- [Mister C] What time is it?

- [Children] It's science time!

(energetic music) ♪ Science time ♪ ♪ Let's all stop and just unwind ♪ ♪ 1, 2, 3, 4, here we go ♪ ♪ Learn so much, your brain explodes ♪ ♪ Lessons so cool, so fresh ♪ ♪ You'll lose your breath ♪ ♪ Learning facts and real cool stuff ♪ ♪ 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 Mister C, and this super smart group is my science crew.

Lyla is our notebook navigator.

Alfred is our experiment expert.

Riley 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 ecosystems.

What time is it?

It's science time.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to DIY Science Time.

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

We're talking about ecosystems.

That's right, ecosystems.

We're gonna get into what those mean in just a second.

But before we go any further, we have to know that plants are part of almost every ecosystem on the planet.

That's right.

And I have my plant pal, Spike.

(Mister C laughs) I've been growing him for quite some time, and I'm really excited to share him with you.

He's so much fun because he inspires me to try new haircuts and try different things with my hair so I can make his hair like it's really spiky, like a mohawk, or if I want it to be a little flatter...

This is so much fun because this is the basis of our ecosystem and all the food chains and food webs that occur in an ecosystem.

So how do you make one of these really easily?

It's super simple.

Let's give it a try.

What you'll need is a pantyhose.

And what we're going to do is we're gonna put some grass seed into the bottom of this.

So I have my little teaspoon here.

I'm gonna take one teaspoon and just put it into the bottom of the pantyhose, just like that.

Now I'm gonna scoop in some soil.

This could get a little messy, so you might want to try it outside.

Oh.

Oh, why is this not working so good?

There we go.

You know what?

I'm just gonna use my hand.

There we go.

I'm gonna squeeze it in there.

And now what I'm going to do is I'm gonna pull the pantyhose down really, really tight and I'm gonna tie a knot, just like this.

On the front here is where all the seeds are.

What you're going to do is you're gonna take an empty bowl or a cup or anything you have so that you can water this and get the soil nice and wet and also get those seeds wet so that they can germinate and sprout.

Now, it's gonna float a little bit.

We're gonna help it here in just a second.

It's about to pour out.

I'm gonna let this absorb all the water it can.

And while it's absorbing the water, I'm gonna clean this up a little bit.

And while I do that, Alfred, let our friends know at home what they're going to need so that they can build a terrarium with us today.

- Alright, science crew.

I guarantee that today's activity is going to really grow on you.

Grab these materials so you're ready to grow, I mean, go with us.

Rocks, scissors, grass seed, some soil, a couple of empty plastic bottles, pantyhose, water, a little bit of sunshine, oh, and don't forget your always-sunny 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.

- An ecosystem is a place where plants, animals, and other living organisms interact with non-living things like water, soil, and air.

An ecosystem is a community of interacting organisms and their environment.

An ecosystem is a place where organisms can only survive if their specific needs are met.

An ecosystem is delicate, and newly introduced organisms can throw off the balance of this ecosystem.

And an ecosystem, when it's healthy, has many different kinds of organisms living in it.

It's time to build our terrarium.

This land ecosystem is going to be amazing.

What we need is to cut apart our two soda bottles in a specific way.

As you can see, the first soda bottle I've already cut off the top.

Now, on the second soda bottle, we're going to only cut off the bottom.

I already have a slit right here in the center, on the bottom of it.

I'm gonna take my scissors and I'm gonna poke through.

I'm actually going to cut counterclockwise.

Cutting counterclockwise prevents it from being scuffed and poke-y on your fingers.

I'm gonna set that here, just for now.

Look at that.

Our ecology bottle is starting to come together.

But the top half is going to be our terrarium.

Now, I'm going to take my pantyhose and I'm going to cover up the hole.

And I'm gonna take this hair tie.

If you don't have a hair...

If you don't have a hair tie, you can use a rubber band.

I'm gonna take that and I'm just gonna double twist it so that's on there nice and tight.

That way, soil and rocks don't fall down through this soda bottle opening.

But what's important is that when we water our terrarium, the water, the excess water can run out of that container so that it doesn't get all gunky and yucky up here.

I'm gonna set that right here.

I'm actually going to take two bigger rocks that I got from my yard and a couple of little rocks.

Like that.

You could fill up more if you want.

It's totally up to you.

It's your decorative terrarium.

This is what it's all about.

You can take your soil and fill it up, but I am going to take my friend, my plant pal Spike, and I'm gonna put him into this terrarium because he's already been growing.

I've been growing him for this specific reason.

Oh, that's perfect.

Look at that.

It's a little tall on the top, and I don't want to cut his hair just yet.

So I have this container.

This container is going to wrap around.

See, I cut a slit right there, and then I can kind of fold the top container a little bit to give me some flexibility so that I can squeeze this inside.

Oh.

There we go.

And now... Oh, we've got a couple of blades of grass hanging out.

Let's cut those off.

Sorry, Spike.

Now I'm going to take my other container, well, the bottom of the container, and just place it on top to seal it.

If you want, you can put a little piece of tape in here.

Right now, I don't have any critters.

I don't have any crickets.

I don't have anything that can crawl out of here and get into the house.

But you could put in a couple of crickets and things like that that you catch outside and they'll live inside of your terrarium as well, eating off the grass and staying strong from the food that you provide them inside of the terrarium.

But what I love about this is now I can watch my terrarium grow.

I can watch the plant get bigger and stronger.

I can watch the roots start to grow down, and eventually, they'll follow down and they'll come out of the bottom of that soda bottle, and we'll be able to see them grow over time.

I think we should maybe go find some crickets or something to put inside.

Don't you think?

- There are three main types of ecosystems - freshwater, ocean, and terrestrial.

Ocean ecosystems make up the majority of the ecosystems on Earth, because the ocean makes up about 75% of the Earth's surface.

But did you know that even the smallest and most rare ecosystems are important?

Most animals and plants cannot survive outside their own ecosystems, so it's very important to protect and maintain their homes.

- This plant here, this wheatgrass, does a very special job for its ecosystem.

Not only is it food for some organisms to nibble on and munch on, but it provides oxygen for the organisms living in the environment.

It does this through photosynthesis.

A plant takes some carbon dioxide, sunlight, and then also water and nutrients through the roots to produce sugar, or glucose, for itself, and also oxygen.

You might be saying, "How does it get water and stuff from the soil into its system?"

Well, it uses capillary action.

This is the process by which it absorbs and pulls liquids through the root system up into the plant.

See, water wants to connect to itself through cohesion.

Water molecules wanna stick together.

And then, sometimes, water molecules wanna stick to other things like roots and just different materials through adhesion.

So through cohesion and adhesion, the plant can absorb water through the capillary action.

We're gonna put capillary action into action.

(Mister C laughs) Are you ready?

Alright, let's do this.

So first thing you're going to need are a couple of paper towels and a couple of cups.

We're going to fold this paper towel into thirds.

So we're gonna fold it once and then we're gonna bring it back and fold it again, just like that.

We're gonna do that twice.

We need two of those.

We're gonna fold it over a third, then we're gonna fold it again, onto itself.

And now we have our paper towels ready.

What we're going to do then is we're going to fold this in half, just like this.

And once you have it folded in half, you're gonna take your scissors and you're gonna cut this half into half, just like that.

And we do that twice.

So we're gonna fold this one into half as well.

Now we're gonna lift it up and cut this half into half.

Alright, so we have our paper towels ready to roll, or should I say absorb?

We're gonna take three cups.

We're going to place water into our first cup.

We're gonna place water into our third cup.

We're gonna leave the middle cup empty.

I'm gonna add some blue food coloring to this one.

A whole bunch.

I'm going to add some yellow food coloring to our cup over here.

Alright.

Are you ready?

Now, this is where you take your paper towels.

You're gonna take the long part of the paper towel and place it into the full cup of water, hanging the short side into the middle part.

Just let it hang over, just like that.

I'm gonna do the same on the other side with our yellow.

I'm gonna bring these cups just as close together as I can.

And before you know it, the water starts to move.

You can actually see the blue coming across the paper towel bridge, and you can see the paper towels starting to kind of flop down because they're getting weighted down by the water.

And if we're lucky... (Mister C gasps) Oh, no.

Oh, well.

Our blue paper towel made our yellow paper towel blue.

(Mister C laughs) That's okay.

It should be fine.

So the blue is dripping.

And here, very soon, we should have some yellow dripping as well.

This is capillary action in action.

The water is moving up over the paper towel, and then it's dripping into the cup.

So we have blue and yellow mixing, and if we're lucky, we should get something that is green, because blue and yellow mixed together makes green.

This process is happening exactly the same way in a plant.

The roots are pulling the water up into the system through capillary action, using cohesion and adhesion.

This capillary action is some high intense super awesome action to watch, isn't it?

Drip, drip, drip.

But sometimes, when science is going so crazy and you're having so much fun, you literally just have to stop and smell the roses.

That's right.

These beautiful white roses are looking at this capillary action and saying, "We're so thirsty.

We'd also love to drink some colored water today."

And boy, do I have a capillary action surprise for all of you.

Would you love to see it?

Now, look at my beautiful roses.

I bought these roses about 24 hours ago and I got them into the colored water immediately.

You can do this with white roses, white carnations, really any flower, and you can see the capillary action in action.

- Hey, Mister C, do you know what the ocean ecosystem said to the coastal ecosystem?

Nothing.

It just waved.

- Did you know that scientists believe wolves have saved Yellowstone National Park?

Gray wolves had been eradicated from the park since the 1920s, and that resulted in some big changes to the Yellowstone ecosystem.

In 1995, scientists began relocating gray wolves back into the park.

Their return to the area helped control animals that were becoming overpopulated, which helped make room for more plants and animals to thrive.

Gray wolves are a keystone species.

A keystone species is an organism that helps keep an ecosystem running smoothly.

Some ecosystems might not be able to adapt to environmental changes if their keystone species disappeared.

(wolves howling) - So check this out.

We have an aquarium right here with us.

This is a marine ecosystem.

So a terrarium was a land ecosystem.

An aquarium is one that's made up of water.

And then here we have some fish, and they're swimming around, they're enjoying their time.

And once again, we've upcycled our two-liter bottle to create this habitat and this ecosystem for our fish.

Now, you'll notice there are some plants in there.

The plant is really special because it takes CO2 out of the water, carbon dioxide, and it puts oxygen back in the water for the fish to breathe.

They look so happy, don't they?

They're just swimming around, enjoying their time in the aquarium.

I think we should build another aquarium, too, for some ghost shrimp or maybe a snail.

What do you think?

Building your own aquarium is actually really easy.

You need some water, some decorative items, and also, we're gonna put in a live plant to help our organisms survive better.

This is miniature dwarf hair grass.

We're gonna set this in here first, and we're gonna surround it with some rocks, and, hopefully, it'll keep it in place.

As you can see, our plants over here in our aquarium with our fish, they've kind of floated and gotten past the rocks.

So now they're just floating at the top.

We'll see if we can get these to sit on the bottom.

We're gonna add some water.

What we have here is another aquarium.

Now, we have our mysterious black snail.

Oh, look at it, crawling around, looking for food.

We also have a little teeny tiny ghost shrimp in there.

The coolest part about both of these aquariums is that we can actually see how things are living and surviving.

It's a closed system.

Inside of these tanks, we have plants.

Those plants are producing oxygen for the living organisms to be able to take in and to do respiration.

They need to breathe, right?

So they need that oxygen.

The fish and the ghost shrimp and the snail, they're giving off CO2, which helps the plant, because the plant needs that to do photosynthesis.

What's also happening is inside of these tanks, we don't see them, but there are decomposers, teeny tiny little bacteria that are gonna start to break down the poop, the poopy that's inside of the tank when the fish goes to the bathroom and when the ghost shrimp go to the bathroom.

The snails are in there.

They're going to be cleaning up all of the dead stuff.

They're gonna eat the dead plants.

They're gonna eat the algae.

So it's an entire system that works together to be able to function.

Ecosystems have living and non-living things interacting all the time.

The rocks are non-living.

The container's non-living.

But the plants and the organisms in there, those are alive.

Together, as they interact, that creates an ecosystem.

Ecosystems are really cool things, and I think that all of you at home should consider building one with your science crew.

- You might be surprised by the connections found in some food webs.

The African Bush Elephant is the world's largest land mammal, but it only eats roots, grasses, fruit, and bark.

These herbivores can grow up to 13 feet tall, weigh up to seven tons, and eat up to 300 pounds of food a day.

If you want to grow up to be big and strong like the African Bush Elephant, you better order a salad tonight, Mister C. - Ecosystems are everywhere.

You are living in the middle of one right now.

Whether you live on a farm or in an apartment in the city, there are living and non-living organisms all around you.

Take your science notebook, go outside, and observe your ecosystem.

Which organisms need sunlight?

What are the birds eating?

What are the insects eating?

Can you find a bird or a squirrel nest in the trees?

Or any anthills on the ground?

How have humans impacted the ecosystem where you live?

What could you do to help support the animals that live in the ecosystem in your neck of the woods?

- Are you wondering what this could be?

Well, let me tell you.

This is a very, very special thing.

This is an owl pellet.

Owls can't digest bones and fur, so they regurgitate that bones and fur and they spit out a pellet.

That's what this is.

The reason we're talking about these pellets is because we're gonna talk about food chains a little bit.

See, an owl eats something like a rat or a small rodent.

That rat had to get energy from somewhere, too.

That rat may have eaten some crickets or some small bugs or maybe grass or leaves.

Well, those leaves also had to get energy from something, and they get their energy from the sun.

See, the sun starts all food chains.

And the food chain begins with a producer, which is grass, because it can produce its own energy and its own food through photosynthesis.

But then you have something like that rat.

It needs to eat.

It's a consumer, so it eats the grass and maybe fruit so it gets energy.

And then the owl needs its energy and it eats the rat (Mister C laughs) and then it spits the rest back up.

And that's what we're gonna open up.

So let's see what's inside of this pellet.

It's so packed with the fur.

It's so compacted.

The owl squeezes all of the fleshy parts of the rodent in its belly.

So it's squeezing, and all of those things get dissolved by the stomach juices.

The parts that are left over are packed into a pellet.

So that's in the gizzard of the owl.

Then there's another, kind of a holding stage, above the gizzard, which is its stomach, where the owl pushes it up into and then it sits there until the owl's ready to regurgitate it, spit it back up.

Who would've thought that you'd find so many cool bones inside of one little owl pellet?

We have all sorts of cool stuff.

I went through this pellet and I tried to go through it very thoroughly.

This is pretty much just all fur that's left over.

But we have a skull, a scapula, which is the shoulder blade.

We have some pelvic bones, the lower jaws - lots of lower jaws here.

Then we have some legs.

So we have the tibia and fibia, which is like the hind legs.

Then we have what looks like a tooth.

What's really cool and fun about this is you can see what actually is being eaten by the owl.

So make no bones about it.

(drum rimshot) If you wanna do this experiment, be sure to order this owl pellet from a resource that sterilizes them.

You wanna make sure that it's safe and that it's clean to handle and dissect.

Explore the amazing ecosystems in your area, or check out a cool food chain that an owl is part of.

- Did you know that most owls can fly higher than the tallest skyscrapers?

This is because owls have really strong wings, and, well, because skyscrapers can't fly at all.

- Another unique ecosystem is a vernal pool.

Vernal pools are places where pools of water can only be found seasonally.

Species like salamanders, frogs, and other unique plants can survive in vernal pools.

However, those species might not be able to thrive in more permanent ponds because of predators like fish who would try and eat them.

Since vernal pools are only covered in water part of the year, the animals and plants that are found there might not be able to survive in other ecosystems.

Aren't they just the cutest?

- I couldn't imagine swallowing my food whole and then regurgitating the bones and fur.

Who, who, who would be able to do that?

But honestly, dissecting an owl pellet is an amazing way to see the eating patterns of an owl.

And plants, those producers are pretty amazing and are essential to every food chain and food web on the planet.

I wonder what might happen if we don't have as much sunlight for plants to do photosynthesis.

Would that have an impact on our food chains and food webs?

Explore your ecosystem and try identifying food chains and food webs that might exist in your neighborhood.

What predators exist?

What prey exists?

You might have to do a little research, but I bet you'd find tons of amazing food webs that exist in your neck of the woods.

- There you go, Spike.

You're gonna do great in your new home.

What fun today.

We built a terrarium.

We built our aquariums.

We talked about photosynthesis, food chains and food webs, all sorts of amazing things.

And it's all about ecosystems.

If you haven't done so yet, hop online and get yourself a DIY Science Time science notebook.

This is a great place for you to keep track of all of your notes, all of your experiments, and make observations about how your terrarium and aquariums are surviving.

Keep learning, keep having fun, keep exploring, and remember, science is wherever you are.

Take care, everybody.

Bye.

Tell 'em bye, Spike.

Bye!

Terrariums, aquariums, photosynthesis, food chains, you name it.

Food chains?

So what we have here is a... Or check out an amazing food chain.

Or check out the amazing.

Welcome back to DIY Science Time.

Oh, my voice.

And I'm so excited that you are here.

But see, owls can't regurgitate.

But see.

Just sprucing up the show a little bit.