- [Narrator] What time is it?

- [Children] It's science time.

♪ 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 new and so fresh ♪ ♪ Beats 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.

♪ - I'm Mr. C and this super-smart group is my science crew.

Lyla is our notebook navigator.

Alfred is our experiment expert.

Rylee is our dynamite demonstrator.

And London is our research wrangler.

Working with my team is the best, and makes learning so much fun.

Actually, you should join us.

Today, we're talking about adaptations.

What time is it?

- [Children] 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 our science crew today.

We're at the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama and we are at the Dolphin Island Sea Lab, where we are going to explore all things adaptations.

I can't wait.

Stingray, sharks, horseshoe crabs.

You name it, we're going to see it.

Are you ready to have some fun?

Let's get started.

♪ It's time ♪ ♪ It's science time ♪ ♪ It's so much fun ♪ ♪ Learning fun for everyone, everyone ♪ ♪ It's science time ♪ ♪ Yes, you best believe ♪ ♪ Explore and learn new things ♪ ♪ Here with Mister C ♪ ♪ It's science time every day ♪ ♪ We know it's awesome ♪ ♪ We know it's great ♪ ♪ It's science time ♪ ♪ So here we go together now ♪ ♪ Enjoy the show ♪ ♪ Hands are clapping ♪ - This spectacular activity will have you talking adaptations with your science crew.

You're going to need the following materials: googly eyes, thumbtacks, toothpicks, crafts sticks, scissors, maybe some more thumbtacks, fabric, chenille stems.

And don't forget, your amazing adaptable science notebook.

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

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

A science notebook allows us to go back and review all 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.

You can see I've already added a title and a list of materials for today's activity.

Our crew is still going to have lots of information to collect and organize as we go through the experiment, so keep your notebook handy.

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

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

- Welcome, everyone.

My name is Greg Graber and I am a marine educator at the Dolphin Island Sea Lab, and we are out at the beautiful airport salt marsh on the Mississippi Sound of Alabama, everybody.

And so, I believe today we are talking about adaptations of critters and how this habitat functions for those adaptations.

And so, ready to get into it?

- Yeah, I'm really excited because this is an area that I'm not used to where I come from in Dayton, Ohio.

So, seeing some of these critters and how they've adapted to live here is phenomenal.

So, what can we see?

- So, one of them happens to be right by your feet, and I always joke about trying to find them, and that is snails.

So, there's one.

And then, we've got snails over here as well.

We've got marsh periwinkle snails, a huge player in the ecology of the marsh.

Also, big food for lots and lots and lots of critters.

- How has something like this adapted to the area?

- So, this is amazing.

So, these snails that we can pick up right here, 'cause you can see the easy tide pool right here, you can see the easy canal over here.

The crabs have easy access 'cause we're at high tide, so they can just come on in.

Well, the snails are adapted because when they smell the crabs, they run up the grass.

And so, they try to get out of the water while they are out, looking for not getting eaten.

- So, their sniffer is to help protect them.

- They are, they are.

But this is what's even crazier, is that they can actually basically manipulate their shell when they smell the presence and they can feel the presence of blue crabs in the area.

Over time, they can actually thicken and harden up their shells, and make it more dense to protect themselves from the crushing power of a claw of one of those crabs.

- So, these are our permanent residents in the are - Correct.

- The question is, is are there also things like temporary residents?

- Definitely.

And that's what again, people have more of a connection with than a snail crawling up some grass.

And that's where we get our seafood from.

So this grass back here, this is where our shrimp and our crabs are all gonna grow up in.

And so including fish like red snapper, every once in a while we'll get a little baby snapper, but red drum and other things that people have more of a personal connection with.

- All right, so where can we see that.

- Right on the other side?

Let's get to it.

- Let's do it.

- What, what we're using here is what is called a seine net.

And this is used all around the world for a variety of things.

But here at the C lab we use big ones.

We use small ones for sampling a variety of habitat.

Some have chains on 'em to make 'em heavier.

This is simply weights on the bottom, floats on the top, - floats on the top.

- And you gotta make sure, grab it right here in the center.

And then we're gonna walk away from each other.

And Dave make a big scoop.

Make a big scoop up and sure enough, oh.

- We caught some fish.

- Critters.

We got critters.

All right.

So with the tide this high, let's lift it up.

- All right, - Let's grab it in the middle before they get out and then we'll bring it like right over here to the grass.

That way we can actually see what we catch.

- All right.

Oh there's some, Is that a shrimp?

- Shrimp, crabs.

I think I saw little crab.

- This little shrimp, right there right?

- Shrimp everywhere.

So they look like popping popcorn.

That's their natural defense is to jump backwards away from it.

And so these are grass shrimp.

- Can we hold them?

- Definitely.

Definitely.

Pick 'em up.

We got grass shrimp.

Here's one that is gravid, It's with eggs.

So you can see, - Oh Cool - the babies underneath her.

And then here is, - Should I put her back in?

- You can.

You can drop her back in.

And so these grass shrimp are not any that we're gonna eat, but this guy you can see it's got some stripes and some colors on it.

That is a pink, white or brown that is our commercial shrimp species.

- Oh wow.

- So yeah, exactly.

So there's the jump.

I told you it looks like popping popcorn and that's exactly what they do.

That's their natural defense to get away.

So we got shrimp and this is as big as these guys are ever gonna get.

So these are actually permanent residents and they're kind of a food source for other creatures.

But here are the.

- Whoa, they are jumping all over the place.

- It's what they do.

- They're awesome.

- So and when the tide is low and they're concentrated that little dip net we reuse, it looks like popping popcorn is literally jumping out of the net.

- Salt marshes get their salt from the seawater that comes in with the tides.

They are marshy because their ground is composed a fine muddy sediment and decomposing plant matter known as peet.

(upbeat music) - Adaptations are traits that help organisms such as plants or animals survive and reproduce in their habitats.

Beneficial traits are passed from one generation to the next allowing organisms to change over time in response to changes to their environment.

Greg has a collection of amazing specimens that are used to show students what kind of adaptations can be found right here at Dolphin Island.

For example, tiger sharks like this one, have dark colors on their sides to blend into their surroundings and they also have many, many, many teeth.

Their teeth never stop growing, ensuring that if they lose some while hunting, they can always replace them and be ready to capture their next lunch in a few days.

Check out this thresher shark.

It has a super long strong tail and it uses that tail to whip and stun its prey so that it can eat.

And check out this toad fish, which doesn't have any scales at all.

Instead, it has a slimy skin, which allows it to squeeze and wedge itself into tight spaces to stay hidden from predators.

Check out this porcupine fish.

They have spiky points covering their bodies and when they feel threatened, they puff themselves up many times bigger so that predators are scared and won't try to attack them.

And check out this batfish.

Yes, a batfish.

It walks on its pelvic and pictorial fins.

You'll notice that the batfish also looks like a rock to camouflage itself to catch prey.

Knowing about all these different adaptations will allow you and your crew to build your own potato fish.

- So it's time to make our own potato fish and use three or four adaptations to enhance its ability to survive in the wild.

- No doubt.

- All right, so we have craft materials.

I want you to make your own fish with some adaptations.

I'm gonna make mine and then we're gonna share with the audience and explain to our science crew at home what these fish can do and how they're able to survive.

You ready?

- Sounds great.

- All right, let's go.

Let's do it.

(upbeat music) - Oh, you made yours like a slapper thing.

- Potato Fish.

- So my potato fish is really cool.

It's got spikes for protection.

And then I use some Q-tips here and these are like feelers so it's able to sense like water temperature change and it's able to kind of move around on the ground.

He's a bottom feeder actually, his mouth is somewhere down here.

I didn't make a mouth yet, but what's really cool about mine, he has two eyes, one on the front and one on the back.

And the one on the back is able to move around and look in all directions and turn backwards.

So he is always protected from front or behind.

- Whoa.

- Yeah.

And he's a really slow fish and that means he's not able to go fast.

So he has to have protection from all sides.

- Well that's pretty awesome.

- What's your do?

- Did you know there's actually a creature that has a tail eye?

Horseshoe crabs have a little tiny photo eye on their tail.

- Cool.

So I have like, and I didn't even know that.

- Yeah, so that's kind of fun.

- Awesome.

- Well mine used the eye of the potato to have the gnarliest mouth ever.

So a little bit of adaptation with feelers like the toad fish and a catfish that they can sense around bottom feeder as well.

But it does have stalked eyes so it can bury in the sand and still see above the sand.

And it's brown like the potato intentionally 'cause it's gonna stay in that mud.

Now what it does have is little soft landing gears like kitty soft paws and Puss in Boots.

So it can land nice and soft, but on the sides, like other fish, it has a lateral line so it can feel vibrations in the water that may be coming up towards it.

And then the back two thin spines are to attract a mate and they can wiggle those around.

But it has a rudder for a tail.

So it doesn't swim very fast like that, but it has kind of a tail like that puffer fish we had.

- Very cool.

- And so it can paddle back and forth.

- Well there you have it.

That is a simple way to build your own fish and most importantly grab a potato and make your own potato fish like we did.

Have fun.

Enjoy.

And we'll see you in the next activity.

- Potato fish.

An estuary is a partially enclosed body of water formed where fresh water from rivers and streams flows into the ocean mixing with the salty water.

Dolphin island estuaries are very important because their unique makeup is home to many unique animals.

- For this next activity, we're talking adaptations.

That's right.

We're building sneaky science snakes.

Say that five times fast.

Sneaky science snakes.

Sneaky science snakes.

Sneaky, sni.. Sneaky sni (laughs) Sneaky science snakes.

That's right.

Sneaky science snakes are snakes that hide around in your house and they're made from craft sticks.

That's right.

Can you see one right now?

Over here over my right shoulder.

So this snake here has a shell.

It's a special snake.

It's adapted to live on a countertop.

That's right.

You can see that it has these marble stripes just like the countertop so it blends in.

And when it was further away it was harder to see.

So we are going to make our own sneaky science snakes very easily.

How?

Grab some craft sticks.

Grab some markers and have some fun.

I am actually going to be building my sneaky science snake using a t-shirt.

The color pattern on my sneaky science snake allows it to blend in fairly well with my shirt because this is where it's going to live.

This will be its home.

So now that we have our sneaky science snake finished, I have some tape.

I'm just gonna put on the back of it.

We're gonna see what it looks like on my shirt.

♪ Wow!

♪ Yep.

Can't see it.

(laughs) Well where did it go?

Where's my sneaky science snake?

So here's the thing, I'm going to challenge you to take a craft stick.

It can be any craft stick.

I want you to decorate it.

I want you to camouflage your craft stick so that people in your house can't find it.

And you might be saying that's not fun.

Well here's, here's something I wanna share with you.

Can you find the other three sneaky science snakes that are on set with me right here in the studio?

Right here in my kitchen?

Can you find them?

All right, I'll give you a hint.

There's two on this side and there's one on this side.

Did you find them?

All right, I'm gonna circle 'em right now.

There they are.

There they are.

Aren't they sneaky?

Those sneaky science snakes.

Sneaky science snakes.

Sneaky science.

(laughs) So cute.

Yes.

Here are two of my critters.

Here's a sneaky science snake.

And here is, well it's more like a chameleon.

He has legs and everything like that.

But I try to make them blend in with their surroundings to protect them, right?

So that other critters couldn't find them and eat them.

Give it a try.

Have some fun.

Put 'em all over your house and see if your family can find your sneaky science snakes or crafted chameleons around your house.

Have fun with your science crew.

See ya.

(music) - Why is the beach always so confident?

It's a hundred percent shore.

- I'm with Will Balentine.

And now we're going to be digging a little deeper and talking about something.

I'm not even sure what this is.

Will what?

What is this actually?

- Well, I'm a PhD student here at the Dolphin on Sea Lab and I love worms.

And today I've brought some really cool, really interesting worms here called myriads.

So these are myriad worms, they're called, they're polychaete worms.

And they're called that because they have all of these little legs on them.

Would you like to hold this?

- Sure.

Oh, they're slimy.

So they're just like a traditional worm, but they look a little different, right?

I mean they have these legs.

- So they're kind of like a traditional worm and they're, they're related to the earth worms that you might find in their garden.

In your garden.

And they do a lot of the similar things.

But they're, they're covered in these little leg structures that we call chaetae.

And that's why we call them polychaete.

That means many chaetae And so they have many legs and they have these legs 'cause they are living in muds in the ocean and in these ocean muds, they are pushing around and burrowing through these muds.

And they need these legs to help give them strength to push through and propagate cracks through these ocean muds.

- So that's how they've adapted to be able to go through the thick mud is these little legs move them through.

- Exactly.

So they need these legs to help push their heads side to side.

And it actually propagates a crack through the mud and they crawl through that crack.

- So I'm assuming like other worms, these will continue to grow.

Like if I were to accidentally break one apart, or one would get injured by say, you know, a predator or something like that, it would actually grow back?

- Absolutely.

So if a fish bit, this thing's tail off and actually you can see something has just eaten its tail previously at this color change, it will, will grow back.

No problem.

These are annelid worms, which means they're segmented and each segment has one leg.

And basically if you break it off anywhere at a segment from that segment back, it will start to regrow its tail or regrow the rest of its body.

- Oh, that is really phenomenal.

That is really cool.

This is something I've never seen before, nor have I held it.

I mean these, it feels just like a worm, but it doesn't feel like a worm.

Hey buddy.

There you go.

ll right, so on that note, that is a huge worm.

- That's a very big worm.

- So I, I know you also do some work with smaller worms and like how much smaller do they get?

- Worms can get really, really small.

They can get so small that you couldn't even see them on the head of a pencil.

We're talking smaller than a millimeter or around one to two millimeters long.

And so those worms, unlike these which live in mud, some of the really small worms live in sand and they're so small that they actually slip in between the spaces in between grains of sand, kind of like you can see here with these gummy worms and ping pong balls.

- Because the grain of sand is like what, like half a millimeter?

- Like half a millimeter.

So these guys are crawling in the spaces in between.

It's like living in the world's largest ball pit.

(laughs) - So seeing some of these, in order to see something like this, what do we have to do?

- We would have to put these under a microscope, but before you could even put 'em under a microscope, you have to get 'em outta the sand.

So we put 'em in a big vial, we shake 'em up, they kind of float out of the sand, and then we pour that water under the microscope and that's how we can see them.

- So they kind of rise out of the sand as you shake 'em?

- Yep.

Because they're less dense than the sand.

So the sand sinks and the worms float and then we can pull them out through the water.

So this is one of my favorite worms.

This is called a protodrilid.

And he's so small, he's about a millimeter to two millimeters in size and he doesn't have all of those legs.

All of those chaetae.

like our bigger niriads did did despite still being polychaetes.

And that's because he's adapted to living in these small spaces in between the grains of sand where he's not crawling and pushing through.

He's slipping and sliding on the spaces in between the grains of sand.

And to live in this environment, they have all kinds of special adaptations, like sticky tails that we can kind of represent with this gummy worm hand here.

And they'll grab onto the sand grains as they're moving through and anchor themselves down and stretch forward and then sling back if they find something they don't like.

And they'll stretch forward and they'll sling back if they don't like something and they can even fire things around with them.

So they, that's an adaptation that they have for interstitial space.

And they also have these long antenna that they use to, or palps, that they use to feel out the spaces in between the grains of sand and kind of feel the spaces before they enter because it's dark down there and they can't really see.

And so they have to feel these spaces out before they go inside.

- That's, that's amazing.

So they're really, they're, they're like worms that can move around regular on everything.

They have their antenna to, to feel and to see with their antenna.

And then they have this tail and what is this called again?

- So this is what we would call their pygidium, which is just a word for the final segment of the worm, but I just say tail because nobody knows what a pygidium is.

- Pygidium.

- Yeah.

- So having a pygidium allows you to crawl through the sand relatively easily.

- Well, yeah, and it allows you, it anchors you down so you can change direction quickly.

So if you're pulling through these sand grains and you run into a predator or a space that's too small, you can retract very quickly and escape that situation.

- Well thanks so much.

I mean that was so much fun.

And believe it or not, we actually have to jump to another segment in the show so that we can talk about more critters.

- Excellent.

- Thank you so much.

- Mr. C is feeding these stingrays frozen squid.

However, stingrays also eat clams, shrimp, and muscles.

What's even cooler is they have eyes on top of their bodies, but they use their electro sensors to locate their next meal.

- This next adventure puts us aboard the research vessel Alabama Discovery.

And this is when we set sail to find ocean dwelling critters.

(upbeat music) In order to catch organisms for research, we have to drop a net into the ocean to drag along the bottom of the ocean.

(music continues) And while the net catches critters, the deck table is prepared for the day's hall.

This is Virginia Driskell.

She is a marine educator here at Dolphin Island Sea Lab.

- Yeah, so all of these are butterfly rays except for this one.

This one's in a little Atlantic ray, but the barb came off in the net, so it's gonna be safe to allow the kids to pass around and look at it.

You see the barb is gone.

- And the barb is an adaptation for protection, right?

- It is for sure.

And it's like, it's like, it grows back, like your fingernail will go back.

- She educates students all about the various critters that are caught and studied on this research vessel.

Virginia helps students learn and understand about these critters and how they are adapted to survive in this ecosystem.

- That's right.

And so these things are really cool.

These are swimmerets, so some crabs.

When you go to the marsh, you'll see some walking crabs called fiddler crabs.

They only have these kind of things here that are like legs for them to walk around on.

This crab can walk and swim at the same time.

- Look at this, we caught a butterfly ray.

It has a mouth on the bottom of its body and this allows it to feed from the ocean floor.

We also caught some really big shrimp that pop and jump to get away from predators.

They were really jumpy and they actually scared me quite often, while I was holding them.

But my favorite, honestly, my favorite was the sea robin.

This creature is so cute and so weird looking.

This fish has fins that look very similar to the wings of a bird that billow like a parachute, allowing it to gently glide through the ocean.

And if you look closely, they also have feet, yes, feet on the bottom of their bodies that allow them to walk and scoot across the ocean floor.

My favorite part about this adventure was literally hanging out with all of the students who were there learning with me.

We were talking about things and seeing things that we had never seen before.

And that is what made this adventure spectacular.

- When you get to be around something like this and see the beauty of nature and how nature has adapted to be able to survive, there's nothing better.

(upbeat music) - Pelicans are able to eat up to four pounds of fish per day.

The pelicans pouch like beak, can expand, allowing it to scoop fish from the water.

Or if you happen to be this pelican, you hop on the research vessel with the science crew, enjoy the ride, and basically feast like royalty.

- Dolphin Island Sea lab was amazing.

It's really cool to see how the organisms have adapted to survive in that specific habitat.

Periwinkle snails have that incredible sense of smell to detect and avoid predators who are lurking when the tide rises.

Stingrays have mouths at the bottom of their bodies for eating, and the sea robin has legs, which allows it to walk on the ocean floor.

I couldn't believe all the critters that Mr. C was able to hold and learn about during his visit there.

And those worms, Oh my goodness, I've never seen anything like that before.

But it was spectacular to know that all those legs helped the worm move and dig through thick mud.

- What an amazing adventure at Dolphin Island Sea Lab.

All things adaptations.

And it made me think, we certainly did adapt our show to be down there in the water and exploring all of those things.

Right?

And if you haven't done so yet, think about giving yourselves a notebook because when you're learning and doing all sorts of cool things like we did, you wanna jot down that information in place that you can come back to and look at it in the future if you would need to.

Whether it's our potato fish, whether it's our sneaky science snakes, keep learning, keep exploring, keep having fun.

And remember that science is wherever you are.

Take care.

Bye.

(swimming noises) - Oh.

- I always forgot about my little friend here.

Hey.

- Buddy.

(laughing) ♪ It's science time.

♪ - Oh, I just got pooped on.

- Ooh!!

- I just got pooped on.

- That means you have good luck.

- That's good luck.

- That's good luck.

- All right, I'll take it.

- Ah.

Look at that and a squid.

I caught a squid.

I know we've been talking about looking at all sorts of cool fish and critters.

I just wanna say big thanks for letting us be on the ship with you guys and all these kiddos to learn about all this and adaptations.

- Yes, absolutely.

- Thank you so much.

- You're so welcome.

Thank y'all for coming.

- Yeah, for sure.