03x06 - Terrific Pacific

[bunniefuu]

[Izzie] We need you!

[girls] ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] Come on!

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

♪ There's a place I go for inspiration ♪

♪ Got to get to the Web, check the girls' investigation ♪

♪ What girls?

♪ SciGirls!

Whoo!

[girls] ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] I need you!

[girls] ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

Come on!

♪ You've got to log on, post

- ♪ Upload, pitch in - Yeah!

♪ Want to get inside a world that's fascinating? ♪

♪ The time is right 'cause SciGirls are waiting ♪

[girls] ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] We need you!

[girls] ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S

[Izzie] SciGirls!

[guitar music]

Oh, I don't think we're gonna win

any pumpkin contests with these.

Don't be such a pessimist, Izz.

This could totally win smallest pumpkin ever.

But we want bulbous, bountiful, bouncing pumpkins

that give us bragging rights.

Why didn't you tell me it was "B words" day?

I got it! We need big pumpkins.

Exactly.

But the vines are all wilty,

and these have been tennis-ball size for weeks.

I just don't get it.

We water them, they get sunlight...

And I sing to them.

♪ Oh, pumpkin, I love you so ♪

♪ Oh, pumpkin, I want you to grow ♪

♪ Grow!

Okay. Jake.

That might explain it.

Maybe we planted the wrong kind of seeds.

Yeah, or maybe too many or not enough.

[sighs]

How are we gonna grow big pumpkins

if they don't actually grow?

Don't worry, Izz.

Help is on the way.

From who?

The SciGirls--

as soon as you ask.

I know. I'm brilliant.

I love B words day.

Now go!

SciGirls, we need bigger pumpkins.

[upbeat music]

Huh.

Growing is, um...

Growing inspiration...

[gasps]

Okay.

I have a good feeling about this.

[musiìca norteña][/span]

Living in Southern California near the beach is amazing.

Hey, why don't we go over there and look for some kelp?

I wouldn't trade it for the world.

[Ellah] It's really nice living here

because we get the ocean literally right next to us.

♪

[Taylor] Ellah and Chloe are my good friends.

We met at Junior Guards at Crystal Cove State Park,

and it was just, like, a really amazing experience.

Hey, you guys, we should do a mock rescue.

I'm Taylor.

[soft music]

At Junior Guards, we learned how to do different things

like paddleboarding and kayaking.

♪

We learned about ocean safety, which is a big thing.

♪

We did a ton of snorkeling.

Oh, my gosh! Look at it!

It's a brittle star.

I'm Ellah.

[rock music]

Marine biology probably is my favorite type of science...

That's so cool.

'Cause it's like the ocean with, like, animals and plants.

You guys want to go get in the water?

- Yeah. Let's go. - Sure. I want to bodysurf.

Same. Let's go!

I'm Chloe.

[guitar music]

I love everything about the ocean:

the waves, the color, the animals.

Always love going out in the ocean

and, like, trying to find new things

that I've never seen before.

♪

And the ocean is so magical,

and there's so many things I don't know about the ocean

that I want to know.

So are you guys ready to check out Seafloor Explorer?

- Yeah. - Let's do it.

Let's open it up.

We heard that Seafloor Explorer is a site

where scientists study the Atlantic Ocean,

so we decided to try it out.

[Taylor] Seafloor Explorer is part of the Zooniverse project.

The Zooniverse is a collection

of web-based citizen science projects.

[Chloe] Citizen science is where people like me

help scientists out with collecting data.

The HabCam team

and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute

needs your help!

Identify species and ground cover

in images of the seafloor

and help create a library of sea floor life

in the habitats

along the northeast continental shelf.

In the tutorial, they taught us how to identify fish,

scallop, sea stars, and crustaceans.

Identify ground cover.

First choose one or more ground cover from the list.

This one looks mostly like sand.

Yeah.

I see some shells in it, too, though.

Mark the fish along its widest dimension.

- So it'd be that and this... - So this.

[Taylor] So at Seafloor Explorer,

you don't have to be worried

about making a measurement completely correct.

They gather a ton of people's information

and they add it up and see what the average number is

for, like, measurements or how many sea stars are in the photo.

Oh, my gosh. That's a hagfish.

[Ellah] We had tons of fun

doing Seafloor Explorer, and it made us wonder what else

we could do to participate in citizen science

to help scientists learn about our ocean.

♪

[upbeat guitar music]

[Taylor] We wanted to get into citizen science

more in our area, and we chose the Crystal Cove

Citizen Science Cruise because we deeply care

about, like, what's going on in the ocean,

and we're just really excited to learn more about it

and, like, if things are healthy or not.

♪

[bell chimes]

This is gonna be so fun. I'm excited.

I know!

We are going to meet Holly, and she is going to take us

on the Citizen Science Cruise

where we are gonna do several experiments

and explore the marine-protected area of Crystal Cove State Park.

Thanks for joiningus today

for Crystal Cove alliance's

Marine-protected Area Citizen Science Cruise.

A marine-protected area is an area

for, like, animals that are endangered species

or that maybe aren't growing as fast as they should.

Just kind of, like, a safe haven for the animals and plants.

[Holly] So basically, you're on, actually,

a fishing boat today.

So when it's not out fishing,

we take it out for educational programs

for junior high and high school students.

I really love the ocean, and I love science,

so any chance I get to go out on a boat and look around

is always a chance I'm willing to take.

♪

[Holly] We're gonna do three different studies today.

So for our first study, we're gonna study

the plankton population out in our marine-protected area,

and we're gonna study plankton.

What is plankton?

It's, like, microscopic plants and animals

that live in the ocean.

Exactly.

We're gonna be using this net right here.

We're gonna send this net out

and let it tow behind us.

One, two, three!

[upbeat music]

- Perfect. - Net out!

[Holly] And Taylor, you're gonna be

in charge of getting our GPS location,

and when we send it out,

we're gonna do a -minute horizontal tow.

♪

Net in!

♪

There you go.

- Whoa. - Wow.

[Holly] See stuff in there?

- A lot of stuff. - Uh, yeah.

- There's a ton. - Can I see?

Yeah.

-That's super cool. - Oh, my gosh.

[Chloe] Plankton--I never knew

phytoplankton make % of our oxygen,

and whatever color they are colors the ocean.

We're gonna preserve half of this

to go send to University of California, Irvine,

so scientists there can get a look

at this plankton as well

and see some of the stuff we're seeing.

Next we tested water quality.

You two are gonna help me set it.

Now you're gonna pull the top ball out.

All right. Let's get--

So now our bottle is open.

You send it down , , and meters.

- Has little black marks. - Mm-hmm.

Every mark is meter.

[Taylor] And you take a metal ring

attached to this rope and you throw it down really hard...

♪

[Chloe] Oh, I felt it!

[Taylor] Just so that you can close it

and then you take it back up

and then you can take the pH level...

All right.

pH is ..

[Taylor] Salinity...

How does this work?

[Holly] What happened to that pointer

once water went in there?

- Uh, it went up. - It went up.

[Holly] And how does salt affect the water?

Oh, it makes everything float.

It makes everything float because it's more dense.

[Taylor] Yeah. Okay.

So the more salt is in the water,

the denser it is, so that's gonna float

up with more salt.

And the temperature in Celsius.

. Celsius.

[Taylor] After we tested the salinity,

pH, and temperature,

we recorded all of our answers onto a data sheet.

[upbeat music]

Bonjour.[/span]

I'm Ellah.

I definitely like to cook because it's kind of

a way of, like, putting creativity into food.

So I'm cooking kale noodle salad,

which is noodles and kale, tomatoes, feta, and pesto.

♪

Mmm. This is delicious.

I play water polo on my high school team.

[water splashing]

Au revoir![/span]

♪

All right, girls.

Now we're gonna do our digital

fishing investigation.

We are gonna send down a digital fishing camera

down to the bottom of our kelp.

Do you guys know what kelp is?

- Yeah. - What's kelp?

[Ellah] Kelp is, like, plants of the ocean.

[Holly] It's not exactly a plant.

It's classified as an algae.

What makes kelp like plants?

Because they go through photosynthesis.

'Cause kelp goes through photosynthesis too.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a big hurricane

out in the Pacific Ocean.

It did a lot of damage to our ecosystems.

Like, yeah, it was awesome for waves and stuff,

but it changed the beach significantly.

So a lot of the kelp forests were torn up.

The kelp was washed ashore.

- You girls ready? - Yeah.

- Yep. - Cool.

[Holly] We're gonna study the fish

living around this kelp ecosystem,

and we're gonna study three different layers of it.

It's actually called holdfast.

That's the first layer we're gonna study:

the very, very bottom.

Then we're gonna pull it up halfway

and record in the mid-stipe.

And a stipe is a stem,

so it's the middle of the kelp.

And the last, we're gonna bring it all the way to the top

and record the canopy.

So the top later for five minutes as well.

One, two, three!

[soft music]

[Taylor] We were, like, astonished

by how little kelp there was.

- Yeah. - Yeah, there's little fishes...

There's, like, outlines.

Like, occasionally swimming.

[Holly] All right; did you girls get

five minutes at each different layer--all three of them?

[all] Yep!

Great; then we're gonna look at your data

using our fish identification card.

[Chloe] There's the kelp.

- It looks so pretty. - Yeah. There's the kelp.

Do you see some of those fish?

- It looks like--yeah. - Yeah.

Those look like either, like, the sardines

of the topsmelt.

It kind of looks like a calico bass.

[all] Oh!

What do you think that just went by?

Want to go see it again?

It kind of had, like, a striped...

- The seal! - It's a seal.

Sea lion.

Yeah.

[Taylor] It smushed its flippers together

so it looked like a tail.

- Yeah. - Exactly.

[Holly] So it looked like a fish tail,

but really, it was just his hind flippers.

All right.

So we're gonna take this data

and we're gonna bring it

to University of California, Irvine,

and you're gonna show it to Samantha.

[upbeat music]

♪

[Chloe] Guys, look at that!

- Guys, guys, guys, look! - I can't see them.

- Look, look, look! - Oh!

When we were on the citizen science cruise, we saw

a big pod of dolphins,

and there was a bunch of babies.

[Taylor] The baby! Little baby!

Oh, my!

They were so close and they were all, like, playing

and it was really, really cool to see it.

Just--they were at the bow of the boat.

And we actually got to watch them feed,

and it was really cool to see them jump out of the water

and dive back down.

Look at the one jump out of the water out there!

- Did you see that? - Yeah!

That was so pretty.

The dolphins are related

to what we were studying on the boat

because the dolphins eat a lot of the fish that we documented.

[Holly] What do you think those fish are eating?

- The-- - Plankton.

- Plankton. - Yeah.

- Algae. - Exactly.

[Taylor] If the plankton's wrong

or toxic or something and the fish eat it,

it's all just like dominoes, basically.

One wrong thing happens and they all fall over.

So you need to make sure the water's okay,

the plankton are okay, the fish are okay,

and that'll ensure that the mammals are okay.

♪

All right.

Now that we've collected all of our data,

we are gonna look at our plankton sample that we took

while we were on the boat.

There's two different types of plankton

we're looking at.

We have zooplankton, and we have phytoplankton.

[Chloe] Zooplankton is like animals,

and a way you can remember that is, like,

it has the word "zoo" in it.

[Holly] "Phyto" looks like "photo,"

like photosynthesis.

They go through photosynthesis.

We have a little bit of sample in here.

You guys put it under our microscopes,

and you can start looking at images on the laptop

and taking video and pictures of what you see.

- Sea slug! - Sea slugs!

- Or sea snail. - Sea snail!

- Wow. - Ooh.

[Chloe] Oh, you can really see its legs.

[Ellah] Now you can see its legs.

- Esu--um... - Esupod?

- Es--esupid? - Euphausiid.

- Euphausiid. - Euphausiid.

Okay.

Now let's put that one down then.

All right.

Now you girls have analyzed all the data

we collected on the boat.

Cool; what do we do with the data next?

You girls are gonna put together the data in a presentation board

and bring it to Samantha

at the University of California, Irvine.

She's a scientist there.

And together, you guys are gonna figure out

what the health of our marine-protected area is.

So I'm really excited to see what you come up with

for your data display that you're gonna put together.

[upbeat music]

Hi. I'm Taylor.

I like volleyball

because I get to play with a team.

Oh! Watch out.

[man laughing]

I'm sorry!

I really enjoy tie-dying.

I like to collect sea glass and sand dollars.

They start off this small, and then when they grow up,

they become this big.

This is my dog, Bella, and I like to take her on walks

and play with her in our backyard.

I'm obsessed with reading.

See you next time!

So maybe we can take some of this tissue paper

and maybe, like, roll it up

into, like, little, like, streamers, like--

To make it look like kelp?

How should we have everything formatted?

We have our water quality data sheet,

we have our different plankton samples,

and we have, like, the different fish

at different levelsof kelp.

So I think we should put the three charts

up here, kind of on the top.

- Yeah, I like that. - And then kind of, like--

- Examples below? - Mm-hmm. Examples.

And also the pictures that we have.

[upbeat music]

♪

That's it!

Our garden needs biodiversity.

We need a bunch of different plants and animals.

Where do we start?

Do you know how many plants and animals there are?

Like, gazillions,

and I'm not counting unicorns, dragons,

or hungry grass.

So very bizarre.

You know, I think I know a place

that could help us narrow it down.

[upbeat music]

[both] Wow!

[squeals] Flowers!

So many flowers!

[gasps]

And fruit!

[squeals]

And veggies!

Oh, and look! Hummingbirds!

And butterflies!

Focus, Izz.

We're here to work,

to learn how to make our garden as awesome as--

[gasps]

Hey, there, little buddy...

And there he goes.

Okay.

So our garden needs different types of flowers,

veggies, and plants

and birds and insects that feed on them

like hummingbirds, butterflies...

Bees!

Oh, yes, and bees.

Here, beezie, beezie, beezie.

Just call me the bee whisperer.

[Izzie chuckles]

Come on, bee whisperer.

I think we're ready to make our awesomely biodiverse garden.

Yes, we are.

♪ Om

[upbeat music]

- Hi. - Hi, girls.

- I'm Samantha. - I'm Chloe.

[Taylor] We went to UC Irvine

to show Samantha, a marine biologist, all our data.

You guys want to head up and check out the lab?

- Sure. - Yeah.

So we went to Samantha's biology lab, which was amazing.

All right, ladies. Welcome to the lab.

[Chloe] Samantha uses the data

to see if the marine-protected area is healthy or not.

Wow. This looks great.

- Thanks! - Thank you.

So you want to tell me a little bit about

what you saw in the plankton trawl first?

The most common species we saw

was the copepod, and it's a zooplankton.

We were all surprised to see

that we didn't find any phytoplankton.

Is that unusual?

Phytoplankton photosynthesize,

so what is one of the main things you need

when you photosynthesize?

[all] Sunlight.

Sunlight.Exactly.

So a lot of times, the phytoplankton

come to the surface only in the highest

points of sunlight of the day.

Also, it's possible that because of some

of the storms that we've been having in the area lately,

that the phytoplankton have been washed around

or pushed down to the bottom.

What did you guys find with the water quality

data you collected?

Okay, so we took the Van Dorn bottle,

and we dropped it to meters, meters, and meters.

And we took the water temperature, the pH,

and the salinity.

So these are kind of standard results

that we would expect to see.

So that's great.

And then what about the digital fishing data?

What did you guys find?

So we took videos and photos

at the holdfast, mid-stipe, and canopy.

Towards the holdfast, we didn't see many things going on.

Mid-stipe is when the action started kicking up.

We saw a kelp bass and some sardines towards the beginning,

and then a California sea lion popped up

and they all went away.

Is that because the California sea lion eats them?

The California sea lion is definitely a predator

of a lot of fish that you will see

in the kelp forest.

So it's possible that the presence of the sea lion

drove a lot of those fish away.

Another reason would be because of a storm.

Citizen science is really important

'cause scientists like us can't be out there

every single day collecting data,

and anomalies like this we might have missed.

So it's really great that you guys were out there.

It is a citizen science project, and lots of other people

have participated in citizen science,

and so they're gonna collect all the data

and report it back to scientists

who are studying those problems.

And knowing that my data that I collected

is actually useful to them, like, that's really cool.

So you guys want to maybe take a look

at some of the digital fishing footage

that we've collected before?

- Yeah! - Yeah, sure.

Well, our videos were definitely,

like, a lot more barren than the others

because a lot of people found stingrays

and other types of animals.

[Taylor] What is that?

- It's a crab. Yeah. - That is the crab!

[Ellah] So definitely seeing

our video versus the other people's videos

were definitely kind of eye-opening

before the storm and after the storm.

[Samantha] So as you can see in this video,

there's a lot of biodiversity.

Lots of different kinds of fish.

That's what we're looking for.

That's how we tell if the kelp forest is healthy.

The signs Samantha's looking for is that she wants biodiversity.

She doesn't want just one fish being healthy and others not.

She wants them to all be healthy,

and that creates a healthy ecosystem.

So, Sam, we were wondering

if we could interview you for our video.

I'd be happy to help.

- Awesome. - Thanks.

- Oh, thank you. - Thank you.

[Taylor] We decided to make

a public service announcement

and get some more people involved

in ocean conservation and citizen science.

A public service announcement video is something

that tells people information that they need to know

and encourages them to do something.

[Chloe] Okay. Ready?

Action.

How can citizen science help

with protecting the ocean?

Well, scientists can't be out there every single day,

so having citizens out there,

we're able to cover a lot more diverse time points--

different weather, different seasons--

and it's really helpful in getting a larger data pool.

What's your favorite animal in the ocean?

Baby dolphin.

[Taylor] Through the interviews, we are showing

that people have, like, a common connection through the ocean

by getting people from the different backgrounds.

And we want to make people understand

what citizen science is and to get involved.

[Ellah] You're holding it up too high.

You got to put it down.

Nope. That wasn't good.

Did you guys get a video of you guys?

[laughs]

When we were going through, like,

our different footage, we were laughing.

Yeah, that happened.

Can we please add that in there?

[Taylor] Ellah and I, we were out

playing in the surf.

A huge set came and she didn't know about it

and she got totally knocked off.

[Ellah screaming]

She got all this footage of her rolling under the water.

[Ellah] And the water was actually really clear,

so you could see me kind of tossing and turning in the wave.

We're yelling, "No, Ellah, it's a set.

You have to st--"

[laughter]

[Taylor] It was just really entertaining

and just--we had so much fun with everything we did.

I'm recording right now,

just so that I'm ready for anything.

Yeah, use the kelp!

[upbeat music]

I think we should get the standing up

and walking away as part of it

'cause I really like the way that looks.

Yeah, and it's right where--

[Taylor] The most challenging part

of making the PSA would most definitely be

just the editing process.

I think we should put that kind of in

towards the end.

[Ellah] The public service announcement,

like, editing it, there was some stuff

that Taylor and I wanted but Chloe didn't.

Yeah, but we wouldn't need a title thing for that, so.

[Taylor] We should do, like, a really cool ending.

Or--ooh! Pixie dust.

- That's cheesy though. - How 'bout pixie dust?

It's not cheesy. It's adorable.

[Chloe] I just feel like after that

whole changing thing and that, it's too much.

[Ellah] I think it's good.

I like that. That's sick.

Same.

I mean--no, no, no.

But just, like, the pixie dust

just adds, like, stuff that we don't need.

Like, pixie dust and the ocean

do not connect at all.

Taylor and I wanted the pixie dust,

but Chloe didn't.

She said it had nothing to do with the beach,

but pixie dust really doesn't have to do with anything

'cause it's not even real.

I thought that was a little too cheesy

'cause we wanted to get the message across,

and we didn't want people thinking we were immature.

We thought it'd be fun,

but we just went with the regular title.

That's perfect.

Well, I guess we're done.

Yeah; I can't wait to show it to everybody tomorrow.

I know. Three-way high five?

Sure.

[upbeat music]

Hi. I'm Chloe.

So I love to draw and paint.

This is my first oil painting.

In basketball, I love playing defense

and stealing the ball.

♪

I like to make jewelry, like bracelets and necklaces.

This is Dixie, and this is her praying.

I'm Chloe, and I'm signing off.

Whoo!

So what should we write?

Should we say, "Welcome to our PSA" or...?

[Taylor] Samantha and Holly are both

gonna be there, and I'm really excited to show them

because we interviewed both of them.

So to show them is gonna-- kind of shows, like,

"Oh, we did this with all of your help.

Like, thank you so much."

Or like, "Come see our public service announcement."

"Welcome to Ocean Love," maybe.

[Ellah] "Come see Ocean Love"?

♪

I think we should hang the poster right here.

- Yeah. - Yeah, that'd be awesome.

I think it's good.

♪

Awesome.

[Ellah] So this whole week,

we've been participating in citizen science.

When we went on the citizen science cruise,

we did multiple things.

So first, we tested the water.

We tested the salinity,

the pH level, and the temperature.

So this is our public service announcement,

just trying to raise awareness about the ocean

and how we should take care of it.

We worked really hard on it,

and we did all the editing by ourselves.

We took all the footage.

- And taping ourselves. - Yeah.

Yeah. So here it is.

[upbeat music]

♪

Well, I love that, like, you get to go swimming in the ocean

and you get to see a bunch of different sea life.

I love baby dolphins.

[Chloe] Dolphins need a healthy ocean!

It definitely felt nice to kind of share what we learned

because it was like we actually did something this week.

[park ranger] Citizen science is an opportunity

for the general public, for you, for me,

to get out and involved in science experiments.

Unless we understand what's happening out there

in the world, we won't be able to help protect it.

People would naturally care about the ocean

if they understood that phytoplankton give us more

than % of the oxygen we breathe.

Probably the most interesting part of making

our public service announcement video was definitely

looking actually at the kelp

and getting kind of up close with it.

♪

I felt like it just helped my friends and family

feel, like, the same level I do about the ocean

and just showed them my passion

and Taylor and Ellah's passions for the ocean.

I loved sharing it and making it.

First graders love the ocean.

♪

- Nice. - That's great!

[applause]

- Good job editing. - Thanks.

Well, we'd like to thank a few people.

So first, we'd like to thank Holly.

It was really fun working with Holly,

'cause she's just nice and she can relate to us really well

and she loves the ocean like we do.

We want to thank Samantha.

When we showed Samantha our PSA, she was just really proud of us,

and, like, she was happy that she was able to help us

with, like, the more scientific side of it.

Thank you so much for coming to UCI

and being interested in citizen science.

I hope you girls keep on doing citizen science

even beyond this project 'cause you guys did a great job.

- Yeah. - Thank you!

Doing citizen science is definitely great,

and there's probably a bunch of ways

you can go out and do it.

Definitely online doing Seafloor Explorer is one way.

That's kind of, like, quick and easy if you don't have

citizen science in your backyard, like we do.

Knowing that I helped scientists made me feel responsible

and, like, powerful.

I feel like people will take me seriously more.

Knowing that I created a message that'll, like,

inspire other people is amazing.

It'll just show everyone that you should act on your thoughts

and, like, if you see something, you should change it.

Oh, I think it turned out fantastic.

I--I still feel like

the pixie dust would've added a nice sparkle.

♪

[waves crashing]

[upbeat music]

Now, these are the types of pumpkins

that win contests.

Our garden is beautiful!

And with Jake-gnome keeping watch...

♪

Huh?

Gnomes are good luck for gardens,

and the Jakester is good luck for everything.

So--hey!

♪

[squeaks]

[crunching]

Get away from Jake-gnome!

Well, you are nuts.

Hey! I'm made of nuts.

[laughs]

- [laughs] - [squeaks]

We're picking up nurdles

♪

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