(upbeat electronic music) - [Mister C] What time is it?

- [Mister C and Kids] It's science time.

♪ Oh, it's science, science, science time ♪ ♪ Let's all stop and just unwind ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, here we go ♪ ♪ Learn so much your brain explodes ♪ ♪ Lessons so cool, so fresh ♪ ♪ Feats so big you'll lose your breath ♪ ♪ Learning facts and real cool stuff ♪ ♪ Scream for more, can't get enough ♪ ♪ It's, it's science time ♪ ♪ It's fun, you best believe ♪ ♪ Explore and learn new things ♪ ♪ Come and join me, please ♪ (balloons popping) - I'm Mister C, and this super smart group is my science crew.

Working together with my crew makes learning so much fun.

Actually, you should join us.

Let's give science a try with a simple DIY.

Today we're visiting the Birmingham Zoo.

What time is it?

(letters swooshing) - [Mister C and Kids] It's science time.

- Welcome back to "DIY Science Time."

My name's Mister C, and I'm so excited that you're here to be part of the crew today.

(logo snapping) Today, we're at the Birmingham Zoo in Birmingham, Alabama, and we're going to be talking about animals and conservation.

I can't wait because they have all sorts of cool stuff we're gonna get to check out.

Are you ready?

Let's go.

(light upbeat music) ♪ It's science time, time, time, time, time ♪ ♪ It's science time, time, time, time, time ♪ ♪ It's science time, time, time, time, time ♪ (hand swooshing) ♪ It's science time ♪ I am so excited to be here at the Birmingham Zoo, and I'm excited to talk to Mollye Nardi, who is the general curator here at the zoo.

Mollye, how are you today?

- I'm great, and we're also very excited to have you guys.

We'll show off our whole zoo to you.

- I'm so excited to be here.

I love the zoo.

I grew up in Germany.

Zoos are cool there.

Zoos are cool here.

But more specifically, what makes the Birmingham Zoo so special?

- Here at the Birmingham Zoo, there's so many special things about our zoo.

Our mission is inspiring passion to conserve the natural world, and that's what we want to do.

So here, when you go to zoos, you expect to see all kinds of exotic animals, elephants, giraffes, lions, zebras, orangutans.

We have those, but we also have amazing collection of native species.

We want people to be inspired to conserve animals right here, not just overseas.

So you might see our bobcats, our sandhill cranes.

We have an opossum.

We have a skunk.

We have some incredible reptiles that are native to here, including our five species of pit vipers that can be found here in Alabama.

- So speaking of this zoo and speaking of all the cool stuff you've been talking about, I think we should go check out some of these amazing organisms and animals that you have here.

So show us the way.

- Definitely.

Let's go.

- All right.

- You might not be ready for a job taking care of animals at the zoo just yet, but we can all make it our job to improve the homes and habitats for the animals and critters that live in our neighborhood.

For this activity, you'll need to gather the following materials: cardboard, sticks, (tones chiming) a two-liter bottle or a similar container, scissors, paper-towel rolls.

And don't forget, you'll want to track who checks into your bug hotel, so go grab your science notebook registry.

- A science notebook is a tool that every scientist should have because it gives us a place to record all of our learning.

Taking notes and being organized allows us to be better scientists.

A science notebook allows us to go back and review all of the data and information we've gathered during our experiments.

Plus, it allows us to share results with other scientists who might be interested in learning more about what we've discovered.

Whenever you see the notebook pop up on the screen like this, it's a reminder that this is a good place for us to jot down new information during the show.

I've already added a title and a list of materials for today's activity, but our crew is still going to have lots of information to collect and organize as we go through our experiments.

Most importantly, the more you use a science notebook, the better you'll get at taking notes and recording data.

If you don't have a science notebook already, download a copy of Mister C's science notebook from the website.

- [Mister C] One of our first stops was the reptile house.

We got to see all sorts of cool reptiles in their habitats, and that's where we met Macy.

She was able to show us Magnolia, an albino pine snake, Tootsie, a box turtle, and this little cutie with the big nose, big eyes, and big paws.

- So this here is Rose.

She's a Virginia opossum.

A lot of times we tend to drop that O and call them possums.

There are animals called possums that live in places like Australia versus- - Interesting.

- We have the Virginia opossum here in the United States.

- She has really big teeth.

- Yep, so these guys have actually more teeth than most mammals.

They have 52 teeth, which is almost twice as many as we do.

These guys are what's called an opportunistic omnivores.

So they see food, they eat it.

That means fruits, veggies, insects, even meat.

Especially rotting meat and vegetation they will eat.

So they need all different types of teeth to eat all the different types of food.

They need incisors, big canines, and lots and lots of molars in the back of their mouth.

- And we all know opossums have a very special way to defend themselves.

- Yes, they do play opossum or play dead, but did you know it's actually an involuntary response?

They can't choose when they do it.

So if they see a predator or sense a predator and get very, very scared, they will flop over, lower their heart rate, lower their breathing rate.

So they'll even go to the bathroom on themselves trying to be as stinky as possible.

So say that predator, something like a coyote or a bobcat, comes up to them and thinks, "Woof, has been dead for days."

- Stay away.

- And they'll go find another easy meal.

Eventually the possum will pop back up, clean themselves off, and continue on their way, but it could be hours later that their body eventually calms down.

- She is beautiful.

Her sniffer is going crazy.

I love it.

- Bye, Rose.

Thanks for visiting with us.

(light upbeat music) (birds chirping) (graphic chimes) (graphic chimes) (light upbeat music continues) - So a little behind the scenes, we're actually going to go into the giraffe exhibit, and we're gonna get to feed the giraffes.

This is super exciting.

So they're gonna come right to us here.

So we are here with the giraffe and with Ashley, who is a lead animal care professional.

Where are we at?

What are we doing?

- We are in the Trails of Africa Department here at the zoo, feeding our giraffe.

- Jalil, correct?

- Jalil, yeah.

- Tell me a little bit about Jalil, and do we call it a herd of giraffes?

- It is a herd of giraffe, yeah.

So we have a herd of four here.

So Jalil is our only male that we have.

He is 19 years old, and he is a dad to our little baby Mopani over there.

Jalil really loves people, and he also really loves his lettuce.

- I see that.

(both laugh) So I mean, literally, he's just absorbing.

How much does a animal this size eat a day?

- Yeah, so for lettuce specifically, the limit does not exist, so they can have as much lettuce as they want.

So we use lettuce a lot for their training.

So any medical behaviors that we ask them to participate in, he actually participates in them for lettuce.

And then he also gets a grain diet, so he gets about 10 pounds of grain a day, just him specifically.

And then they eat a special type of hay called an alfalfa hay, which is a leafy type of hay.

And between the whole herd, they split about 100 pounds.

You can give him that part.

- Oh, he'll eat this too?

- That's the best part.

- There you go.

There you go.

(Ashley laughs) Hi, buddy.

- So they split about 100 pounds of hay a day between all four of them.

So if you hold a piece of lettuce out just a little bit, you can kind of see their tongues.

- (laughs) Oh my.

- So their tongues are that purple color, and it kind of acts as like a natural sunscreen for their tongues.

So out in the wild and here in Birmingham, their tongues spend quite a lot of time outside of their body, as you can see.

The purple color is actually just a natural sunscreen so their tongues don't get sunburnt.

- That is such a cool little fact.

I had no idea.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Hi.

- There you go.

(laughs) - Wow.

- He said, "I just want the lettuce, actually."

- His head is just like ginormous.

- So you can give him this whole head of lettuce.

He'll take that whole thing from you.

So if you just give it to him, he'll take it.

- All right, we're gonna give the giraffe an entire head of lettuce.

Oh my goodness.

(Ashley laughs) (giraffe crunching) Well, on that note, Ashley, thank you for having us here, hanging out with our friends, the giraffes.

Amazing.

I can't believe I'm this literally close to these animals.

- Did you know that hippos are semi-aquatic creatures that cannot swim?

Hippos sink under the surface and are actually walking on the bottom of riverbeds.

Their dense bones allow their bodies to be neutrally buoyant.

This allows them to glide beneath the surface with ease.

Even cooler, hippos can stay submerged like this for up to 16 hours.

That's definitely one way to stay cool on a hot, sunny day.

Do you ever get a sinking feeling someone is watching you?

Yikes.

- Zoos are amazing places that focus on conservation and research to help animals.

They work diligently to mimic natural biomes for the animals that they care for.

This means they create enclosures with grass, trees, water features, and climate-controlled environments to replicate natural habitats for all of their animals.

I am so excited because we are at the Predator Zone here at the zoo, and I'm here with Kat, who is the zoological manager for this area.

Kat, what are we gonna see today?

And tell me a little bit more of what's behind this.

- All right, yeah, guys, we're gonna be meeting Josh, our African lion, today.

We're gonna be doing a training session with him with my ACP, Mia.

We're gonna learn about how we use operant conditioning to enhance his enrichment and his life overall here at the zoo.

(door rattling) - [Mia] Hi!

Josh, let's go.

Are you hungry?

Hi.

- [Kaitlan] Josh is trained to present multiple parts of his body, his mouth, his paws, his sides, present his hip for injections so we can give him injections without him being under anesthesia.

He's trained to give us his tail so that we can draw blood without anesthesia.

- [Mia] Target.

(graphic chimes) (object whistles) Target.

(object whistles) Up.

(graphic chimes) (object whistles) Good.

Jump.

(object whistles) - [Mister C] I'm gonna feed him, guys.

- Perfect.

- Oh my.

(lion growls) - Behind this and then straight through.

(graphic chimes) And then pull it back.

Perfect.

- [Kaitlan] Would you like to do another?

- [Mister C] Sure.

- [Kaitlan] She'll load it for you, yeah.

- [Mister C] He's communicating with me.

- [Mia] Yeah, he's got a lot to say.

- Just straightforward?

- Yeah, straightforward.

- [Mister C] There you go, buddy.

- [Kaitlan] All right, and then you'll step back, and then we'll get back over here.

- Thank you, Josh.

(Mia laughs) - [Kaitlan] All done.

Good boy.

- [Mister C] It's insane how massive that creature is.

- [Mia] Yeah, yeah, he's about 415, 420 pounds at the moment.

- [Mister C] I mean, his paws are- - [Kaitlan] Same size as our face?

(laughs) - Yeah, that is a massive animal.

(lion roars) That is amazing.

(Mister C and Kaitlan laugh) We're building a bug hotel.

This fun activity is going to allow you to build a habitat for the critters in your neighborhood to come over and hang out.

Most importantly, just like the zoo, this habitat will invite creatures and keep them happy and warm when it's raining outside or when it's snowing.

So let's get to it.

We're going to get started with this cardboard box, which will separate our area into multiple sections.

That way our bugs have a cool place to visit, and you can organize this any way you want.

So now that I have it sort of organized and laid out, I'm going to glue this all in place to try to keep all of my little rooms that are separated right now in the same place because when I tip it up, I don't want it to fall apart.

So the glue is gonna help keep it all together.

And then I'm going to stuff all the little different sections with different things to make my bug hotel attractive to all sorts of critters.

There we go.

So everything holds in place.

Now it's time to fill.

So I'm just going to try different things.

We'll do some twigs and bark.

We'll use some cardboard to fill in the empty spaces.

(graphic chimes) (graphic chimes) (twig snaps) Whoa, (laughs) it went right by the lens.

Science.

(twig snaps) (object creaking) - Yay!

- For the bugs.

All bugs are welcome at the Mister C Hotel.

Come on down for your free night stay.

You got bark.

You got sticks and twigs.

You've got plastic containers, and you've got lots of shelter.

We'll take care of you, and the charge, absolutely free for insects.

(upbeat electronic music) And there we have it, the bug hotel for "DIY Science Time," attracting bugs from all over the country to come join us here in our neighborhood.

So much fun.

Look at all the different living spaces that we can have for our bugs.

We have our little twig section.

We have our things for our bees, and this one I left wide open so anything can crawl in there and make itself maybe a little nest or something.

This is a really fun way to connect with the bugs in my neighborhood and help support the ecosystem in which they live.

- Goats are extremely intelligent animals, and baby goats are called kids.

No kidding.

(Lyla bleating) The goats at the zoo give patrons the opportunity to interact directly with these friendly, sociable creatures.

What's fascinating about these animals is that they have horizontal pupils, which allow them to see 320 to 340 degrees around them.

This adaptation allows them to spot predators without moving their head.

These goats have definitely got a good eye on things.

(light upbeat music) - So I'm here at the elephant yard with Shay, who is the elephant manager, and she's gonna talk to us about the special herd that they have here at the Birmingham Zoo.

How are you today?

- I'm doing well.

So we have a bachelor herd here at the Birmingham Zoo, and that is only males.

So we have one adult bull who is kind of in charge, and he leads the herd, and he teaches the boys how to behave and gives them the space to kind of work themselves out until they grow up and they're ready to move on.

- So why is that such a unique thing to have an all-male herd?

- Most places are set up to be a breeding herd to, you know, have little baby elephants, and they usually only have space for one or two bulls at a time.

But you get 50-50 when you have baby elephants, and so there needs to be somewhere for those bulls to go.

If they were out in Africa, they would leave their mom's herd.

When they start to get into puberty, they start getting bigger.

They're a little bit more rough and tumble.

They're looking for more attention, and the moms and the aunties are just trying to raise their babies, and they say, "I can't give you that attention."

- [Mister C] That's hilarious.

- So those little boys, they go out looking for it, and they find it with their pals.

And sometimes they leave the herd for a night, and sometimes they leave the herd for a couple days, and eventually they just don't come back.

And they start palling around with each other, and they kind of have this in-between phase in their life where they're not quite ready to breed.

They need buddies to hang out with, and that's what we do for them.

Good boy, Luti.

Good boy.

Sadee, Luti, salute.

Good boy!

All right.

(light upbeat music) (graphic chimes) Good boy.

So I'm gonna get in position first, and then I'll let you know that you can come up.

And you can come up next to me, and we'll throw 'em right in his mouth.

He's probably gonna need a chance to like crunch on it.

If for some reason he starts to bring his nose down, I'm gonna tell you to back up.

I'm stepping up.

Open.

There's a good boy.

Good.

Good boy.

(Mister C speaks faintly) I'm ready.

Good boy, Luti.

- Throw it in?

- Get in there, go ahead.

- Oh.

- Good boy.

Open.

Good.

Try again.

Good boy.

You got one more?

- Yep.

- [Shay] Good boy.

Good, Luti.

You want one?

Gotta chew a little bit.

Good.

All right.

We'll back up.

Luti, come.

Good boy.

Turn.

There you go.

Good boy.

Good.

Good, Luti.

Good boy.

(graphic chimes) You're good to come up on my right, closer to the pole.

- Right here?

- Yep.

Just watch where this is, but you can... Yeah, this one isn't hot here.

(graphic chimes) Good boy.

Easy, buddy.

- Oh, wow.

I can't believe that's the texture of his skin.

- [Shay] What a good boy.

- That is insane.

- That's crazy.

- I'm gonna try and scoot him this way a little bit more.

Good!

- [Mister C] So the tail has like a different texture.

- [Shay] Easy, buddy.

Good boy.

Yeah, it's a little bit different, right, 'cause the skin is a little looser.

It's over muscle, whereas the skin on his tail, you know, it's mostly over bone.

- [Mister C] It's like leather.

It doesn't feel real.

It doesn't feel like I'm touching an elephant.

I've never touched an elephant before.

- That's a real one right there.

- [Mister C] I know, I know.

This is amazing.

Hey, buddy.

Luti!

So big.

It's insane.

- [Shay] Go ahead and step back.

- [Worker] Good boy.

- [Shay] Good boy.

All right.

Good boy.

Open.

I'm so proud of you, mister.

Good boy.

All right.

(Mister C laughs) - Shay, that was amazing.

Thank you for the surprise.

So much fun being able to be up close touching an African elephant.

That was amazing.

- Well, thank you so much for being here with us today, Kevin.

- I'm looking forward to showcasing this for everybody.

And Luti, thank you so much.

(gentle upbeat music) (soft tone chimes) Let's build a biome.

(graphic chimes) In this container here, we're going to be building a desert biome, which means we're going to select plants that don't need a lot of water.

That's why I went with these succulents and this cactus.

They don't need a lot of water, so once I set this up, I can spritz, and I can forget about it for a little while, but they can grow and be happy.

As you can see, I'm adding large rocks to the container.

Just in case I overwater, the water can pour down into the bottom of the container and prevent the roots from getting saturated and getting too wet.

My second layer of rocks is a little bit smaller.

It's gonna fill in all the gaps and prevent the soil from falling through and getting stuck on the bottom.

The big rock is going to support the cactus.

I want to keep it up and above all the other ones because it's gonna require the least amount of water.

So what I'm going to try is to actually build like a shelf.

So I'm gonna have a low level here, another level here, and then my high level here.

(rocks clattering) (gentle upbeat music continues) So now that I have my plants sort of where I want them, I'm going to add soil around to get them tucked in so that they're stable before I do any sort of watering.

(cup rattling) (light upbeat music continues) So my cactus is set, and now it's time to do a little decoration.

I've got these teeny-tiny little mushrooms.

We're gonna kind of plop them in.

I have this little teeny-tiny little table, but I have this little pupperoni, this little dog that's gonna hang out here also.

I'm gonna place the doggy right here.

(dog barking) See, I love building things like this because this little biome is so different than the area in which I live.

We get lots of rain, lots of snow.

This is going to be dry.

If I were a desert-dwelling creature, I would love living here.

So I'm gonna challenge you and your crew to build a biome of your choice.

Give it a try, have some fun, and take notes in your science notebook when you keep track of how these organisms are able to survive in your biome.

- Roar!

I wanna go live at the zoo with the lions.

Going to the zoo today has been so much fun.

Look at all these notes we've taken.

We've learned about their habitats and how the keepers take care of them.

What an amazing place to visit.

You should check it out too.

Do you have any pets at home?

If not, consider building a bug hotel like Mister C did.

Wait a second, Mister C, you forgot to put the hotel outside.

You do that, and I'm going to go check out more animals at the zoo.

- We're gonna put our bug motel right here on this stump so that it stays dry, but I have this little cover we put on.

It should inspire lots of bugs to come and live here.

This should be awesome.

We'll come back and check it out here soon in a couple of weeks.

(birds squawking) (bird honking) I'm here with Dr.

Sarah Wilson, who's the director of animal health.

And you ultimately take care of all the animals and make sure that they are healthy and ready to go so people like me come and visit, and we get to see these cool animals.

- Sure do.

Me and my team make sure they're all healthy.

They all have all the medical care they need, and, yeah.

- Now, I know that today we have a very special thing that we're going to be able to be participating with.

- So Han is the flamingo.

He is in his 20s.

About a month ago, we noticed he was very inflated while we felt him, and so likely his air sac has ruptured.

And so birds have special respiratory system differences from us.

They have air sacs, which can act as a reservoir to hold air so that they have a more efficient respiratory system than mammals do.

I think he probably slipped and popped one open.

And so now he has air underneath.

He kind of feels like a beach ball.

And so we're gonna go ahead and get some X-rays, make sure there's not too much air in there.

If there is, we'll drain it out and see what it looks like after.

Sounds good.

- Oh, and speaking of which, (flamingo squawking) I think we hear a guest that's coming.

(mellow upbeat music) - All right, ready?

Poke.

Now Riley's just gonna pull that air out.

And so she's using what's called a three-way stopcock, so we can push the air out of that instead of back into him.

And we'll pull it out, and then we'll push it back out of here so it enters the room air instead of back into him.

- That's a lot of air.

- Yes, he's a pretty big bird, and their air volume when they breathe in, they need a lot of oxygen to power their muscles for flight.

And so their respiratory system is just so big and so efficient.

And when they have something like this happen, it can definitely lead to massive quantities of air going places they shouldn't.

But you know, a team of five, we managed to get it done.

There's quite a few animals (laughs) here.

We're very busy, but it's definitely, it's a good team.

You wanna be done, bud?

Okay, okay.

He says we're done.

- I'm done.

(flamingo squawking) - Can I feel this?

Oh, that feels way better.

- Yeah, I can really already feel the difference.

- Sounds good.

(flamingo squawking) - So that was a really cool process seeing how you pull the air off the flamingo, but what do the X-rays actually tell us?

- Yeah, so we have the before and the after X-rays.

They were voluntary, and so the positioning is what he would allow us to do.

But you can see here, the skin is this kind of gray there, and you can see it's very wide, and underneath there's a lot of that black color.

That's all air under there.

And so all of this is air that shouldn't be there.

And so that was before we drained him.

After we drained him, you can see that we did make a difference.

There's still air there, but we did pull just shy of 3 1/2 liters of air off of him.

There's probably another liter or so, but between him showing he was done with the exam, and I don't know that there's a benefit to pulling more off of him at this point, we decided to call it.

We definitely made him more comfortable 'cause there is less air there, and our game plan is just gonna be to monitor him, check in in two weeks and kind of see what it looks like.

- Well, the coolest thing is is I got to see that whole process, and I know that our friend Han is in great hands.

So thank you for allowing us to be part of this process.

- Of course.

- And being so up and close and personal with it.

I appreciate your time so much.

- Of course.

You should thank Han.

- I definitely will.

(Sarah laughing) (bell dings) What an amazing day spending the time here at the Birmingham Zoo with our friend, Mollye Nardi.

That was awesome.

Thanks so much for having us.

- Thank you so much for coming.

Really appreciate showing everything off here.

♪ It's science time, time, time, time, time ♪ - Yeah, it's wild, lots of fun.

And who knows, we'll be hanging around with some cool monkeys.

Take care, everybody.

See ya.

(tone beeps) Oh, eat the mic.

- Don't do that, don't.

(Mister C laughs) - Pause it.

- Heads up.

- Oh!

(Shay laughs) - [Worker] He's targeting you.

(tone beeps) (upbeat music) (tone beeps) - Awesome.

- That is such a huge animal.

It doesn't even make sense.

- Good boy.

- [Shay] We're gonna have Kevin feed.

- Okay.

- Step in and get some X-rays.

- [Mister C] Aw, such a pretty, pretty animal.

- [Worker] Mm-hm.