03x01 - Frog Whisperers

[bunniefuu]

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[Izzie] SciGirls!

[metallic clattering]

What? What was that?

[squeaking]

[metallic clanging, creaking]

Huh? There it is again.

- [squeaks] - [gasps]

- It's a giant Fang! - [squeaks]

Giant alien Fang!

Being chased by a rodent overlord!

[computer beeping]

Izzie! Oh, good, you're awake.

I wonder if that has anything to do

with a certain ringing sound

coming from my computer.

Sorry about that, but it's an emergency!

I'm hearing sounds, weird sounds,

spooky sounds!

It's probably just the house settling.

[yawns] Go back to bed, Jake.

The house settling?

That's ridiculous.

I think Fang multiplies at night

then they mutate into a band of giant alien rodents!

Yeah, 'cause that makes way more sense.

I need to know what these sounds are,

'cause if it is a race of giant, alien rodents,

I'm in trouble.

I've eaten so many cheesy poofs,

I'm pretty sure I taste like a giant block of cheese!

Uh, this seems like a problem

the SciGirls might be able to help with.

I'll be right back.

[Jake] Hurry!

Hmm.

Frogs make all kinds of sounds.

There might be something here.

- Hi. - Hey.

- Hey. - All aboard.

[making chugging noises]

Whoo-whoo!

[Amanda] My friends are Alanna, Clara, and Madison.

We have known each other for almost eight years--

a long, long time. [laughs]

[Clara] Oh, you see that one eating the tree?

That one's digginga hole.

[Clara] My friends and I love going to the zoo

because it's always, like, really fun.

There's always a bunch of things that you can, like, see

and do, like, and interact with.

[Alanna] I'm not sure I'm going to touch them.

[Amanda] You have to!

[Alanna] I am not touching that.

[water splashing]

[girls squealing]

I really do love to go to the zoo.

I just want to be there all the time.

I want to be a veterinarian when I grow up

because I just love being with animals.

[Amanda] We're about to enter the tunnel.

[all screaming]

[all] -Up has no caffeine,

now we're talking jelly bean.

I love the penguin house!

My name is Madison.

I love animals because a lot of them are really cute.

And without them, our whole food chain

would be messed up.

[Alanna] Yeah, this is my tiger. I have not seen him.

And don't you dare call me a bad parent.

It's not my fault.

[Amanda] Oh, my gosh, he's so cute.

Alanna is the mom of an adopted tiger.

I think she deserves a tiger.

[giggles]

[Amanda] Hi, are you Laura from FrogWatch?

Laura is the FrogWatch leader.

She's gonna, like, guide us

when we're researching stuff about frogs.

Do you guys know anything about citizen science

or is it kind of a new thing for you?

[Madison] Citizen science is when

you're helping scientists collect, like, real data.

FrogWatch is this cool project

that helps scientists figure out

where different frog populations are

and also what frogs are there.

So we're gonna do that by actually listening

and identifying frog calls.

Like, out in the woods at night.

- Does that sound good? - Yeah.

It's actually Earth Day week,

and so we have this cool festival

that's gonna happen over the weekend.

You guys could actually take some of the data

that you collected and present it at Earth Day

to help people learn more about what's going on

with the frogs in our area.

So let's go and learn about frog calls, okay?

- Okay. - I'm excited.

[Laura]So you guys all find a puppet that you liked?

I just thought that would be a fun way

for us to kind of talk about amphibians,

and frogs and toads in particular,

since that's what we're gonna be doing in FrogWatch.

[Alanna] Frogs are an indicator species,

so if frogs are starting to be deformed

or starting to, like, die out in certain areas,

that could tell us that there's something going on

in that area that could possibly hurt us.

We have the American toad.

[Alanna] Yes! I'm not alone. I mean, I am alone.

The spring peeper.

And the gray tree frog.

[Madison] We trained on six different

frog and toad species.

We all learn in different ways,

and so, for some people, the wave form

is a very good tool to help them identify calls.

I really liked matching the frog with the sound wave.

[frog croaking]

[Madison] Yeah, it's that one.

[Amanda] Yeah, that's definitely this one

because it goes, like, click-click-click-click-click.

And then it stops for a while and that's what this space is.

[frog belching]

- Hmm. - Oh.

- It's this one. - It's that one.

Frogs that make really weird calls.

They don't really sound like frogs.

A lot of them sound like birds.

[Laura] Okay, let's make our own frog chorus.

[ringing, thumping, clacking]

Our cricket frog is the rocks.

[clacking]

What's the comb?

- The western-- - Western chorus frog.

[Laura] Chorus frog. What about the plunk?

[Clara] The instruments were my favorite.

Those are what helped me remember

the noises for the frogs.

As you're looking at all of our stuff,

think about what you guys might want to do.

I think a frog call might be quieter

in the city than the country

'cause they'll be more abundant in the country.

[Laura]That could be a really cool question.

[Clara] We decided to compare frogs in the city

and frogs in the country

by variety of species and call intensity.

These are data collection sheets.

[Laura] We're gonna learn about the site that we're at

and what kind of habitat it is.

We're gonna find some awesome amphibians.

We'll see you tomorrow.

- Bye! - Thank you.

Hi, my name is Clara.

[toy squeaking]

I like playing with my dog some chess.

I like to do arts and crafts, so I made this mask.

This is a lamp.

Me and my dad, we do stained glass together.

I made this dog sweater.

It keeps him warm in the winter.

[chess piece clattering]

Bye.

[both] Out went the little green frog one day,

and the little green frog went mm-mm-ah.

[Clara] We decided to do FrogWatch in the country

at the Shaw Nature Reserve.

[Laura] This is my friend Mike who also works at the zoo.

- Hey, Laura. How are you doing? - Good.

[Alanna] Mike from the St. Louis Zoo

helps Laura with FrogWatch

and he helped us during our volunteer work.

Well, let's go see what we can catch.

[Laura] I'm not seeing any frog action down here.

You want to do check the other end?

[girl] I might see a rock or a frog.

[Madison] FrogWatch doesn't make you go in water,

but we did go in the water with Laura

because it was just fun research.

Oh, whoa. Look at that.

There's a frog! There's a frog!

[Clara] I saw this frog. It was underwater.

It was sitting on this rock.

And I was like, "Hey, I see a frog."

And then we all, like, rushed over.

- Should we get it? - I think he's gone.

- That's what made the dust. - No, I thought he was--

- Is he still there? - Yeah, he's right there.

- He's right there. - That's a rock.

[laughter]

[Clara] There was a frog there. I know I saw it.

I bet you it just swam away when we all came.

I bet Clara still thinks it's a frog.

A frog was on that rock.

But when the frog moved, it wasn't on that rock anymore.

Here's a cricket frog for you guys.

- Oh! Whoa. - Come here, buddy.

Oh, he's jumping!

- I feel it! - Can't you feel him jumping?

At the creek, it was my first time

holding a frog ever.

I'm holding a cricket frog named Phil.

At the beginning, he was, like, hopping around in my hand,

which felt really weird.

Did you want to?

Alanna got to hold him!

[Alanna] No, I don't want to hold him.

- Here, give him-- - You can do it!

- Be brave. - Okay, Alanna's gonna do it.

- He's not gonna hurt you. - Are you sure?

[Alanna] My friends, thankfully,

they, like, egged me on.

Like, say, "Don't be a chicken. Do it."

- [squeals] [all laughing]

[Laura] You have it!

It feels so weird!

- Nice job, Alanna. - Good job!

That is so weird.

[Alanna] It was like, "Oh, my.

I am holding a frog right now."

- Okay. - Should I let him go?

- Look at him first. - [giggles]

- I saw him. - Okay.

At the creek, everybody got a chance

to hold a frog, even Alanna.

I didn't want to hold the frog because, like,

I thought that it was gonna be, like, super slimy

and that he was gonna jump all around

and try to get out.

It is a cricket frog, but it's a different--

a totally different color morph.

[Laura] This guy's totally brown with, like,

red and orange speckles.

[Mike] Hey, guys, look what I found.

I got a ribbon snake.

This is a nice predator of a lot of frogs and toads.

They eat them.

[Alanna] We got to touch a snake

and it was shocking how, like,

I always thought they'd be, like,

dry and just, like, kind of prickly.

Oh, my shoes are leaking! I'm filling up with water.

[Clara] I don't mind getting wet,

but it's part of science, getting dirty,

so you might as well.

[girls shouting] Water in my boots!

[Alanna] To do field work in those kind of conditions,

it can be fun, but it started to get a little crazy.

[girls screaming]

[laughter]

We had all this water in our boots

and we had to pour them out.

[girl] Look at that.

[Laura] You're surviving all the different conditions

of a field researcher.

[Alanna] The creek experience was amazing.

I was able to learn things

while doing something fun at the same time.

I think it's time to move to our next location.

- Yep. - You guys ready?

[Laura] So I was thinking we should go over what the protocol is.

So how long after dark do we have to wait?

minutes after sunset.

minutes after sunset, right.

We gonna have to decide how

the calling intensity is.

Zero is nobody's calling.

And then three is a full chorus--

so calls were constant, continuous,

and overlapping.

The protocol is-- you're completely silent

'cause, remember, we don't want them to hear us.

We want it to be as natural as possible.

'cause we don't want them to be responding

to our presence there in their environment,

which is why we wait that two minutes

and then you have another whole three minutes of silence.

[Clara] For the three minutes,

we're recording the intensity

and we're recording the species.

[Laura] Okay, you each are going to get--

[gasps] the magic recording devices.

Are you guys excited? Are you ready?

I think we're gonna hear really cool stuff.

[all] One, two, three, ribbet!

[giggling]

Did you hearAlanna?

- No. - What?

[Clara] Should we go and stand on, like, a bridge or something?

I think we could stand on the bridge.

[Amanda] Yeah, it's gonna be a lot louder.

[Clara] Let's sit here.

[Laura] When you're moving around,

you're not gonna be completely silent,

so being able to sit is gonna be a good thing.

[Clara] Should we start our moments of silence?

[Laura] Well, we have to wait.

It's not a half an hour yet.

[Alanna] To figure out what species was calling,

Laura had us lay down, close our eyes,

like, listen--if it helped, cup our ears.

It's almost like you could hear better

because you're focusing more on that

instead of looking around for what you're listening for.

That one's a tree frog

and the lower one's a leopard frog.

[Clara] Then it got so dark

that you, like, couldn't see your own hand

in front of your face.

[Alanna] Site name is the Shaw Nature Reserve.

[Clara] I recorded the wind speed and temperature

and the precipitation in the last two days.

We are about to quiet down for two minutes

and listen to the frogs

because it's minutes after evening.

And then after that,

we're gonna do three minutes of just listening

to gather down data about it.

One, two, three,start.

[frogs croaking, chirping]

It was really weird hearing all these sounds

all around you.

[Amanda] It kind of seemed like

the whole, like, orchestra around you

and you're, like, standing in the middle of it.

[frogs croaking]

[frogs trilling]

[frogs ribbeting]

[Alanna] Since we couldn't talk,

the way we communicated was,

we tried mouthing words

and, like, pointing to where we were looking at.

[Madison] We recorded the frog calls

to give examples, like, of what they sounded like

and how intense their calls were.

[Alanna] That's it.

[Amanda] Then, after those three minutes,

then we'd record what frog calls we heard.

Did anybody think they heard the chorus frog?

That's the one with the comb.

- I think so, yeah. - Yeah, I think so.

[Laura] Okay, if you heard it, put it down.

[Clara] Wow, I probably heard six or seven

different species there.

It was just really pretty.

I'm very intrigued to see

what's gonna happen tomorrow night

when we're in the city environment

listening for the calls there.

I think we'll hear some of the same, maybe louder,

I would think, because they're--

'cause there's so much other noise around.

[frog croaking]

[Jake screeching, panting]

[Izzie] Sound identified as shrieking and heavy breathing.

Okay, my tablet's ready to record the spooky sounds.

I'll get the light.

No! I only hear the spooky noises

when it's dark.

Okay, what if you keep your eyes open

and wear your sleep mask?

There it is!

[shrieking] You hear it?

- Shh. [metallic clanging]

There's another one!

Cling! Cling! Ahh!

We're supposed to listen quietly.

Okay, shh.

I'm not the one who has to be quiet!

Shh!

[sighs]

[Clara] Today we're at Forest Park

and we're gonna be looking for frogs here.

[Laura] What do you think's gonna happen tonight?

You guys got any guesses?

[Madison] Less frogs because, like, the city has less of a habitat.

Okay, girls, so last night,

it was late when we ended,

so there's one thing that we didn't get around to doing.

and that's disinfecting all of our stuff.

[Madison] The reason we wash our boots with bleach water

is because, on our boots, we might have had

different funguses on them

and so the frogs and amphibians

and such would be affected by this.

[Laura] We won't have to worry about contaminating

the environment that we are in tonight

with anything that we were in last night.

- Mm. - Good job.

[Madison] So this is an urban area.

Site name is Forest Park, right?

[Alanna] Mm-hmm.

Air temperature, wind speed, precipitation--

[Madison] Okay, that's it.

- We're ready. - Okay, it's time.

[frog croaking]

- We're done. - We're done!

[all giggling]

[Clara] At the city location,

all we really heard were leopard frogs,

which was kind of boring because I was expecting more--

because, at the country location,

I heard all these different types of frogs.

Now, remember, zero is no frogs or toads.

Were we zero?

- I think it was one. - Yeah.

[Laura] I will tell you, a couple weeks ago,

there were more toads in this area

than I have ever seen in one place in my life.

[Laura] But that's why you come back multiple times to your site.

The more often you do it,

the better information you're gonna have.

I am slightly disappointed

because, yesterday, there were so many frogs.

Hearing so little just feels kind of weird to me now,

but there might be, like, many more, like, later on.

Either way, we learned something still.

My name is Alanna. Welcome to my house. Come on in.

[Alanna] I like to draw and I like to listen to music.

I am really a bookworm.

This is my backyard.

There's a whole bunch of wildlife

that I love to just explore.

This is Jack. He's a Rottweiler.

I love him. Bye.

[Laura] Good morning, ladies. How are you?

- Good. - Morning, Laura.

We are gonna check out the website for FrogWatch today.

So we collected the data, but we have to be able to share it

in a form that other scientists can use.

[Clara] We took our data

and we put it into the FrogWatch website,

which I personally thought

that was gonna be, like, really cool.

[Alanna] The start time is :.

Air temperature was degrees Fahrenheit.

[Clara] Okay, so what's the next one?

[Alanna] The spring peepers.

[Clara] And the intensity?

[Alanna] The intensity was .

FrogWatch data is used to track

populations of frogs and toads.

This is the second day, so new observation.

[Alanna and Madison] And the species is a leopard frog,

the only thing we heard.

[Clara] We saw the frog on our map.

It was just really exciting 'cause we knew

that we were a part of this big FrogWatch thing

and that it would be there for forever, really.

You guys did an awesome job.

You didn't know any frog calls at all

just a couple of days ago,

and now you got,like,

really good at identifying them.

You did an excellent job recording your data.

You know, you guys really are scientists.

[Alanna] Citizen science websites like FrogWatch

help spread interest in not just helping animals

but helping your community.

We have an opportunity where you can

talk with a scientist.

[Clara] Then Laura told us, like,

that we were gonna actually meet a real scientist,

so the day just kept getting better and better.

So I'm Dr. Jake Kerby.

I'm a frog biologist.

Yeah, Laura told me you guys been doing some frog research.

What have you guys been doing?

[Alanna]We have been to two different areas.

One is a more country area.

Sure.

[Alanna]And then we went to a city area.

Did you guys see a lot of different species

at those sites?

[Alanna]In the city area, we only saw one.

[Amanda]But in the country area, we saw eight.

[Madison] We saw eight different kinds.

That may tell you something a bit about the difference

between, sort of,

the space around the country for frogs

and the space around cities for frogs, right?

[all] Yes.

[Kerby] The big thing is that frogs are declining.

That's the important thing.

So I think the last estimate

was something like / of all the frogs

are at risk of going extinct,

unless we do something about it.

You know, I'm only one scientist,

and there's lot of scientists like me,

but not that many scientists,

so we need guys like you to go out

and listen for these frogs so that we know if things,

like you say, start going extinct,

or even if things start moving around.

That kind of data really, really helps me a lot

so I appreciate you guys going out and doing that.

- Thanks a lot. - Thank you.

- Thank you. - See you later.

Hi, I'm Madison, and this is my house.

[Madison] I play soccer, volleyball,

basketball, softball.

I like to do arts and crafts.

I like to do things with duct tape.

My favorite-- the pickle one.

It has, like, pickles saying jokes on it.

And here's one of the bows I've made out of duct tape.

My collection of plastic rats.

Bye.

What do you think is important about sharing your data?

Laura said that we could, like,

do this Earth Day celebration thing,

and so we started making a big, old plan.

A few overall things

that we want to do for--

[Clara] I can play the piano.

Our goal is to, like, inform people

that the amphibian decline is really important.

Puppet show.

Sign.

We just kind of wrote down everybody's idea

and then decided which ones we would definitely have

and which might be kind of hectic to do.

[Alanna] We divided this all and we're both gonna start

on the song and the puppet show right now.

[Clara] You can work on writing the lyrics onto the Post-it note

while I work on piano with your iPad.

And you guys can work on

writing the playonto it.

[Madison] What frog calls should we do in our thing

that make it-- confused.

We should only do, like, three.

Cricket frogs.

Or we could be like, "Wait, little froggy,

I know what to do."

I'll look up on FrogWatch

and see-- what are you?

Gerard is hanging out at a swamp

and some friends drop by.

They think that we'll just look up

on the FrogWatch website.

Ed needs help on his homework

because, like, he needs a good grade.

[Alanna] Tomorrow, me and my friends

are going to work on everything we need

for our presentation on Sunday.

We mostly made the lyrics

and they finished the puppet show,

but we're gonna, like, edit it.

I mean, the hardest part about a day--like, tomorrow

will be probably working on the banner,

which isn't gonna be that hard.

[Amanda] I'm making an agenda,

and I need to kind of figure this out.

[Alanna] Right now, we're finishing up the sign.

[Amanda] Then we're gonna do Prezi.

Me and Madison can work on the rap,

and then we're all gonna go over Prezi again.

Then we're gonna have a break.

Then you guys can work on your lines

for the puppet show.

Then we're all gonna go through the whole thing--

the whole song and rap together.

And then we're gonna do the whole puppet show together.

I mean, it's definitely full.

but I think it's doable.

I think it's definitely, definitely

a full afternoon.

[Amanda] I think we can get it done.

We might have to go through the song and the play

a couple of times in the morning tomorrow.

But other than that, I think we're pretty ready.

Hi, I'm Amanda.

[shouts]

[Amanda] I like to do karate.

This was my first grand champion trophy.

I like to shop for clothes and accessories.

I like to do flips.

I like playing with my dog B.J.

Bye.

Today is Earth Week and me and my friends

made a booth trying to get more people

to volunteer with FrogWatch,

telling them what FrogWatch is about.

We decided not to do the Prezi

'cause we kind of ran out of time.

[Alanna] But I'm just really excited we get to do this.

Even after not doing Prezi,

we added some things, we took some things out.

And it came out like this.

I just hope a lot of people come

and actually enjoy what we give to them.

- This is FrogWatch. - FrogWatch.

[Madison] Where we studied frogs.

[Clara] We found that there were more frogs in the country

and that their intensity was higher.

[recorded frogs chirping]

They're a bit loud.

Yeah, and it's cool

that you were able to pick up on all those different species.

So that's a frog? That sounds like a bird.

Scientists need to really keep frogs around

'cause frogs are indicator species.

Guess what kind of frog it is.

[girls] A leopard frog.

Hey, this looks awesome.

[Alanna] Yes, we found out country frogs,

just like we thought, had a higher call intensity,

and there were more species.

[both] ♪ Yo, little froggy

♪ What are you?

♪ Are you a green frog, leopard frog ♪

♪ Or are you blue?

[Alanna] ♪ I look on FrogWatch

♪ To see, what are you?

[both] ♪ You are a leopard frog

♪ This is you

[all] Word.

I like it. Good job, guys.

I really liked the girls' song.

It was a great way to incorporate

the frog calls-- all the stuff that they learned.

And it's a catchy tune.

It makes me want to learn about FrogWatch.

[Amanda] Gramps, how did my dad

learn his frog sounds?

Are you sure you're a frog? You sound like a bird.

Yes, I know. I get that a lot.

- Hi! - This looks awesome.

Everybody is gonna be able to learn so much

and you're gonna get new people

to try and do FrogWatch too,

which is gonna get us that extra data that we need.

It was fun doing the FrogWatch.

Makes you feel proud that you

kind of helped scientists and animals.

It was so much fun working with you.

and I'm so proud of you.

This looks great.

The girls did an awesome job with the booth.

I'm so happy. They're having fun.

They're doing exactly what, you know,

a good scientist does, is, they share their data

and try engaging other people in doing it,

so it's great.

I thought it was awesome because they got

to touch and see frogs

and they recorded the sounds of the frogs,

which I thought was pretty cool.

Oh, I thought it was really thorough

and it just looks very eye-catching.

so people want to stop and see,

what is this about?

The FrogWatch booth went very well.

Me and my friends had a lot of fun.

I'm glad we got to get more people into FrogWatch.

Not only is it fun, it's, like, important.

- Thank you. Thanks for coming. - Thank you.

- Thank you for coming. - See you later.

Okay, we've recorded the sounds.

[metallic clanging, creaking]

Ah! There's that sound!

I think we found the giant alien rodent's nest.

- [squeaks] - It's okay, Fang.

I know meeting your extended family can be a big deal.

Don't be s-s-scared.

[door creaks open]

[metallic clangs]

Oh.

It's my old band of merry mice toy.

I thought the batteries were long dead on this thing.

Spooky sounds explained.

But there's one thing that's bothering me.

We identified the squeak, the clang, and the thump.

- But what was the-- [creaking]

[gasps]

[creaking continues]

[in evil voice] It's the alien, fuzzy-eared interloper, Jake.

[laughs]

[fake screams] Jake!

But seriously.

I think the creak was just the house settling,

like you said, Iz.

I guess that's really a thing, huh?

[clangs and thumps] - Hmm.

I found one!Hey, there. Hi.

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[girls] ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S