amazing.

[woman] We have anApollo [/span]capsule,

the Orion test capsule, which is the next spacecraft.

[Lauren] They had a flight simulator.

And then when I was in there with Madison,

she was just screaming the whole time.

[both screaming, laughing]

[Lauren] Yeah!

I think this would be a fantastic spot.

[together] Yeah.

With all the aircraft in the back.

And I know you're working on your project,

so I wanted to see what you thought about this location.

This will be our cloud wall,

and it will wrap around like that.

Or even if...

[Lauren] Our first wall is going to be a cloud wall--

basically, a whole layout of the troposphere--

and we're gonna label the different levels

that clouds are found in.

[Emma] It'd be cool if we did, like, a giant chalkboard.

Do a mixed-media presentation.

Or go home, do a S'COOL observation,

bring your picture in, and tape it to the wall.

That would be cool.

That sounds great.

Graphics and visuals and handouts.

Draw your own cloud.

[Lauren] We're gonna put up the S'COOL website and the QR code

and then have people scan it

when they get to that part of the display.

[Madison] I want them to see why we care about the S'COOL program,

why we care about measuring clouds in the atmosphere,

and, you know, why should they care

and how could they get involved.

[Emma] Since we have two days till Saturday,

when we need to present all this,

the pressure's really on to get everything done.

And I think with such a great team like Maddie and Lauren,

it'll be really easy,

but it's still a lot of hard work,

and it's gonna take a lot of thinking.

[Emma] So the pressure was really on.

[Lauren] All right, let's grab what we can.

"We're never gonna get this done."

[Emma] It's gonna be one kickin' display.

[Madison] So this is our cloud wall, what we're doing right now.

I think we need to separate the layers of the sky.

[Madison voiceover] There are many different layers of the atmosphere,

yet the troposphere is just a small slice of it.

And it is actually the lowest and the smallest level.

But this level is where all of our clouds occur.

[Emma] It doesn't say how high up the troposphere is.

High-level clouds, again, form above , feet.

Mid-level clouds typically have bases

between , to , feet.

And low-level clouds form below , feet.

Now we have a definite range

of where the high-level, mid-level,

and low-level clouds fall.

We can mark those ranges

and then just put our clouds in the range where they fall,

because I think that's the most accurate way to do it.

I think we're going to need a calculator for this conversion.

[Madison] We estimated the top of the troposphere

as being , feet.

We picked up a -foot canvas for our cloud wall.

[Lauren] We're painting to make it look like the troposphere.

[Madison] We then divided , by feet.

Then we divided that by to get inches.

That means that every inch in our canvas

represents feet in the troposphere.

A scale is a great way for you to represent something

that's too big for you to show.

[Emma] Guys, I think we shouldn't touch it anymore.

- Yeah. - We'll overdo it.

[Madison] It looks good, guys.

My name is Lauren.

Aside from science,

I enjoy music and sports.

[plays violin]

I love to sing and play the piano.

♪ Can't blame a girl for trying ♪

And I love to play tennis.

Thanks for watching.

Thanks for watching.

[Emma] We're all outgoing, great team,

because we can work on multiple tasks at one time.

And in the end, everything will look great.

[phone chimes]

Is that the data?

I think it's the data, guys.

Today we got an email with our observation

from our first day.

"Hello, MEL.

"Thank you for your recent S'COOL Rover

cloud observation report."

"Remember that matches may not always be perfect."

So AQUA didn't observe any low-level clouds.

[Emma] Some of our observations matched,

but the majority didn't.

Yeah, I was so disappointed,

because I was like, "Man, our match is gonna be so on point."

[Yolanda] Knock-knock.

- Miss Yolanda. - Hi, Miss Yolanda.

- Hi, ladies. - Hi. Come on in.

[Emma] I was glad to have Miss Yolanda there

to tell me, "Oh, no, it's okay.

That's the whole reason to this process."

I actually think it's a better match

than you guys maybe think.

I think our ground observations helped to round out

the picture that the satellite saw.

Remember how we're looking at the Earth

from two different perspectives.

There's a satellite looking from space down on Earth,

and we're looking from the ground up to space.

So it saw more high-level clouds and mid-level clouds,

and those probably just covered the low-level clouds.

It was harder to tell.

Our observation of the low-level clouds

actually gives us a better picture

of what the atmosphere actually was that day.

[Madison] Okay.

[Yolanda] So we're actually adding some information to the observations

that the satellite saw.

So that's really helpful.

The next thing that we have to do is share

with the S'COOL team

what we think about how our observations match

with what the satellite observed.

[Emma] All right.

"High-cloud cover matches,

but satellite view of lower clouds is blocked."

That is correct.

- Yeah. - So let's click that one.

[Madison] When Miss Yolanda told us that the data

was a lot more helpful than we thought,

we were really excited and thrilled.

[Lauren] Do you have all the different cloud labels?

[Emma] Today it's like, "We have to get everything done."

We are now starting to construct our clouds.

Fluff for stratus and cotton balls for cumulus.

[Emma] I think that's a good idea.

I think for the cirrocumulus,

if we pulled them out a little bit,

it would make them look more like cirrus clouds.

[Emma] If we roll them like this,

they make good contrails.

[Madison] Right.

We've worked very hard,

and I feel that we have everything under our belt.

We know our stuff.

[Emma] Which cloud was like a blanket?

- Stratus. - Stratus.

[Emma] Guys, we should check to see if our TERRA data came in.

- Yeah, we should. - Yeah, let's do it.

Our observations from day two are unknown

as to where they are.

- Nope. - Nope.

[Madison] We're patiently, or impatiently, waiting for them.

I am just putting the finishing touches on our AQUA satellite.

So we're just going to be putting these

on the S'COOL wall,

because these are the two satellites

that collect data.

Rain!

Oh, crunch time,

'cause we only have a few hours left.

[Emma] Tonight we will wrap up our display

and finalize all of the last touches

and make sure that everything looks good

and has the correct information

so that we can hang it tomorrow.

[beeping]

Bring this over here.

Right now, we are putting the finishing touches

on our displays.

So the parents, families, and friends,

they're already here.

So the pressure's really on, and I'm really scared.

They can see, like, that side and then these sides.

[whispers] Are you guys almost ready?

How much tape are you gonna use?

I'll hit it with this.

[Lauren] We're not sure why we haven't gotten the Sunday data back yet.

But Yolanda said that there were some technical difficulties

with, you know, processing the data

and sending it back to us.

We're very anxious to get our data back

and see if it's a match.

When it does come in, we're going to--

Emma's hopefully gonna come back and put it up.

- Hi, ladies. - Hi.

- Hi, Yolanda. - Hi, Dr. Lin.

- Wow. - Wow.

[Yolanda] Look at all this hard work you guys put in.

[Emma] I think the visitors will be pretty surprised

that our troposphere reached heights of feet,

that -year-olds could make such an awesome display.

Nice.

There it is.

It works. It really, really works.

[Emma] I'm pretty excited that I get to share with the public

what I've learned.

This is the troposphere.

When I saw what they accomplished

in such a small amount of time

and all of the experiences they had,

I was really blown away.

[Lauren] That is actually a weather balloon.

We released it into the sky.

[man] I thought the display was excellent.

And they knew their stuff.

When you asked them questions, they knew all about it.

Satellites, what they see

is the different temperatures of the cloud.

[man] They were actually giving data that NASA was gonna be using.

I mean, how awesome is that?

Science is actually really interesting

once you get into it.

Today went really well.

We were able to explain our exhibit to a lot of people.

The majority of the responses that we got back

were very positive

and enthusiastic about what we were doing.

I am definitely going to continue with S'COOL

or at least try to,

because I think it's a great program,

and I would love to partake in it more and help out

and be a better citizen scientist.

[applause]

Yeah!

Yes, good job.

[Izzie] Jake, Jake!

I'm a finalist.

I can't believe it.

They loved my short, short, short film.

That's awesome, Iz.

Told you Fang was destined to be a star.

Yeah.

Thanks for letting me borrow him.

He was a hit.

No problem.

Know what else is a hit?

Uh...

lint-aged cheese?

Close, but nope.

Me.

Fang will always be my biggest fan,

and I'll always be his.

Aw. That's adorable.

But say it again so I can film it.

[Lauren] Even though there are a lot of people at the beach,Hey, there. Hi.

The SciGirls website is mobile.

You can set up a profile, play games,

watch SciGirls videos on your tablet or smartphone,

and find a fun citizen science project near you.

So come on.

Be a SciGirl on pbskids.org.

See you there! Bye!

[girls] ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S