(Izzie) We need you!

(girls) ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S ♪ (Izzie) Come on!

(girls) ♪ When I need help and I've got a question ♪ ♪ There's a place I go for inspiration ♪ ♪ Got to get to the Web, check the girls' investigation ♪ ♪ What girls?

♪ ♪ SciGirls!

♪ Whoo!

(girls) ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S ♪ (Izzie) I need you!

(girls) ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S ♪ Come on!

♪ You've got to log on, post ♪ - ♪ Upload, pitch in ♪ - Yeah!

♪ Want to get inside a world that's fascinating?

♪ ♪ The time is right 'cause SciGirls are waiting ♪ (girls) ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S ♪ (Izzie) We need you!

(girls) ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S ♪ (Izzie) SciGirls!

Heya, Iz.

What you got there?

[giggles] Either you're running away to join the rainbow circus-- number 87 on my bucket list-- or this is a gift from your Aunt Esmeralda.

Ding, ding, ding.

Oh, I love Aunt Esme, but she's always gonna see me as a five-year-old.

And I'm always gonna see you in her wacky presents.

[Jake laughs] Oh, how I love the mermaid outfit.

And my favorite-- I don't think I've ever seen anything that pink.

[sighs] Oh, Aunt Esme and I used to be so close, but I don't think she gets that I'm all grown up and in middle school now.

You could keep in touch more.

Oh, I wish.

But it's hard 'cause she lives three whole time zones away.

Maybe the SciGirls have some ideas.

Awesome idea, Jake.

SciGirls, we need you.

This one... No, not quite.

Uh... [gasps] Ooh.

I like the look of this.

- Surprise.

- Oh.

(Izzie) Bocce!

Bocce ball!

(Quinn voice-over) My friends are Mimi and Izzie.

We love being outside and just, like, hanging out with each other.

I'm Quinn.

(Izzie voice-over) Quinn is really musical, and she's really into science and learning about stuff.

(Mimi) You got this, Izzie.

Got to stretch first.

[laughter] Hi.

I'm Izzie.

I like science because science helps you learn about things and how they work.

[laughter] (Mimi) Yeah!

My name is Mimi.

(Izzie voice-over) Mimi is really goofy.

She's really musical, too, and likes to sing a lot.

(all) ♪ Monarch ♪ ♪ Butter ♪ ♪ Fly ♪ (Mimi voice-over) I was watching the news, and it said that butterflies were going endangered and missing.

And then it said, "You can volunteer."

And I was like, "That sounds really cool."

Who doesn't like butterflies?

- Hi, Kelly.

- Hi.

I'm with the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project, or MLMP.

That's a citizen science organization where we use volunteers like you guys.

Well, let's go see what kind of butterflies and eggs and larvae we have out here today.

Citizen science is when someone like the MLMP asks the public to volunteer to help them get data.

(Kelly) So here's our milkweed patch here.

So we monitor the milkweed like this to figure out what's happening with monarch populations.

And last year was the smallest year they've ever recorded.

So there's a few reasons for that, but we think one of the things is, they've lost some of their habitat--milkweed.

MLMP monitors milkweed, because that's where butterflies lay their eggs, and it's what caterpillars eat.

(Quinn) Monarchs have four stages of life: egg, larva, pupa, and adult life.

We're gonna go ahead and monitor these plants here.

(Quinn voice-over) Monitoring means looking at the milkweed and, like, lifting up the leaf, because the caterpillars can be on the top and the bottom.

It's just checking to see if there's any there.

So we've actually been monitoring this site for over 15 years every week in the summer.

And we do that 'cause we have a whole team of people who comes every week.

Hey, guys.

[together] Hi.

(Quinn voice-over) College students were monitoring with us.

They worked with Kelly.

(Kelly) So are you guys done with your first plant?

(all) Yeah.

(Kelly) So I'm gonna have you guys look at your data sheets now.

And these data sheets are where we record what you found before we enter it online.

And each one of those boxes represents a plant.

So if we had an egg, we would put an E. Sometimes that's tough when you don't find monarchs on a plant.

But that's actually really good information for us to have.

It's really helpful for the scientists, 'cause then they know that there aren't as many monarchs in that area.

One thing that can help you spot caterpillars is looking for frass.

Frass is caterpillar poop.

(Kelly) So the eggs are a little off-white.

They're about the size of a pinhead.

(Mimi) Is this one an egg?

(Kelly) So that is something really close to it.

Milkweed actually has latex inside it.

See those ridges that go all the way up to the top?

That's the way how we can tell the difference between a latex drop and a monarch egg.

(Izzie voice-over) The latex from the milkweed looks just like an egg.

Is this an egg, Kelly?

That's a piece of dried-up latex.

- Is this an egg?

- Let's see.

(Kelly) Oh, you know what, that's dried-up latex again.

- Oh.

- It's dried?

(Kelly) Mm-hmm.

(Izzie) Is this an egg, Kelly?

Or is that an egg?

Is this an egg?

(Quinn voice-over) Izzie kept saying, "Is this an egg?

Is this an egg?"

So those little things are aphids.

Sometimes those kind of look like eggs, except they move around.

(Izzie voice-over) Aphids-- they're just really tiny and white, so I guess they could be mistaken for an egg.

(Kelly) I found an egg.

Everyone, go ahead and take a look at that.

So that's the size of an egg.

(Quinn) So how would I mark that on my paper?

- "E." - Say "E." And then we kept looking and looking and looking.

[gasps] Guys, lookit, a caterpillar.

- Wow.

- So tiny.

(Kelly) Oh, yeah.

- It's really small.

- Great job.

(Kelly) So now we're gonna have to figure out what instar that is.

An instar is about how old it is and about how big it is.

It's the period between skin molts.

So caterpillars actually shed their skin.

Those periods are called "instars."

So the first one after the egg is a first instar, and they go all the way up to a fifth instar.

What do you guys think this one is?

- I think it's a second.

- Think it's a second, yeah.

(Kelly) It's a pretty big second.

(Mimi voice-over) I didn't see anything else on that plant, so I put a two, because it was a caterpillar in its second instar.

(woman) Would you guys mind uploading our data for us?

Would you guys be okay with uploading the data?

[together] Yeah.

(Izzie voice-over) Just the four of us together, we only found one caterpillar and one egg.

It's a lot less than I thought we were gonna find.

We can head back to the lab and enter your data and the data from the other volunteers.

Let's go get started.

(all) ♪ I see a monarch ♪ ♪ Do, do-do, do-do, do ♪ Hi.

I'm Quinn.

This is my crystal rock collection.

This is an amethyst.

I like to read.

This is my stress ball.

I like to make its eyes pop out like that.

I like to eat food.

I like to make up things on the piano.

[cheerful melody] I love jumping.

Bye.

So this is the Monarch Lab here.

MLMP's Butterfly Lab is at the University of Minnesota.

So we have all five instars here.

And the caterpillars stay in each of the first four instars for about one to three days, but then they're a big guy, a fifth instar, for up to five days.

You identify different instars by looking at their tentacles.

And their tentacles are like the antennas.

(Quinn) A caterpillar has four tentacles.

The longer ones are in the front.

How can you tell if they're boys or girls?

We actually can't tell until they become an adult monarch.

(Quinn) Kelly told us, when the caterpillar crawls on the top of wherever they are, they make a J shape, and that's when they're about to form into the chrysalis.

(Kelly) This is a pupa, or chrysalis.

So once it's a fifth instar, it molts its skin one final time, and then that usually falls to the ground when it becomes a pupa.

(Quinn) What happens to it when it's not a pupa?

After it sheds its skin, it turns around, and what do you think it might do?

- Does it eat it?

- Eat it?

It eats its skin.

A caterpillar also eats its skin after it's shed it.

It's so weird.

Would you guys be interested in taking some home and raising them?

- That'd be awesome.

- That'd be super cool.

(Mimi voice-over) Kelly gave us a challenge of raising our own from their second instar stage as a caterpillar.

(Kelly) Milkweed has poisons in it and makes the monarch itself poisonous.

(Izzie voice-over) They eat the poisonous milkweed so that predators don't want to eat them and get sick.

(Kelly) So do you guys remember what type of milkweed we were monitoring today?

- Wasn't it common?

- It was common milkweed.

But there's other types of milkweed that monarchs like to eat as well.

Can we research a question about the caterpillars?

I think that would be awesome.

(Quinn) Count the amount of leaves that they eat each day.

We count the number of stripes for every... - Oh, good one.

- Oh, that's a good one.

Instar.

(Izzie) We could get different kinds of milkweed and put them in different parts of the cage and then see which one the caterpillar ate the most.

(Mimi) I think that these are pretty good ones.

So some of the weighing ones might be a bit difficult since especially smaller instars' frass is really little and hard to weigh with normal scales.

So I actually--I really like that different milkweed idea.

Did you guys know that different milkweed actually has different toxicities?

And so that might be interesting, to see if they prefer one over the other.

(Izzie voice-over) We decided to experiment which type of milkweed they prefer.

So we can work tomorrow on the details of the experiment.

But I also wanted to mention, we need to record our data sheets from today too.

And then I'll plan on seeing you guys bright and early tomorrow.

- Sound good?

- Okay.

[together] Yeah.

It's gonna be really cool to raise our own monarchs and, like, see how big they get and watch them turn into butterflies.

(Mimi) Hey, all you butterfliers.

You know me, Mimi from "The Butterfly Diaries," which you are watching right now.

This is my first video diary, and I'm super excited to be doing it.

This is Peanut, and this is Butter.

And I really like that 'cause I'm allergic to peanut butter.

This is Mac and Cheese.

Ketchup and Mustard.

Caterpillars do not move a lot.

But they're alive because there's a lot of poop in there, so... Good-bye for now on day one of "The Butterfly Diaries."

See you next time.

We met at Falcon Heights Park to enter our data online.

These are the college students' data, you guys.

So we'll have to add those too.

First, we added up everyone's data.

For my three papers, I got 194.

What did you get for your two?

I got even 100.

[together] Hi, Kelly.

How's it going?

- Great.

- Good.

How are your caterpillars doing?

- They're doing really good.

- Good.

(Kelly) So I've logged us on.

And now we can enter the totals that you guys just figured out.

- All right.

- Sound good?

(Quinn voice-over) So we monitored 379 plants total-- 16 with monarchs, 14 with eggs, 3 in their first instar, and 2 in their second.

(Izzie) This is the data we entered today.

The black represents the eggs.

The blue represents the first instars.

And the red represents the second instars.

(Kelly) People and scientists across the country could already be looking at the data that we just entered.

(Izzie voice-over) It feels really good that they're actually using our data, and, like, you can look back 15 years and see data that, like, other people collected, and then, like, 15 years from now, people can look back and see the data that we collected.

Take a look at all these graphs.

This is for 2014.

And take a look.

Our data's already in there.

If we look at these bars over time-- so looking at them from left to right-- do you guys notice any trends or patterns with those bars?

(Izzie) At the beginning of the summer... - The egg population... - Yeah.

- Was really high.

- Was a lot higher.

And then it decreases, and then it gets higher again.

(Kelly) What might cause that?

The egg population in the beginning lays new eggs by the end.

That's exactly right.

(Kelly) So what happens is, that first peak of eggs develop and turn into adults before they can lay that second peak of eggs there.

So that's one thing that we can see with this long-term data.

Our question was, we were gonna see what kind of milkweed our caterpillars like the best.

What would we want to record about that milkweed?

How much the caterpillar has eaten of it?

Yeah, and also what type of milkweed that it ate that much of.

So I think we've got enough information, then, that we could start taking this data later today even.

What do we do with our data sheets?

MLMP actually keeps all of the hard copies of the data too.

We're actually heading to the lab now, so we can take them with us.

To put your data into all the other data that's been there for 15 years, it feels pretty cool.

Hi.

I'm Izzie.

I love to play soccer.

I love to eat ice cream in the summer.

Actually, I like to eat it all year round.

This is my sister Sophie.

I like to braid her hair.

This is a ladder braid.

Hope you like it, Soph.

Thanks.

I really like to sew.

Also, I really like to sleep.

When I was younger, I made up a game called Swing Ball.

[glass shatters] Bye.

Hey, guys.

[together] Hi.

(Quinn voice-over) When we were talking with the grad students, we let them know that we put in their data for them.

And we showed them the graph.

Our research question is, we're gonna figure out which kind of milkweed our caterpillars like best.

Which species are you gonna use?

We're doing common and either tropical or swamp.

Great.

Well, I have a whole bunch of extra tropical milkweed, if you guys want to use some.

- Yeah, that'd be awesome.

- Thanks.

(Quinn voice-over) So the college students-- they were really nice and gave us the tropical milkweed that we needed for our experiment.

All right, come on this way.

I've got some adult butterflies over here.

So this is one of our cages where we let butterflies fly around, and they can mate and lay eggs.

Now, you don't want to handle butterflies too much.

And when I hold it, the one thing I want to make sure to do is hold all four of its wings.

(Quinn voice-over) My favorite part of the lab tour was getting to hold the butterflies.

- It tickles.

- [giggles] - That's weird.

- Do you want to hold it?

(Quinn voice-over) Their little, like, feet, like, claw things were super-duper strong, and they were sticking onto my hand when they were walking.

They're, like, always moving and trying to find footing on my finger.

And the wings are constantly trying to flap to, like, fly away.

How can you tell if butterflies are boys or girls?

(Kelly) So those black dots indicate that it's a boy.

Males have these, but females don't.

(Mimi voice-over) I really liked working with Kelly.

She answers all your questions with detailed answers.

We would just like to thank you for being so awesome.

(Quinn) And helping us with our projects.

And sharing your butterfly knowledge with us.

So we just got you something to remember us for and just thank you for all your help.

Aw!

- Thank you.

- That's awesome.

Thank you guys so much.

Good luck with your experiment.

And will you guys keep your blog updated?

[together] Yeah.

Bye.

All right.

Bye.

Hey, guys.

It's Mimi from "The Butterfly Diaries."

My caterpillars are in their third instar.

Which means they're getting really big, and you can really see the back tentacles on the rear end.

Which kind of milkweed my caterpillars like best-- I have tropical and common.

(Mimi voice-over) Every time a caterpillar is in its new instar, we take a picture of it.

We do a video diary.

We blog about it.

I have done blogs before, and it was a way to get out my information for other people to read.

I'm gonna start my experiment by putting it in-- just in the cage.

(Quinn voice-over) Our experiment is working at home is, we take away our caterpillars' food for an hour, and then we put the caterpillar in the middle of the cage and put the two different kinds of milkweed in front of it and see how much it eats in an hour.

(Izzie) Looks like Mac chose the tropical milkweed, while Cheese didn't move at all.

Bye.

A video log is a perfect way to get Aunt Esme up to speed on my life and keep up with me now.

[sighs] Okay.

So I'm gonna organize my life into five stages, like a caterpillar's instars.

Uh, baby years, preschool, early elementary, late elementary, and middle school.

You could call your vlog "Izzie's Instars."

Oh!

Jake, you're a genius.

Thank you.

Taking "being called a genius" off my bucket list.

[giggles] Okay.

Let's organize the pictures and then shoot.

Here's me as a baby.

Oh, wasn't I cute?

I just want to squeeze my own cheeks.

When I was in preschool, I loved burying my shoes.

Yeah.

You wanted to be a puppy.

Then there was my fairy skater girl phase.

That lasted all through first and second grade.

Um, and third.

Izzie cried so much when her wing got stuck in Petey Marchiano's juice on her third grade field trip.

And that was the end of my fairy phase.

This is when I was obsessed with Jane Goodall in fourth grade.

Ooh, and look.

I still have Mr. Apey.

[giggles] (Jake) Aw.

- Hi, Mimi.

- Hi, Mimi.

Oh, hey guys.

I'll come let you guys in.

(Mimi voice-over) Izzie and Quinn came to my house to check in on our research.

It's been a week since we got our caterpillars.

What are you guys, like, noticing?

During our experiments, they don't--mine-- at least mine, they don't do anything.

Yeah, I was worried about one of my caterpillars because he wasn't moving or eating for, like, a day.

(Izzie) I've been taking an overhead shot every day.

(Mimi) This is my caterpillar Peanut.

(Izzie) Wow, look at how long his front tentacles are.

This is a picture of Ketchup.

- Ketchup got really cute.

- He's eating.

(Mimi voice-over) In about a week, our monarchs will be in chrysalises.

So we'll meet up and go over our final data.

[all giggling] Hey, it's Izzie and Mac and Cheese.

Right now, my caterpillars are in instar five and instar four.

Ketchup is still apparently in his third instar, it looks like.

He is, like, incredibly teeny, and Mustard is definitely in his fifth instar.

I have another video on here of him molting.

It was very disturbing.

Mac is still in his fourth instar, but Cheese is in his fifth instar, and he's getting crazy big.

Mustard's frass is humongous.

Mac chose the common, and Cheese ate a ton of the tropical.

I woke up this morning to find Butter shriveled up in the back of his cage.

Um, he died.

[gentle piano music] ♪ ♪ But on a happy note, Peanut is finally in his chrysalis.

And the wait is killing me.

My caterpillar Mustard is actually in his chrysalis now.

I'm not exactly sure what instar Ketchup is in.

He hasn't gotten any bigger in, like, a week.

He's eating and moving, but Ketchup just couldn't catch up.

Bye.

(Mimi) Hey, Izzie.

- Hey, guys.

- Hey, Izzie.

(Izzie voice-over) It's been about a week, and our caterpillars are in their chrysalises.

And so we're meeting at my house just to go over the data.

What you got there?

I brought Peanut because he's gonna come out of the chrysalis really soon.

(Mimi voice-over) I woke up today, and I found Peanut in the chrysalis that was clear, so I brought it down here, and we got a really big surprise.

- Oh, it's starting to break.

- [gasps] - It's coming out right now.

- It's coming out.

- It's moving.

- [gasps] (Mimi voice-over) First, the chrysalis split down the middle, and then the butterfly had started to crawl out, and its abdomen was really big, and its wings were super tiny.

(Izzie) Look at how tiny its wings are!

(Quinn) Oh, my gosh.

(Mimi voice-over) It latched on to the chrysalis, and then it would just sit there, and its wings gradually got bigger, and they got straighter until they were their full-sized wings.

(Quinn) The wings are getting bigger, and the abdomen's getting smaller.

(Mimi voice-over) I figured out that Peanut was a girl when she opened her wings a little bit, and I couldn't see any black dots.

Now that Peanut's a butterfly, I'm setting up her net by putting the aquarium that she was as a caterpillar in there to let her go.

I'm putting honey water and flowers in there for both types of her food.

Hi.

I'm Mimi.

And I like to drum.

[plays drums] I like to dress my dogs.

This is my dog Betty.

Every time I fly somewhere, I get a snow globe.

This one's my favorite.

It's from Arizona.

This is my favorite room in my dollhouse because it kind of reminds me of my room.

Thanks for watching.

Bye.

(Quinn voice-over) We each made a bar graph of our data and then talked about what we saw.

It's very clear to me that my caterpillars preferred tropical milkweed.

(Izzie) Yeah, mine too.

(Quinn) Mine preferred common, actually.

I think that my caterpillars preferred the tropical milkweed because the tropical milkweed has more toxins, so they would be more toxic to predators.

Quinn, want me to take a picture of yours?

Yeah.

(Quinn voice-over) I don't really know why they preferred the common milkweed, because we've done, like, our research, and I've looked at Izzie and Mimi's conclusion.

I would think that they'd want the tropical because it's more poisonous and, like--so it's more of, like, a defense system.

So I'm not really sure why they chose the common.

If we wanted to have, like, a scientific study, we would need to test more caterpillars and definitely see, really, what the majority of caterpillars prefer.

(Izzie voice-over) We're gonna meet in about another week to release our butterflies.

Hi.

I'm Izzie.

I'm just really excited for my monarchs to become adults now.

So Cheese has been in the chrysalis stage for about a week.

And this is Mac.

He hasn't been growing at all.

He barely eats, and it's really sad, 'cause I think he might die.

Hi there.

There is my butterfly.

Mustard eclosed about five or six days ago.

Ketchup wasn't molting, and he wasn't getting any bigger.

(Izzie) Mac died yesterday night.

He's, like, not been eating nearly as much as Cheese.

Yeah, but it's kind of sad.

(Izzie) Today we're releasing our butterflies in Falcon Heights Park.

I think they're gonna be happy to get back into nature.

Are you ready to go, little P?

Okay, guys.

Let's count down.

Three.

Two.

One.

Bye.

(Mimi voice-over) It felt nice to release my butterfly.

The sad part about letting butterflies go is that you don't get to see them anymore.

I was kind of sad to see my butterfly go 'cause I, like, raised her.

But I was really excited for her to get back out into the wild.

(Quinn) The biggest surprise about raising the monarchs was how much they eat when they get older.

And another one was that how weird it is that they shed their skin and then eat it.

[laughs] Next time I see a monarch outside, I'm just gonna remember the monarchs that I raised and helping scientists and helping monarchs.

(Izzie) And this is my last instar: middle school.

[bell dings] [upbeat music] [computer beeps] Look!

Aunt Esme just left a comment.

She loves "Izzie's Instars."

Oh, thanks for helping, Jake, and for being there through all my instars.

No problemo, Iz.

You've blossomed into a butterfly.

Oh, thanks, Jake.

And for being such a good friend, I got you...

I love it!

Now I can join the rainbow circus and take "wearing a rainbow tutu" off my bucket list!

[laughs] - Oh, yay.

We did it.

- Whoo-hoo!

(all) Ladies and gentlemen, Hey, there.

Hi.

The SciGirls website is mobile.

You can set up a profile, play games, watch SciGirls videos on your tablet or smartphone, and find a fun citizen science project near you.

So come on.

Be a SciGirl on pbskids.org.

See you there!

Bye!

(girls) ♪ S-C-I-G-I-R-L-S ♪