(twinkling) - Magic is creating the illusion that you can defy the laws of nature.

(mystical chiming) (children laughing) (upbeat music) (twinkling) - [Audience] Whoa!

How did he do that?

(harp strumming) (audience cheers) - [Man] Magic is creating the illusion that you can defy the laws of nature.

- [Steve] Science is the study of how the natural world works.

This is science.

(audience cheering) (upbeat jazzy music) (bing) Nope.

(bing) Hmm, nope.

(bing) Hmm, nope.

None of these are my favorite blanket.

This, this is my favorite blanket.

Our atmosphere.

Our atmosphere is the perfect blanket for you, me, and for our entire planet.

It helps keep the Earth not too hot, not too cold.

It keeps everything just right.

Without this blanket of gases we call our atmosphere nothing could live on Earth.

Nothing.

To all living things on Earth, our atmosphere is the most important blanket of all.

The weird thing is our atmosphere, our blanket, is largely invisible.

(twinkling) Is it a magic blanket?

Well, yeah, kind of.

Because it keeps the conditions here on Earth habitable.

Habitable means able to support life.

In other words, without our atmosphere nothing would be able to live on Earth.

Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

So, no atmosphere, no life on Earth.

A planetary atmosphere is the mixture of gases that surround any planet.

Now, sometimes the word atmosphere is used to describe the mood of a place.

Like this place has a spooky atmosphere.

(ominous laughter) Ooh, spooky.

But we are not talking about that kind of atmosphere.

We are talking about the atmosphere.

A blanket of gas that wraps around the planet.

Mm, any planet?

Yeah, not just the Earth has an atmosphere.

Every planet has an atmosphere.

Cool, right?

Some atmospheres are very thin, like Mercury's, and some are very thick and heavy, like Neptune's.

Each planet's atmosphere is just right for that planet.

Remember, a planetary atmosphere is the mixture of gases that surrounds a planet.

Gases are a substance that has no fixed shape or volume.

The molecules of a gas will expand to fill the shape of a container.

Interestingly, there is no container around the Earth.

Hmm, what do you suppose keeps the gases, the Earth's atmosphere, from just floating away into space?

The same thing that made this (boot clunks) old boot fall is the same thing that keeps our protective blanket around the Earth.

(zipper whips) (sniffs) Smelling stinky?

- [Man] Oh no.

- Nope, gravity.

(boot clunking) Okay, so our atmosphere is made of gases and gravity is what holds it to the Earth.

The most abundant gas in our Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen.

Yep, N2, nitrogen.

And it is so important.

All living things need nitrogen to live.

Did you get that?

All living things need nitrogen.

You and I need nitrogen for our hair, skin, nails, muscles, bones, lungs, eyelashes, kneecaps, ear lobes, belly button, and blood.

Nitrogen is essential to all living things.

First, the good news.

Nitrogen is the most abundant gas in our atmosphere.

(upbeat music) Almost 78% of our atmosphere is nitrogen.

And the bad news, plants and animals cannot use that nitrogen directly from the atmosphere.

- [Man] Oh, no.

- [Steve] But nature has several incredible workarounds for us to get the nitrogen we need.

This process is called nitrogen-fixing.

Let's start with plants.

Underneath the ground, growing on the roots of certain plants, there are special bacteria that can transform nitrogen into a usable form for those plants.

These bacteria are nicknamed nitrogen fixing bacteria.

This bacteria makes the nitrogen available to the plant.

The other really cool nitrogen fixer is lightning.

Yeah.

When lightning flashes it breaks the nitrogen in the atmosphere into usable parts.

The rain carries the usable nitrogen down to the ground and into the soil where it's taken in by the plant's roots.

So the plants get their usable fixed nitrogen from the lightning and from the bacteria.

Cool, right?

The animals eat the plants and get the nitrogen they need.

Humans also eat the plants and get the nitrogen they need.

Sometimes humans eat other animals that have eaten the plants, and that is where we get the nitrogen we need to live.

Throughout the entire atmosphere are interconnected systems.

These systems are all linked together.

Water, the soil, the air, living things, even the rocks are connected and these intertwining systems have names.

Hydrosphere.

- [Hydrosphere] Here.

- This is all of the water on, in, or around the planet.

Biosphere.

- [Biosphere] Here.

- This is all of the life on Earth.

Geosphere.

- [Geosphere] I'm here.

- This is all of the land forms and rocky parts of the planet Earth.

Atmosphere?

- [Atmosphere] Here.

- This is the layer of gases surrounding the Earth.

Sometimes the word sphere means a three dimensional object like a ball, but sphere can also mean region or area.

In this case, the suffix sphere means region or area.

Atmosphere, geosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere.

Planet Earth is sometimes called the Goldilocks planet because everything here is just right.

- [Goldilocks] This planet is just right.

- [Steve] The spheres of our troposphere are connected and they interact constantly with each other.

Volcanoes are in one way Earth's geosphere interacts and connects with its atmosphere.

The particles that were thrown out of the volcano just became part of the atmosphere.

Earth's geosphere is always changing and not just from volcanoes.

Land and rocks could be worn down by weather, but mountains and valleys can also influence the weather.

It's all connected.

More to the point, they are linked.

(hoops dinging) They are part of each other.

Our atmosphere is like a big, giant chocolate cake.

It has layers, which are also called spheres.

Starting with one we live in, troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere.

All together, they make up the atmosphere.

Tropo, strato, maso, thermo, exo spheres.

- [AB] These are the spheres of the atmosphere.

Troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, exosphere, troposphere, stratosphere, and mesosphere.

Thermosphere, exosphere, tropo, strato, meso, thermo, exo.

(children cheer) - That fantastic song was by my friend Anthony Brooks.

We call him AB, you can call him AB too.

Oh yeah, I wanted to mention that some of the illustrations that we've used make the atmosphere appear to be really deep, really large, larger than the planet Earth.

Actually, our atmosphere is not nearly this thick.

If the earth was the size of an apple our atmosphere, by comparison, would be about the thickness of the apple skin.

Not very thick at all.

(wind chimes chiming) I love lots of different kinds of blankets but my favorite blanket is the Earth's atmosphere.

It's a blanket that covers the entire earth making life possible.

It is a very magical blanket indeed.

(chime) (upbeat music) Self control.

Stop, think, then act.

In life, there are going to be lots of times when you feel something very strongly.

Self control means that you make good choices even when you really don't feel like it.

Self control means that even when you feel something very strongly you stop, think, then act.

Strong emotions can hit us at any time like when we are very excited, or scared, or angry.

Strong emotions are okay, we just have to learn to act with self control when we have them.

Let's say your friend accidentally bumped into you.

If it hurt, you might just want to punch him right back.

Is punching him a good choice?

No, it's not.

So what do you do when a big emotion hits you?

Make sure you're acting with self control.

Stop, think, then act.

Self control means you decide the best way to act first, then you do it.

(twinkling) Magic is creating the illusion that you can defy the laws of nature.

(magical twinkling) (children laughing) (upbeat music) (audience oohing) (audience applauds) (ding) - [Man] Magic is creating the illusion that you can defy the laws of nature.

- [Steve] Science is the study of how the natural world works.

This is science.

(audience cheers) (upbeat jazz music) Oh, oh, cold, cold, cold.

Oh no, cold, cold, cold.

Oh oh, so cold.

That did not go well.

Those ice cubes were so cold, I couldn't hold onto them.

So I had dropped ice cubes all over my house.

You see, I'm having some friends over for lunch and I wanted to make sure that I had enough ice cubes to give everyone a cold drink.

Hmm, maybe I should go back through the house and pick them all up.

Nobody really minds a little dirt on their ice cubes, do they?

- [Man] Hey buddy.

- Wait a minute, I wonder how many ice cubes I dropped.

(bell dinging) I know, I'll make a picture graph to help me figure it out.

My picture graph will start with a line, like this, near the left side of the page.

On this vertical line, remember, vertical means up and down, I'll write the name of whatever I want to keep track of and that could be just about anything, monkeys eating lunch, cars in a parking garage, dogs doing yoga.

You can make a picture graph of anything.

But today I want to track the number of ice cubes I dropped.

So I'll write ice cubes on the left side of my vertical line.

Now I'll draw a horizontal line.

Horizontal means it goes sideways.

I'll cross the lines into a corner down here.

Below the horizontal bottom line I'll write the names of the rooms in my house.

I'll have a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and hallway.

At the top, I'm going to draw what we call the key.

Whenever you look at a picture graph you should look at the key first.

It's a very important piece of information that you need to understand the rest of the graph.

I didn't have a a lot of ice cubes when I started dropping.

So I think for this chart I'll make one ice cube equal to one.

This one ice cube square that I've drawn will represent one ice cube.

Hmm, as I was running through my house dropping ice cubes where exactly did they fall?

I remember I dropped three ice cubes in the living room, four ice cubes in the kitchen, two in my bedroom, and one in the hall.

- (clears voice) Why would we use picture graphs instead of just numbers?

- Great question Student Steve, he sure is a cute kid.

Why do we use picture graphs?

Picture graphs make it easy to show and to understand information.

Look at the one we just made.

You can see the answer instantly.

If I ask you, where did I drop the most ice cubes?

- Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.

- Student Steve.

- The kitchen, that tallest bar says you dropped the most in the kitchen.

- You are correct.

On this graph the tallest line shows the biggest number.

Where did I drop the fewest?

- That would be the shortest column, the hall.

The hall.

(laughs) - Yikes, That's really too loud, Student Steve, go easy buddy, calm down.

So how many ice cubes did I drop in my living room and my hallway?

You can look at our graph and almost immediately tell it's.

- Four, four, four, four, four.

- Ow Student Steve, you're hurting my ears.

But you are exactly right.

As you can see on our picture graph there are three in the living room and one in the hallway.

(exhales) I'm almost afraid to ask this question.

How many ice cubes are in the kitchen and the bed?

- Six, six, six, six, six, six, six.

- Okay, okay, six is correct, but that's really enough noise for me.

Student Steve, why don't you go outside and play, run around a little.

- Oh okay, I will, thanks.

(whooshing) - Okay, now let's slow down and relax a little bit.

There's one more question about this graph.

How many ice cubes did I drop in my entire house?

The whole thing?

One, two, three, four, - [Student Steve] 10, 10, 10, 10.

- Correct, now moving on, let's pretend that I dropped many, many more ice cubes.

What if I had dropped 30 ice cubes in the living room, 40 ice cubes in the kitchen, 20 in my bedroom, and 10 in the hall?

33, 34, 35.

Drawing all of those ice cubes on the chart would take a really long time and it would get pretty messy.

But remember the key, this one ice cube symbol up here where I wrote one ice cube equals one.

I'm going to change that so one ice cube equals 10.

Now every one of my ice cube drawings represents 10 ice cubes.

See this one ice cube?

Because of what the key says, this one ice cube now represents 10.

How many ice cubes are in my kitchen?

10, 20, 30, 40.

Every one of these ice cube drawings represents 10 ice cubes.

Now the chart says the total number of ice cubes in my kitchen is 40.

How many ice cubes are now in my hallway?

It's only one cube on the chart, the key tells us one cube equals 10.

That means there are 10 ice cubes in my hallway.

So how many ice cubes are in my whole house?

Because the key changed from one ice cube equals one, to one ice cube equals 10.

My house now has 100 ice cubes in it.

What happens if I go crazy and change the key?

So one ice cube equals 1000 ice cubes.

Well, all of a sudden, according to the charts my house is completely filled with ice cubes.

- [Man] Oh no.

- The key says one ice cube drawing represents 1000 ice cubes.

How many does that mean there are in my house?

1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, 6,000, 7,000, 8,000, 9,000, 10,000.

10,000.

There are 10,000 ice cubes in my house.

That would be an avalanche of ice cubes.

(ice cubes rumbling) I better change that back to one ice cube equals one and we're safe again.

Woo, that was us just pretending.

We know there are only 10 ice cubes in my house.

I'll go back and get them.

(water splashing) Hold on a second.

Where are my ice cubes and why is my floor all wet?

I can't believe it, all of my ice cubes are gone.

And more importantly, why is my floor all wet?

How could this have happened?

Give me a minute, gimme a minute, I got this.

If I concentrate and think logically I'm sure I can figure this out.

(bell dings) I've got it.

A big snaggle tooth walrus followed me into the house and has taken all of my ice cubes.

Walruses love water and are almost always wet.

So that's why the floors are soaked.

Wait a minute, a walrus in the house.

That doesn't really make sense, does it?

What else could it possibly be?

(finger snap) Let's make a bar graph.

For this one, I asked 50 people what is their favorite pet?

The vertical line, up and down, on this graph will represent the number of people who told me about their favorite pet.

The horizontal line, side by side, are the different types of pets my friends mentioned.

I'm not great at drawing animals and a bar graph is a really good way to track a lot of data without having to draw a lot.

Like a picture graph, a bar graph is easy to read and will help you understand data quickly.

What animals did my friends say were their favorites?

The first pet is the horse potato.

Did I mention my friends have some strange pets?

Next is the bald weasel, then the vampire snail, and last of all a stick.

Let's look at the numbers.

30 of my friends said their favorite pet is a horse potato.

That means with my red pen I'll draw a line next to the mark for the number 30 and I'll fill in the column I've made.

Next I've got a blue pen, and 25 of my friends like the bald weasel.

Because 25 is between 20 and 30, I'll estimate where five would be and I'll draw my line right here in the middle of the two.

Then I'll fill in the column.

Only five of my friends said the vampire snail was their favorite.

A vampire snail doesn't really sound like very much fun but one of my friends sent one for me to play with.

Ah, it's kind of cute.

(snail growling) Ah, almost bit me.

That's the fastest snail I've ever seen.

I think I'll close this.

(tape warbling) (ding) Ha ha!

What a sweet animal.

I'll let him out later.

Five people voted for that little monster, I mean that sweet, little snuggle bug.

- [Man] Boink, boink.

- I've got a yellow pen and I'll draw a line where I estimate five will be and fill in the column.

40 of my friends said their favorite pet was a stick.

In their defense, have you ever played with a stick?

It's awesome and you only have to feed them once a day.

I'll draw the top of the column at 40 and fill it in.

One great thing about a bar graph is the data is really easy to understand.

Hmm, let's see, which pet is the most popular?

The way our bar graph is set up the tallest column would have the most votes, for most popular.

So we can see with 40 votes, the most popular pet amongst my friends is (imitates trumpet) the stick.

Which is the least popular?

Vampire snail, probably for a good reason.

You can see it's the shortest column, only five votes.

Most bar graphs don't have a key like the picture graph does.

These numbers on the vertical line tell us the information we would find on a key.

So why use a bar graph?

Because it's very easy to understand a lot of data quickly.

There is one more way to display data that I want to show you today.

This is going to be a line plot.

It's another fun way to show data.

Four of my friends and I went out to pick apples a few days ago.

One of my friends picked six apples, two of my friends picked seven apples, and one of my friends picked eight apples.

I only picked three apples.

Let me put this data on our line plot.

One friend had six, so I put a dot here.

Two friends had seven, two dots on seven.

One friend got eight.

Wow, and then there's mine, I only picked three.

I am at the bottom of the chart.

This chart shows my friends picked more apples than me.

I've got the whole basket of apples here and we can eat them.

Wait a minute, they're gone and the floor is soaking wet.

(walrus grunts) It's the walrus again.

No, it's the walrus in the house again.

(glass shattering) Hey, hey man, get off the counter.

There are a lot of great ways to illustrate and understand data.

Picture graphs, bar graphs, line plots.

Each one has its own special way of helping us understand data better.

Got lots of information you need to understand?

Pick a line, bar, or picture graph and see how great it works.

(walrus grunting) Ah, hey man, get off the couch.

I gotta go.

(upbeat music) - [Man] Biologically, chemically, atomically, everything is connected.

♪ Everything in here's connected ♪ - [Man] Major funding for this program provided by Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires.

Keep Alabama beautiful and Northrop Grumman.

♪ Yes the ocean is deep ♪ ♪ And the sky is so high ♪ ♪ And the Earth is so wide ♪ ♪ It's a mystery, but deep down everyone knows ♪ ♪ Everything here's connected ♪