06x03 - North Carolina

[bunniefuu]

This time on Dragonfly TV, we're

donkeying around with wildlife, building

bridges, and bioblitzing in the

wetlands.

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Science Foundation, supporting

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of science and engineering. The

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I'm Eric. Today we're at 36 degrees

north, 80 degrees West. This place

is known as the Tar Heel State. Babe Ruth

hit his first home run here. It's also

where civil rights sit-in protests

started and the Civil w*r ended.

Not to mention, this place is home to

more NASCAR champions than anywhere else.

Start your engines. We're in North

Carolina.

North Carolina claims to be first in

flight. The Wright brothers flew the

first successful powered airplane off the

coast near Kitty Hawk in 1903. Although

the airplane only flew for 12 seconds,

this was the moment that modern aviation

really took off.

North Carolina has lots of cool places,

but some have some pretty wacky names.

You can visit Toast, Tick Bite,

Why Not, or Bat Cave. Spooky.

You can also see the Great Dismal Swamp

or. Booger Mountain.

Ohh Later on, we'll head over to SciWorks

to meet some farm animals. But first,

we're here in Durham at the North

Carolina Museum of Life and Science, or

as I like to call it, SciGirls

Headquarters. Valencia, Sarah, and Sophia

are in a cool club. It's called

SciGirls.

We're from Durham, North Carolina. And

that's us hanging out. We're all good

friends, but we're all really different.

That's Valencia. She loves basketball,

piano and growing fungus. Fungi.

And so she's a computer whiz. who stays

busy with her turtle, ballet, and

astronomy. I'm sure this wife's out there

somewhere, just we haven't found it yet.

And that's me, Sarah. This is my horse,

Maggie. I ride my horse whenever

possible. But even though I live on a

farm, one of my favorite pets is hissing

c*ck. Oh, that's so sweet.

But we're not just friends. That's right.

We're SciGirls. And this is

our SciGirls headquarters, the North

Carolina Museum of Life and Science.

At the museum, you can learn about

weather, space, and

butterflies. That's your favorite

butterfly. Yeah, this is my favorite one

here. I'm a junior animal keeper here.

In our group, SciGirls, we create our own

projects. And our newest project is a

project on shrinking wildlife population.

Yeah, and we don't need to just be

worried aboutThe large and exotic animals

in Asia and Africa. There's animals right

here in your own backyard that we want to

help protect. So to help raise awareness,

we're thinking about creating a website

as part of our project.

You know, it's hard to tell what's

disappearing from the habitats if we

don't know what's there to begin with.

Well, have you guys ever heard of a

BioBlitz?No. It's where a large group of

people go searching through a location to

see how many plants and animal species

there are. We don't have enough time or

enough people to do a real BioBlitz. So

why don't we do a mini BioBlitz?That'd be

cool. Ideally we need a place where there

are a lot of animals in a small area. We

went to check out the museum's wetland

exhibit. Over here it says over 70% of

North Carolina'sspecies live in wetlands.

We did some research and picked out three

types of really different wetlands:

cypress swamp, the coast and forest, and

salt marsh. We recruited our SciGirls

mentor, Ariana, to take us on the

BioBlitz trip. She's a scientist who

helps us with our projects. Ariana's in

the wetlands ecology department at Duke

University. Who's ready to go?Me. I

am. Okay, do we have the waders?Check.

Your guidebooks?Here. All right, and the

notes.

Our bio-blitz will take us to a cypress

swamp, a coastal salt marsh, and then up

a coast and forest.

Our first wetland was a cypress swamp,

where towering cypress trees grow out of

weirdly black water. Snakes,

alligators, birds, and exotic flowers

love this watery home.

Right from the start, we were surrounded

by cypress trees,So Valencia put that in

our BioBlitz journal. So imagine, these

trees are living in this, you know, many

feet in deep water. Pretty impressive.

When we put our paddles in the water, we

couldn't even touch the bottom.

So we found this really beautiful white

orchid. Ladies' tresses,

three-inch flowers. There's like five

stems, one, two, three, four, five, and

they look like bells or a brain.

We saw some green stuff floating in the

water around the lily pads. We thought it

was algae. Okay, it's not algae. What

does algae look like?Is it duckweed?It is

duckweed, yes. Duckweed are tiny,

floating plants, and there were thousands

of them. It's like abundant, very

abundant. That's a good way of saying it.

Hey, Sarah, I don't think we can go much

farther. Why not?Can you say there are

sticks here?It looks like a beaver dam.

Ohh Wow. Beavers have stopped us. We hung

out, but we didn't see any beavers. Maybe

if we had come in the summer instead of

the fall. Okay, I know a repeat after me

song, if anybody wants to do it. Okay.

Way down yonder, not far off Way down

yonder, not far off A blue bird died from

the whooping cough A blue bird died from

a whooping cough But that song actually

helped us go straight. The

girls aren't done bio-blitzing just yet.

We'll catch up with them again, but not

until you ponder this week's science

secret.

There are more secrets in this state than

just what's under your hood. North

Carolina is connected to one of the

most famous New York landmarks.

But how?HmmIf

we flash back to our past New York

adventures, maybe there's a clue.

Scott's friendly-- Taxi!Hey, can

anyone get attacks you?I want

to be a part of that. No,

no, no, noHey, wake up. Ah,

memories. Think about it while we jump

back to my favorite team, the SciGirls.

Sorry, guys. Let's see what else they're

discovering about the North Carolina

wetlands.

Next up was the salt marsh on a barrier

island called Hammocks Beach, right on

the Atlantic coast. Salt marshes are

among the most biodiverse habitats

anywhere, with tall grasses,

birds, amphibians, and fish. We were so

psyched. Yeah.

This is what you call cordgrass.

Oh, wow. That's cool. Let's head towards

this marsh over here. Yeah. OK. Oh, what

did you find?I think it's some type of

sponge. It was over there by the corn

grass. Look how orange it is. Look at

that. It really is a sponge. A little

crab. It's a habitat for other animals.

Exactly. Hey, guys, look, I found a fish.

I think it's just a minnow. Maybe it's a

baby. Yeah, this is a nursery for finfish

and shellfish before they're ready to go

out into the ocean. What could I have

found?glass squirt. Look how pink it is.

Yeah, and it stores the salt. Yes,

exactly. It's salty. Mmm, it's really

salty. Whoa! There you got

it. Yes! Whoo! Wow, Sarah, where did you

find these?They were just under a shell.

Look at him. Good. He's really

mad. Sea squirt?Whoo! Don't

squeeze it too much, or else her guts

will just go everywhere.

Our last stop is a wetland that doesn't

look too wet. It's a Picosan wetland,

where pine trees and shrubs grow. You

sometimes don't even see standing water,

because a lot of moisture is stored in

heavy, wet soil called peat. And there

are dense, thorny bushes everywhere.

Ow, ow. Are you OK?Are you OK?I'm good.

Moving right along. Oh, guys, look at

this moss. It's really spongy. Oh, you

felt the sphagnum. Oh, wow, I'm, like,

sinking into it. Is it in the water?

Yeah, it's like on top of the water. See?

So this is sphagnum. Sphagnum can hold up

to 800 times its weight in water. Wow. So

try squeezing that. Woo! It's

looking wonderful. All the plants here

thrive in wet conditions like pond pine

and tai-tai. All right, let's go ahead

and take a soil sample here. Here, I'll

take this so you can help. Okay, great.

Thank you.

There we go. That's a good one. I can,

like, really feel how smooth it is down

here. If we could take a deeper soil

sample, somewhere probably around 30 to



this organic matter. And then underneath

this, we're actually basically standing

on water. Like, the floor's so squishy.

Why don't we try bouncing on it?Yeah. Oh,

wow. It's like we're really bouncing.

That's really cool.

Wow. No, we won't fall under, but there

is underneath the soil here then a layer

of water. So we're basically standing on

water. water with some soil. But this is

like a floating forest. Yeah, basically.

That's so awesome. It's like a little

floating boat. And they say you can't

walk on water. Exactly.

We just did it. I'm so saying that on

Monday. I walked on water last

weekend. Now it was time to compile our

loggers. and compared the three wetlands.

Remember the blue heron?We did see that

in two separate habitats, in the salt

marsh and in the cypress salt. But not

many species overlapped, like all three

of them. Well, each wetland was very

unique in their own special way. And the

dominant species in each one was

different.

Just think about how many animals and

species we would have seen if it was a

real bio-blitz. It would have really

helped if we had more people and more

time. Even on our mini BioBlitz, we saw

so much wildlife-- plants, birds, fish,

insects, and reptiles. We totaled 33

different species in the salt marsh, 29

in the cypress swamp, and 12 in the

Pocosin Forest. We went to the

Duke University Wetland Center to show

Ariana our results. So what did you guys

find out from the BioBlitz?We found out

about how unique the different habitats

are, right?So the plant communities were

very unique. There are so many different

kinds of wetlands, and they're all

serving similar functions like water

purification and nurseries. Nurseries.

Exactly. Next, Ariana took us to the

wetland where she does her research. So

this site is part of Duke Forest. What

this site was was a degraded wetland, and

the point of the restoration was to be

able to bring the site back to being a

functioning wetland. What we want to do

is see how can the plants that we're

planting in a restoration site affect the

removal of a pollutant in a natural way.



because I really like field work. I like

being outside, and I knew I wanted to do

environmental science from about third

grade on. What happened in 3rd grade for

me was the spill of the Exxon Valdez,

and I saw the photographs of the birds

all covered in oil, and I knew I wanted

to get involved with saving the

environment. I was very outgoing, was

even called bossy by some of my friends,

and my parents would take my brother and

me hiking in the mountains or to the

beach, and I realized that humans were

having a negative impact on the

environment. And then I was a junior in

college, and I just decided that the

wetlands were the intersection for me of

my interest in. helping people and also

helping the environment. But now it was

time to say goodbye to Ariana. Oh,

awesome. Thanks, Ariana. You're welcome.

You're my hero. Bye. The SciGirls are

awesome. We went back to making our

SciGirls website. Let's take a look at

the picture we just added. Okay. That

looks really good. Yeah, I like that.

Should we add more pictures?Ohh Yeah, I

think so. It's just a start. But if even

one more kid gets why we have to take

care of wildlife habitats, maybe, just

maybe,That's one more plant or animal

that doesn't disappear. We're not just

friends. That's right. We're SciGirls.

I couldn't open my face. Half

of North Carolina's wetlands have

disappeared over the last 200 years.

Wetland ecologists like Ariana and the

SciGirls are the key to keeping wetlands

around. Click on our website to see

Valencia, Sarah, and Sophia's pictures.

You can also find out if there's a

SciGirls Club in your town.

Surf on over to the Dragonfly TV website

at pbskidsgo.org. Stream a

cool DFTV video, play an awesome

game, or try a surprise. Do it. And don't

forget to tell us what you're doing with

science. We want to hear from you.

Have you figured out North Carolina's

science secret?Something in

Winston-Salem is said to be a prototype

for a famous New York City landmark.

Here's a hint. It's a tall

building. Time may be running out for you

to answer the science secret, but you're

just in time to get to it and do it.

See just how heavy a newspaper can be.

You'll need safety goggles, a glove, a

thin wooden stick or a yardstick, and a

sheet of newspaper. Set the stick on the

table, letting four inches hang off the

edge. Lay a sheet of newspaper over the

stick. Put on the glove and goggles and

give the stick a whack with whack.

Whoa, the stick breaks!Now try it

again with a piece of folded newspaper,

but be careful. What

happens if you try it with different

kinds of paper?Let us know what happens

when you do it. You'll find the

instructions for this one and others on

our website. Now let's check out Explorus

Middle School. home of the North Carolina

Bridge Building Champions.

Check it out! I'm

indestructible! At Explorus, in our

bridge building club, we have five major

points. The first is we design our bridge

on paper. Then we cut out the pieces and

build our bridge. After that, we weigh

our bridge to calculate the efficiency,

and then we test it using a bucket and

sand to see how much it'll hold.

OnceWe have our cross bridge. We

analyze and make sure that we know what

broke, where it broke, why it broke, and

how we can improve. There's a lot

of math skills that I've never really

used before that I finally get to use in

this. I like how you can get

involved in it and build an actual bridge

and then compete. like Florence Middle

School has won first place in the finals

two years in a row. Go, go,

go Mr. Smartypants The bridge we just

tested might be better than the bridge

that was last year. We don't really know,

so we're just going to have to keep

testing and keep building bridges and

see how light and strong we can be. Keep

on fighting

'til the end Last year, these middle

schoolers beat out high schoolers. Can

they do it again?My money's on Sam and

his g*ng to three people. Now we're off

to Winston-Salem. Sci-fi fans Imran and

Nabil are watching all sorts of critters

to find the best farm friends.

Hi, I'm Imran. And I'm Nabil. We have a

lot of fun together, no matter what we're

doing.

But our favorite thing to do is to write

stories. Science fiction stories.

Cyberspace. Giant Fist Continuum.

Pulsatronic Brain. Robo Protons. We

get some of our best ideas for stories at

SciWorks, the science museum where we

live.

I make sound.

Oh, ohh look at that skill.

Is it a real bison?No, it's a real

dead bison.

Our favorite thing at CyWorks is the

animals. But not these animals.

These animals!

We met Kelly, who takes care of the farm

animals. She introduced us to awesome.

This is Snowflake. This is

Tini, and she is a black Angus cross. The

little brown one is Snickers. Later,

Gator. And this is her mom,

May. And the little black and white one,

that's S'mores. Besides

farm animals, the environmental park at

Starworks is other animals like deer,

otters, and ducks.

Ohh Look at those deer. Sure glad this

fence is here. Whoa, look how tall it is.

Yeah, I've never been this close to a

deer before. I wonder what makes some

animals farm animals and others not.

That's a good question. Come on, let's go

check it out. We went back to look at the

farm animals once more to find the

answers to our question. We started by

making a list of behaviors that we could

use to compare farm animals with wild

animals. So what do you think we need to

know in order to start a farm?I guess we

would need to know what the animals eat.

Yeah. You would also need to know where

they live. Yeah, would they live in a

barn or an open space?I think I'd like a

friendly animal better, because I'm going

to be around them a lot. And I would pick

a useful animal, because I need a good

reason to work so hard on a farm. So what

have we got so far?Uh,

diet, environment, friendliness, and

usefulness. Well, I think that sounds

like a pretty good list. We took our list

of questions straight to the barn. We

kept a scorecard for each animal we

observed. A green check means that

their behavior would be easy to manage

and farm friendly. A red X

means it would be harder to manage their

behavior on a farm.

Whoa, look at the barn.

Here comes Snowflake, and she goes

straight for the food. We saw Snowflake

eat pellets and hay. Looks like dog food.

She lived in her own stall, and she was

very friendly to us. Horses are

useful on farms for riding and for

pulling carts. Just like Snowflake, the

sheep ate pellets and lived in a barn.

They can be used for their milk, and a

lot of people get them for their wool.

They seem pretty friendly.

Both cows love their hay. They're good at

sharing their food and their space in the

barn. They didn't seem to mind us being

around. We know cows have many uses, from

milk and cheese to meat. Here are the

goats. It looked like the goats were

eating the same kind of food as the other

animals. You got a lot of room to run

around. You got that big pasture out

there. The goats were friendly and

curious. Just like cows, goats are often

used for their milk. We noticed that even

though the animals live in the same barn,

The different animals have their own

stalls, and they have plenty of space for

running around. Let's head over to the

environmental park and see if any of

those wild animals have what it takes to

live on a farm. Sure, that's a good idea.

Ohh These otters are cool. We decided

that we would need a lot of water if we

started an otter farm. What is that

they're eating?I think it's fish. I'll

write that down. We didn't see any other

meat-eaters at the barn. The otters were

curious, but not necessarily friendly.

They were definitely entertaining. We

guessed that people might like to use

otters for their fur.

Well, let's take some notes on the deer.

We noticed that deer need a lot of space

to run around, but they also need a tall

fence to keep them from running away. The

deer ate pellets, just like the farm

animals. It was hard to know if the deer

were friendly or not. They seem very

friendly, don't they?Yeah, I think it's

just because they've been around people a

lot. Yeah, this tastes to be pretty

unusual for deer. We know deer are useful

for their hide and his food. Well, I

think we've seen enough. Let's go. Yeah.

After watching all of the animals, we

felt like we needed to learn more about

farms. Kelly told us about some local

farms that we could visit. Our first stop

was a donkey farm. I

didn't know there were farms just for

donkeys. The donkeys had a barn and a

pasture, just like most of the animals at

CyWorks. They also ate the same food.

There's a lot of haystacks up there.

They looked like they wanted attention

from us. We learned that people use

donkeys for lots of different reasons,

from pets to cart pulling. Our second

stop was to a dairy farm, where we met

more than 60 cows. I am cow,

hear me moo. I weigh twice as

much as you We saw firsthand what

cows are used for. Time to milk the

cows. Wow. I

wonder if it hurts. It doesn't hurtle.

The cows are friendly enough to let us

get good and close. How many gallons of

milk do they give every day?They usually

give anywhere from 6 to 10 gallons a day.

Wow. So

these cows, they have their own

individual stalls right here. What do

they eat?They eat hay, corn, grains...

and they eat the grass from the pasture.

Okay, I think we've seen enough of the

cows. Let's move on.

After having visited all these farms, I

can see how important it is to have the

right kind of space for certain animals.

Yeah, like the cows and the donkeys.

They had two different types of barns.

And the cows, they had room to roam

around. But they each still have their

own individual stalls. Deer like to run

fast and far. They also like to hide.

I can't exactly picture a deer standing

still in one of those stalls, like the

dairy cow. Hey, you know, I think all the

farm animals that we've seen have been

grass eaters. Yeah, I haven't exactly

heard of any farm animals that were

actually meat eaters. Even though every

animal needs food and a good environment,

their specific needs are different. Yeah,

and the simpler the needs of the animal,

the easier it is to keep them on a farm.

Hey, you know, I just got an idea for our

next science fiction story idea. All

right, let me guess. Does it involve

farms in an alternate planet?

You got it. Now, there's a

planet far, far away. And they need

cows. But they don't have any

cows.

You sure do have to do a lot of research

before you put any old animal on a farm.

I'm beginning to have second thoughts

about that butterfly farm I was going to

start. Speaking of farms, North

Carolina farms grow a lot of sweet

potatoes. In fact, they're the official

state vegetable. Thanks to a group of 4th

graders who fought for the sweet treat,

kids here eat sweet potato fries, sweet

potato cake, sweet potato pizza sauce,

and sweet potato smoothies. I'm going to

try some sweet potato chips.

That's sweet. Umm Ready for something

else sweet?The answer to our science

secret. How did a North Carolina

building help shape the New York City

skyline?Architects built a practice

model of the Empire State Building in

Winston-Salem.

The RJ Reynolds Building

is the most important piece of

architecture in Winston Salem's downtown.

The architects for the Reynolds Building

most notably designed the Empire State

Building. Architects often build

prototypes because they want to see how

they work and if they work. Some people

have said that the Reynolds Building was

the prototype for the Empire State

Building, and you might see a little

similarity between the two buildings.

The RJ Reynolds Building was completed in



Building opened its doors in 1931. The

biggest difference would be the height of

the buildings. The Reynolds Building is



Building is a whopping 103.

We have our own little baby Empire State

Building right here in Winston Salem.

Wow! Who would have thought that North

Carolina was the testing ground for one

of the country's tallest buildings?

Dear Mom, we're in North

Carolina. We went to a

dairy farm, met the cutest

little donkey named Peanut, and I

wore waders in the wetlands. I'll

see you soon. Love, Eric.

Don't be a stranger. Tell us what you're

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Carolina rocks. time to race off to our

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of science and engineering. The

National Science Foundation, where

discoveries begin.

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