How, what, where, why? What, where, why?
Ada Twist, scientist
She’s gonna find out what the answer is
Under here, over there
Science is everywhere you look
With Iggy Peck, architect
And Rosie Revere, engineer
So much to do and you can help too!
A mystery, a riddle, a puzzle or a quest
There are wonders to discover And hypotheses to test
Science is the best!
Ada Twist, scientist
She’s gonna find out what the answer is
Everywhere science is She’s forming a hypothesis
Connecting all the dots ’Cause this is Scientist Ada Twist!
Morning! Time to get up.
What would I do without my little alarm clock?
You’d be late.
Ada, you’re right.
I would be late. I don’t know how you do it.
Good question.
Why do I wake up at the same time every day?
How can I come up with an experiment to test how good my internal clock is?
How--
Do I get some coffee before tackling all these questions?
Yep.
-What’s for breakfast? -Mum’s making pancakes.
With a little help.
Just pull the string and that starts a chain reaction
that ends up in delicious yumminess.
Arthur! Breakfast!
Hi, little man.
Rough morning?
Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
If a bed has two sides,
shouldn’t there be a 50-50 chance of waking up on the right side?
So how is it possible that you always wake up on the wrong side?
Thanks, Dad.
It’s too early for questions.
Mum, I’m going out to my fort to practice my magic tricks.
It’s a playdate of one.
When Iggy and Rosie come over,
we’ll be experimenting with ways to make goo gooier.
-Nice. Let me know how it goes. -Boring!
I’m a scientist. Scientists never get bored.
Loading the lab.
-Hey, Ada. -Hiya, Ada.
Hi, Iggy. Hi, Rosie.
How’s the goo coming?
Good. I’ve been doing some experiments.
Turns out a little baking soda makes it less sticky.
I saw your brother outside. Cool fort.
Lemme guess. Iggy Peck, architect, you wanna go and see it?
I so do! Yes, please!
I mean, I just like to see how things are built.
Come on, let’s check it out.
-So cool! -Amazing!
Look at the broom-handle support. And pillow foundation?
And the details with the bucket turrets!
This fort is fierce.
-I know. -Hey, Arthur. Can I come--
Nope. This is a solo fort. That means it’s a fort for one.
I don’t know.
I’d guesstimate that this fort could fit
two adults and four kids.
Or six kids and one adult.
Or six kids and two adults if everyone got really friendly.
I’m going to say you could fit something like 3,000 goldfish.
With or without water?
Without.
Water leaks.
You don’t really know a fort
until you know how many aliens it can hold.
Depends on what size aliens, and if they can float.
Solo as in me.
No goldfish. No aliens. No one asking questions. Just me!
A fort lock? Nice.
You’re just kids, but trust me,
when you get a little older,
sometimes you’ll just need a little me time.
That’s cool. I just… I’d love to see how you designed it.
-What if we make you a deal? -I’m listening.
Okay, if we can open the lock without touching it,
from behind this line,
you let us in.
No touching? Back here?
I’ll make that deal. ’Cause that’s impossible.
He’s right. It is impossible.
Ada wouldn’t have suggested it if it was impossible.
Go ahead, Ada. Tell Iggy how we’re going to open the lock from behind the line.
-I have no idea. -What?
I have no idea right now.
Scientists look at stuff that seems impossible and unknowable all the time.
If it’s impossible and unknowable, why even try?
’Cause it only seems that way. We just need to break it down.
By asking a lot of small questions, we can answer our big question.
Break it down and ask around.
Right. Like, how do we get in there?
You know what we need?
A today do-over?
A unicorn?
A brainstorm.
I love a brainstorm.
Brainstorm, brainstorm
Throw in every thought you had No idea is ever bad
Brainstorm, brainstorm
Gather up your friends Try to find the how, the what, the why
Brainstorm, brainstorm
Let our imaginations Become great new creations
When we brainstorm, brainstorm Brainstorm, brainstorm
Hey!
-You start. -What if we melt the lock?
But we might end up melting the whole fort.
And my brother.
Or we could put the whole fort on rollers
and hook it to a flock of seagulls, who’d roll it right over to us.
But the fort might be too heavy for the seagulls, even if it’s on wheels.
Or I could build a lock-picking robot. But that might take a week or two.
I won’t be out here for a week or two.
I wish we could just knock that lock right off.
You moved the dirt without touching it.
That’s it! We need a chain reaction.
Right. You only touch the first domino, but they all fall.
Yep. The energy in the first domino transfers to the second one,
and then the third and the fourth.
I could design something to take the energy we used at the start
and transfer it all the way across the garden to the lock.
-Cool! -I love it.
Okay. It’s ready.
-That looks amazing. -Nice.
On paper it does. I just… I really wish I was a better builder.
That’s what you have me for.
You design it and I’ll build it. I can build anything.
First, we need a supply run.
Dad, can I borrow…
-Sure, dear. -Thanks.
Thank you, Mooshu.
-How’s it going out there? -Good. Yeah, totally good.
I’m just gonna go stretch out in my solo fort.
Screwdriver.
Hammer.
Wrench.
And… we’re done.
-Wow! -Amazing!
So, the energy we start with here ends up over there.
Exactly. It’s physics.
Okay, let’s do this thing.
Three, two, one.
Energy blast off!
What happened?
The energy, it stopped.
-But why? -I don’t know.
Well, that’s it then. We’re done.
What? No! We just have to try something new.
Like what?
Maybe the mouse needs to be slipperier.
Let’s try again.
Yay!
-What? -Did not see that coming.
No, Mooshu! Come back!
That’s it. We failed.
My Great Aunt Rose says, “The only way to fail is to quit.”
We don’t quit, we’ve got grit!
Okay, you’re right. We don’t quit.
So let’s try something else.
Something less… mouse-y.
The mouse is gone, so we don’t need the mousetrap.
Yeah, I see it.
-I replaced the whole section. -You did it!
It’s gonna make it!
-Yeah! -Yay!
-It worked! -Yeah, I always knew it would.
That was awesome! Like magic.
Or like science.
Hey, maybe we can create a chain reaction
that will let me unlock the door from upstairs.
Yeah. We can totally do that.
Cool. That way when you guys come over, I can let you in.
-Amazing! -So cool!
Arthur, I brought this super-sticky goo as a fort-warming present.
Sweet. Make yourself at home.
Thanks, Arthur.
-Got any questions? -Yeah.
If the fort was filled with owls and they all flew at once,
would it make the fort fly?
I don’t know.
If this were a space fort, how much would we weigh?
-A space fort? -Kids, time for lunch.
Coming!
Also, do you have a unicorn barn out the back?
I have an idea. Let’s meet another scientist. Come on.
Hi, my name is Keji Sojobi and I’m an aerospace engineer,
which means I get to design spacecraft.
Today, I’m gonna talk about the chain reactions
on the James Webb Space Telescope, which I got to work on.
Cool!
When it gets out to where it’s going to be orbiting in space,
the telescope will take pictures of planets, stars, galaxies,
and those pictures will help us learn more about our universe.
There are hundreds of chain reactions that have to happen
for all of it to go smoothly.
A chain reaction is a series of events
that happen because something else happened before them.
I’m gonna use these models that I made to show you.
When the James Webb Space Telescope is on Earth, it’ll be folded up,
looking something like this.
We had to be able to get from a folded-up position
to a very open position in space.
So after the rocket launches, the telescope will separate
and start to make its way to its final destination.
At that point, the chain reactions will start
that will trigger the opening of this sunshield.
And on and on and on, little triggers fully open up the sunshield.
And then the telescope will fully unfold.
Our chain reactions are complete and the telescope can do its job.
Yay!
Chain reactions can happen really fast, but they can also last a really long time.
The chain reaction of James Webb opening up
is gonna be about 30 days.
Fun fact!
There are lots of human-made spacecraft
that you can see from Earth when you look up at the night sky.
If you see something that looks like a star, but it’s moving pretty fast,
it’s probably one of our satellites.
Wasn’t that cool? Science is the best!
Is it me or does it always take longer to fill a pool on a hot day?
Good question. And does that mean a pool would fill up faster on a cool day?
Or if it were in the shade? Or if we filled it with lemonade?
Why do you sound like a bird?
Hey, that wasn’t me. Birds freak me out a little.
Even when they look happy. Like these ones do.
That doesn’t sound like happiness to me. More like the opposite.
Great observation, Rosie.
Looks like these birds aren’t happy at all.
They seem… angry!
Angry birds? Whoa! Mind blown.
That’s way freakier than happy birds.
Why would birds be angry?
Excellent question. And I know someone who can help us answer it.
Mum!
No need to shout. I’m right here.
Sorry. Did you know our back garden is filled with angry birds?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this many bickering birdies.
There must be one, two…
twelve angry birds here.
We’re trying to figure out what’s making them so mad.
Here’s a clue. Their water feeder is empty.
They must be angry because they don’t have any water to drink.
So they’re thirsty.
Guess that answers our question about why they’re angry,
but that doesn’t answer the question about why there isn’t any water in the feeder.
You always keep it full, Mum.
I do. But yesterday, I had to run an errand, so I asked your bro…
Arthur!
Yes, Mum? 76, 77, 78, 79…
-What did I do? -It’s what you didn’t do. The bird feeder?
Weren’t you supposed to fill it last night?
I did. I promise.
Mooshu Kitty! Someone has a bad habit of drinking water from the birdie feeder.
That’s probably what happened. Sorry, boo. My mistake.
Mooshu!
As for you, you know what I said would happen
if you drank from the feeder one more time.
That’s the call I’m expecting from work.
What would happen?
Oh no! I think Mum’s gonna give Mooshu away.
She already warned her about the bird feeder.
Plus, she wasn’t a cat person before Dad got her.
Mooshu!
Mum! Mooshu’s innocent. She has to be.
We’ll find a way to prove it and clear her name.
What? You mean like in a trial?
Yep. Just like in a real courtroom. You can be the judge, Mrs Twist.
Meet us in the living room, I mean courtroom, in 30 minutes.
-Okay. -Don’t do anything to Mooshu till then.
Do anything? What am I gonna do?
We’re going to need the scientific method for this.
Scientific method
We have an observation So we’ll start with a question
Do research Form a hypothesis
And test with experiments
What do we find out?
Let’s draw a conclusion
And write it all down And pass around the results
That’s the scientific method
Okay, so we have our question. “What happened to the birds’ water?”
Unicorns drank it.
Maybe a unicorn, thirsty from chasing rainbows,
drank the water.
But I’m disproving my own theory. Unicorns like sparkling water.
I think I’ve got it. Ants.
Maybe a gazillion of them built a tiny aqueduct.
Yes! Now remind me how an aqua duck is different from a regular duck?
Aqueduct, not duck. It’s a bridge or canal that moves water.
It’d be the itty-bittiest architectural feat of all time.
Okay, so our hypothesis is if Mooshu didn’t drink the birds’ water,
then someone else must have.
I still say ants.
So, like, what do we do now?
We test our hypothesis by looking for evidence.
That’s what scientists call facts that prove or disprove their hypothesis.
Loading the lab.
Here’s our first piece of evidence. A paw print from the scene of the crime.
Exactly the size of Mooshu’s.
Are you sure there aren’t any ant prints in there?
Nope. Just cat prints.
Okay, so maybe Mooshu was there, but let’s see what else we’ve got.
Here’s Mooshu’s water bowl.
Empty. Which means she was probably thirsty.
Which would explain why she’d want the water.
Boy, this is not looking good for Mooshu.
We still have this fur we found. Let’s look under the microscope.
It looks just like the fur from Mooshu’s paw.
Wait a minute.
It is Mooshu’s paw.
Guys, looks like the evidence is all pointing to one conclusion.
Mooshu’s in cahoots with the ants.
No.
Mooshu drank the birds’ water.
Stay strong, Mooshu.
We’ll send love notes to wherever Mrs Twist sends you.
But we’re not giving up on you.
80, 81, 82…
-Mum’s ready! 83… -What are we going to do?
If we don’t prove Mooshu’s innocent, your mum’s going to give her away.
Come here, Mooshu.
Good girl.
I’ve got it!
If we can’t prove that Mooshu’s innocent,
maybe we can at least prove that she can behave.
-Yes. -Great plan.
98, 99, 100. Yes!
All rise!
Honourable Judge Mum now presiding.
Honourable? A mum could get used to this.
We will now hear arguments
in the case of Mooshu versus the disappearing birdie water.
Your Honour, we call Mooshu Kitty to the stand.
Your witness is a cat?
This is highly unusual, Ad… I mean, counsellor.
-We promise it’s important. -Okay.
Arthur, I mean, bailiff, let’s put Mooshu on the stand.
And by stand, I mean cat bed.
Mooshu Kitty,
isn’t it true that even though you’ve never been professionally trained,
you can be very well-behaved?
Back to the stand!
And since you’re such a well-behaved kitty,
will you promise to never drink from the bird feeder?
Counsellor, can you control your client?
I’m beginning to doubt whether she can behave at all.
This is going horribly.
Mooshu is being the opposite of well-behaved.
No, she’s just…
-Trying to cool off. -Of course. It’s hot today.
Yes. Hot. Very hot and dry.
Mooshu may not be able to behave,
but maybe we can prove that something else happened to the water.
Your Honour, may we have a recess?
You want to stop the trial to play?
No. I mean we need a break so we can go collect one last piece of evidence.
Go ahead, Ada. I mean, counsellor.
Be right back.
-Quick, read me what the thermometer says. -Temperature, 30 degrees.
And the air is dry.
I think we’ve got our evidence.
Your Honour, we have new evidence.
Yes, it may be true that Mooshu Kitty was at the scene of the crime,
and, yes, she was thirsty,
and, yes, she might not be the most well-behaved cat ever,
but maybe Mooshu didn’t drink the birds’ water,
because it disappeared!
Order! Order in the court. Could you explain yourself, counsellor?
I propose that the water disappeared
in a scientific process called “evaporation.”
Evaporation? Wait, what’s evaporation again?
That’s when water turns into gas.
Then the gas mixes with the air, making the water seem to disappear.
This process can happen fast on a hot, dry day
and when there’s only a teeny bit of water.
Which brings me to our final witness,
Arthur.
Me?
Now, Arthur, wouldn’t you say you were busy
trying to paddle your ball 100 times in a row yesterday?
Well, sure.
So it must have been really important to fill the feeder fast.
Fast? Well, I guess, but--
The fastest way to fill the feeder
would be only to put a teeny-weeny bit of water in it, wouldn’t you say?
Yeah!
I only put a teeny bit of water in the feeder.
This proves our hypothesis. Something else could have happened to the birds’ water.
Mooshu Kitty could be innocent. I rest my case.
-Yay! -Yes!
Now you won’t have to give Mooshu away, Mum.
Give Mooshu away? What?
You told Mooshu that she knew what would happen
if she drank from the bird feeder again.
Yes, I’d give her a second bowl of water. Outside.
Whoopsies.
You know evaporation isn't gonna get this water.
I think these birds are 12 happy birds now.
And one happy kitty.
I have an idea. Let’s meet another scientist. Come on.
Oh boy. It’s really hot out here.
Does anybody know where I can find some water?
Hi, my name is Naomi Fraga and I’m a desert botanist,
and today we’re gonna talk about evaporation in plants.
-Let’s check out some plants. -Let’s go!
We’re here in the Mojave Desert where it gets well over 100 degrees
and it also doesn’t rain very much.
These are actually two plants that live in the same exact kind of environment,
but they have different strategies to hold on to their water.
-Whoa! -This is the creosote bush.
See, the leaves here are very small.
That means there’s fewer pores on the leaf to lose water from.
Just like we have pores in our skin where we really sweat,
plants have pores on their leaves where water escapes,
and when that water escapes, it evaporates into the air.
Then we have its very good friend, the burrobush.
-Hello! -Hi!
You might think it was dead, but it’s taking a nap.
What we call a dormant phase. It’s lost its leaves for the summertime.
Once it sees rain again, it’ll make new leaves.
So these plants have all these really cool adaptations
for dealing with dry conditions.
Fun fact!
Did you know that when your houseplant is wilting,
it’s because too much water has evaporated from the leaves?
So if you see your plant wilting,
give it a helping hand and give it more water.
Yay!
Wasn’t that cool? Science is the best!