(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 ♪ ♪ Gotta 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!

(girls) ♪ You've gotta log on, post ♪ - ♪ Upload, pitch in ♪ - Yeah!

♪ Wanna 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!

Feast your eyes on the next Hair-a-do-doozy winner!

Hair-a-do-what-y?

Only the most epic hair-growing competition in school.

My pop and my grandpop are both Hair-a-do-doozy winners, and after years of being afraid to sully their legacy by losing, I'm finally ready to embrace my destiny-- become a man.

So growing your hair really long is your destiny?

Yep, it's all so clear.

I just have to come up with a creative project to go with it.

I'm going to build a tower around myself and hang my hair out the window.

Jake-punzel.

[groans] Then I've got nothing!

I'm going to lose and single-handedly annihilate my family legacy.

Okay, calm down.

Maybe the SciGirls can help.

They use science to solve problems all the time.

Hmm.

This looks promising.

(Jordan) It's been a really cold and long winter.

And it's kind of dragging on.

Say, "Tree pose."

(both) Tree pose!

I am Claire.

(Claire) I love photography.

I like taking photos of plants and nature.

Hello.

My name is Elle.

(Elle) What I like about gardening is planting vegetables and fruits because it's the pride in planting them and then finally getting to take them off of the stem.

I found something, guys.

My name is Jordan.

(Jordan) I like writing poetry and keeping a phenology journal.

Phenology is the study in the changes of plants and animals-- the weather, the season, time, date.

(girl) It's March 25th.

(Jordan) You guys... [speaks indistinctly] (Elle) Me and my friends Jordan and Claire, we're going to meet Lauren.

And she's a naturalist.

(Jordan) And she's going to help us tap the maple tree and collect some sap.

I like to put maple syrup, actually, on ice cream and pancakes.

Are you ready to go tap a maple tree?

(girls) Yeah.

Okay, let's head on down.

[all panting and grunting] (Lauren) A lot of times, when we tap our tree, the sap will come out.

Today is a little chilly.

The sap is not flowing.

(Elle) The first day of spring on the calendar was last Thursday, but it does not feel like the first day of spring to me.

It's cold, like-- [shivers] We live far enough north that the temperatures haven't gotten warm enough for that.

So spring will be here, and there are signs of spring all around us, like the buds and the birds.

You can go look for some of these things now.

You can head down the trail.

[snowshoes scraping] Giant, like-- [laughter] - Yeah.

(Elle) I found a burrow.

(Lauren) This is a pussy willow, and they have these fuzzy buds that are on them, and they come out in the spring.

It's one of the earliest signs of spring for us here.

Do they change no matter what the weather is?

Like, it could be freezing cold and they'd still-- Yeah, we've had some warm temperatures in the past few days, so that has been a signal for the buds to open up, is that we have had some warmer days.

(Jordan) Lauren showed us that we could take photos to keep track of what happens as spring arrives.

All right, I wanted to show you this camera post.

It's pointing out towards our iris garden.

We can put a camera here and take a picture.

So every time we come out here... (Elle) We're going to take a photo from the same place every couple days and then put the pictures together to make a time-lapse video.

Time-lapse video's going to be cool because you're going to be able to see the changes from really cold to hopefully really warm.

(Jordan) Lauren told us that we could also help scientists by doing a citizen science project where we keep records of the changes that plants and animals go through as the seasons change.

So you all can come out every few days, every week, and you can record what you see-- when the plants come up, what the temperature is, how much snow is left, what birds and animals we see too.

So you can do that through something called Nature's Notebook.

(Elle) Nature's Notebook is a website where you can record your data that you collect in nature.

(Claire) Scientists can use it to help them find information, and the best part is that anyone can use it, which is really cool.

(Elle) So when can we start Nature's Notebook?

We can start it right now.

We do have a list of plants that we can choose from.

(Elle) So we're going to do that right now?

Yes, we're going to do that right now.

There's actually some plants to go and observe.

The plant I chose for this was the sharplobe hepatica.

I selected the sugar maple.

I selected the white trout lily.

And now all that's left to do is to go over our data sheet.

(Claire) So we have data sheets, and we have to answer questions on the data sheets that help us keep tabs on what's happening with our plants and the weather.

So I think that we're ready to head outside and go and look for our plants.

- Yeah, we are.

- All right.

I'm Claire, and this is my house.

This is our tree.

It's like the biggest tree in the neighborhood.

One of my favorite things to do is jump on our trampoline.

This is my dog Frederick.

And that's my dog Otto.

This is my bedroom.

I also want to show you some of my trophies.

When I grow up, I want to be a math teacher.

Bye.

(girl) It's April 11.

I found something, guys.

We're collecting data about every two or three days so we can put that on Nature's Notebook.

This is the sharp-lobed hepatica.

(Lauren) Jordan, that's yours, isn't it?

(Jordan) The plant I chose was the sharplobe hepatica.

It starts as this big, fuzzy flower bud and it turns into this big, beautiful flower.

(Claire) Ooh, they feel like puppies' paws.

(Lauren) The leaves are evergreen, so these leaves here have been here all winter long.

(Claire) Oh, wow.

We're trying to see the initial growth of it and just kind of checking up on the plants.

(Lauren) We're going to label this plant.

We're going to put a marker by it.

We'll be able to come back and find it right away.

So some of the information that we can collect here-- do we see any initial growth of leaves?

Do you see any new leaves, or are they just last year's leaves?

- Last year's.

- Last year's.

Okay.

So we can circle no.

So we have the rain gauge.

- Oh.

- Oh.

(both) Nothing.

[chuckling] - Temperature-- - And our temperature?

- 60.

- 60?

60 degrees.

Okay.

- Well, let's go.

- Yeah.

[upbeat electronic music] ♪ ♪ (Elle) I selected the white trout lily, and I chose it 'cause I really like the way it looks.

- There is something growing.

- Yeah.

(Elle) Oh, trout.

- That's a trout lily.

- Those are trout lilies.

Yellow ones.

Is there anything growing over here?

- There's some.

- Hey.

(Lauren) There we go.

- Yay.

- Yeah.

We found it.

This is the new growth of our white trout lily.

Well, Elle, this is your plant, and we can record the data on the Nature's Notebook app using your mobile device, so...

Initial growth.

Yeah.

(Claire) Wow, look how much sap there is.

How can there be so little?

Like, a tiny bit.

I selected the sugar maple.

I think it's a really pretty tree.

It's just kind of interesting how there's so many different parts that feel so different.

(Lauren) Well, we'll have to empty this bag.

Claire, this is actually your tree, right?

This is your sugar maple tree.

[sap pouring] (Claire) It's actually 40 gallons of sap goes into 1 gallon of syrup.

It just takes so much sap to make so little syrup.

When you have cold nights, the sap goes down into the roots, and warm days, sap comes up.

So it's like this, so then it goes out of your spout.

(Lauren) We're going to mark this tree.

So we're going to use this yellow tape.

We're going to need quite a bit of it, so we'll need teamwork here to get around.

- Let's get this going.

- Oh, my gosh.

(Lauren) There you go.

(Lauren) All right, I've got the bud.

Breaking leaf buds?

There aren't any that are open yet.

- So, no?

- No.

So now we have a chance to go and explore and record anything else in our journals.

- Great.

- Let's go.

(Lauren) Yeah.

Let's go.

(Jordan) What I like about making a nature journal is that you can look back on things that happened five or six years ago and things that are happening now and see if they changed.

Wait, I think I see a nest over there.

- Yeah.

- The hanging ball.

(Lauren) Yep, that is.

That is a nest over there.

So we can record any nature notes at all.

You can do it any way you want-- in a journal, camera...

Okay, so what was the date?

It was... (Jordan) With Nature's Notebook, you enter your data, and you have to pick your plant first or put in your plant, and then you can enter if it has buds yet.

Okay, there were... - Breaking leaf buds?

- No breaking leaf buds.

- Leaves?

- No leaves.

- Increasing leaf size?

- No leaf size.

- Colored leaves?

- No colored leaves.

- Falling leaves?

- No falling leaves.

- Do we have any yeses?

- No, we do not have any yeses.

- Just click--circle all no.

- Circle all no.

That should-- that should do it.

(Claire) We entered our data into Nature's Notebook, and it's just simple questions like, "Are there leaves growing yet?"

And you just click yes or no.

It's really easy.

So should we enter the animals we saw?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

(Jordan) I will do the ovenbird.

Okay, ready to submit?

- Yeah.

- Yep.

Okay.

- Okay.

- We got a badge!

- Do you remember how to-- [squealing] It's out there.

[laughs] I'm so excited.

A time-lapse video of my hair growth is going to be epic!

And this cutting-edge technique is totally gonna fast-track it.

Well, science is all about unusual experimentation.

[camera shutter clicks] [grunting] I...will... grow...my...hair!

[rattling] [crashing] [gasps] I think it worked.

This strand definitely feels longer.

[laughs] Sure.

If you're growing shoelaces out of your head.

Say, "Cheese!"

[camera shutter clicks] (Jake) Look how long this horse's tail this.

It's the kind of long that wins Hair-a-do-doozies forever!

(Izzie) It is really impressive.

And you know how my mom always says I eat like a horse?

So I'm gonna eat like a horse!

Rotten apples, hay, and oats-- I mean, hair growth is all about the right diet, right?

So gonna win.

[apple crunches] [chuckles] It's already a win for me.

[camera shutter clicks] (girl) It's April 18th.

- Whoa.

- Whoa.

Whoa.

Does it look like another phenophase?

(both) Yeah.

(Jordan) A phenophase is like a little stage of the flower growing.

So if a bud started growing or if the flower started blooming, it'd be a phenophase.

(Claire) Oh, whoa, isn't that, like, a leaf kind of-- (Elle) Guys, look at these leaves.

That is a leaf, but it isn't quite fully opened.

so we're only going to count the fully open ones, yeah.

- It is really flowing, though.

- Oh, my gosh.

(Elle) Ooh, the sap is really flowing, though.

[indistinct chatter] So our sap is clear, but when you boil it down... - Oh, my gosh.

- [gasps] (Lauren) All right, everyone's going to get a cup.

So this is 100% maple syrup.

There's nothing else added in it.

It's just the maple syrup.

Just tastes like syrup.

Like, it doesn't taste like-- - Unnatural.

- Processed.

(Lauren) So in a few weeks, I week check back in with you and see what phenophases you have seen on your plants.

I think you're ready to come out here on your own and do this independently.

Do you think you're ready?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I'm just scared.

- Cheers to that.

Yeah, yeah, I will check there, but cheers.

I got to cheers you, Jordan.

Hi, I'm Elle.

I have some paper here, and I'm going to paint on it with watercolors 'cause I like watercolors.

So I'm going to paint a tree 'cause I like painting trees.

So, yeah.

Here it is.

It's my painting.

[tender piano music] Another thing I like to do is play piano.

♪ ♪ I like riding my bike with my dog.

Bye.

(girl) April 25th.

Is it this?

I don't think so.

(Claire) It's like, "Whoa, what?"

Hey, flower.

This is a spring beauty.

And then...

Okay, Since Elle's not here, we can do her information for her.

(Claire) Ooh, look at all this trout lily.

(Jordan) Oh, my gosh.

(Claire) It's so pretty.

I'm excited to tell Elle all about all of the things we've seen, like how much her flower's grown.

(Claire) Sharp-lobed hepatica.

[gasps] Flowers, flowers, flowers.

- Oh, my gosh.

- [laughs] (Claire) Trees are not blooming yet, and the flowers are, because the flowers need this time to take the sun while they can before the trees grow their leaves and it kind of shades the ground.

Okay, so the breaking leaf buds.

They're all brown.

Okay, so I'm going to say the no for the breaking leaf buds.

Our sad little tree.

[sighs] Come on, buddy.

- Go faster.

- Come on, there.

- Okay.

- You'll grow up some day.

- Let's go.

- I hope.

(girl) May 9th.

Tree is really sticky.

(Claire) Hold on.

It's sweet-- it smells good.

- Freak out.

- Whoa, that was cool.

(Elle) Yeah, here's the fruit.

- Whoa.

- Guys, look at them.

(Elle) Because I wasn't here last week to see them, I was totally thinking that they were, like, just probably, like, wrinkled up from the cold weather, and dead.

But it's so cool.

They've grown so much.

My little children.

[gasps] It looks like all rusted.

It has rust.

(Jordan) Our sharplobe hepatica, in two of our plants, we saw that they had leaves and, like, the flowers were falling off.

But on one, we saw rust on it, which is a disease where it can't grow flowers.

It was cool to see, like, the difference between a healthy plant and an unhealthy plant.

(Elle) Guys, there's, like, no sap.

- Yeah.

- And it's cloudy.

- I'm so sad.

- Oh, that means-- We got to take it off now.

(Claire) And the spile.

- [grunting] - Just pull it off, Elle.

- Okay.

- 'Cause then it, like-- - There you go.

- I'm okay.

No, there's no breaking leaf buds.

They're still closed.

Everything has, like, leaves and flowers, and my tree just has little buds.

And, so, yeah, it was kind of disappointing, but what can you do?

Hi, my name is Jordan.

This is my pet frog.

She's a green tree frog, and we named her Christopherlily because we found out that frogs can change gender.

I like to ride my bike.

So this is my phenology journal, and one thing that I like to do in it is write poetry.

This is a bookshelf I made out of a shoebox and duct tape, and I just use it to store notebooks and things like that.

Good-bye.

(girl) It's May 10th.

- Like, it's this board.

- Oh, it's the sharplobe-- (Jordan) So the Arboretum's been really nice to us, and they invited us to make a work of art after all our weeks studying our plants based on everything that we've learned so far.

(Aki) Oh, cool.

Great, great.

(Elle) We're meeting an artist named Aki, and she's going to help us make our project come true.

But I'm sure you guys have some message you want to convey, right?

Like, what might be a couple things that you want to convey?

I guess why it's important to collect data over a long period of time.

- Collecting.

- Yeah.

(Aki) What's the other message we might want to convey?

And I'm kind of hearing, like-- Protect the environment.

- Protecting.

- [laughs] Collecting.

Protecting.

(Elle) I really like this idea.

Are we going to have, like, the first phenophase, the second phenophase, and then the third phenophase inside?

(Elle) This is what we're working together on, and then this is what we're working on individually.

Right.

Exactly.

Good.

(Jordan) We can do, like, little notes about our plants on the end of the trees, like on, like, little, like, fake leaves or something.

(Aki) What kind of form?

(Elle) Well, something stable.

I mean, it won't roll away.

It won't get up and walk away.

- You know?

- Right.

Maybe like just a box.

Yeah.

[drill buzzing] But, like, if you had two pictures kind of on top of each other, would you see the other one through that picture?

You do.

You can.

Oh, that's going to be cool.

Wait, if we could have the boxes like this, and then have them in different positions.

Well, okay, yeah.

But, like, stacked up on top of each other.

[drill buzzing] - High five.

- That's great.

- [grunts] - Oh, that was terrible.

I'm too tall.

(Elle) You bent my finger back.

(girl) May 12th.

(Jordan) Breaking leaf buds.

- Yes.

- Yes!

- Guys... - Yes!

First yes that we've had.

- Let's go tell Lauren, then.

- Yeah, let's go.

- Bye, tree.

- Bye!

[Claire grunts] - Hey, Lauren.

- Hi.

(Claire) Hey, Lauren.

Any news to report?

I have leaves on my plant, but I have no flowers.

(Jordan) My plant is rusted.

(Lauren) Oh, no.

One of your plants is rusted?

My tree finally got its first yes on breaking leaf buds.

- Oh, awesome.

- That was today, actually.

(Lauren) Today?

Well, I have some data that was collected from Nature's Notebook.

This is some information about the first reported breaking leaf buds in this area for the sugar maple tree.

It goes all the way back to 2009.

I have some other information here too.

This is the average temperature for March and April in our area, and again, it goes back until 2009.

(Claire) Freezing.

Right, well, with this data that we have collected, you can make some graphs to show the relationship between the average temperature in March and April and between when the first leaf buds broke on our sugar maple trees.

I bet you you guys will have fun making those graphs.

(Claire) Guys, what are we writing for the X-axis?

(Jordan) For the X-axis?

Which year.

- Maple leaf buds.

- Leaf bud date for the Y-axis.

Wow, well, it looks really good now that it's all put together.

(Jordan) Okay, so this is the temperature graph, and this is the degrees, the temperature in degrees.

- And this is, like, the year?

- Yeah.

(Claire) And you can see it's the sugar maple leaf bud breaking on the earliest dates-- the days that it broke, and these are the years.

So this is 2014, and so this is the May 12th.

That's of this year.

So we just saw these a couple days ago, the breaking leaf buds for this year.

So there's a zigzag pattern right here.

(Elle) If the temperature graph has higher temperatures, the breaking leaf bud graph has earlier leaf buds breaking.

I'm wondering if this pattern has to do with climate change.

Why don't we ask someone from Nature's Notebook?

(Claire) Okay.

- Let's go.

- That's a good idea.

(Elle) So we had a video conference with Theresa from Nature's Notebook.

Hi, ladies.

I'm Theresa.

Nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you too.

- Hi.

We have some graphs that we would like to show you.

(Theresa) I think what you're seeing in your graph is representative of how much the temperatures are varying from year to year.

(Elle) She said that if it's climate change, then you have to study it over a period of lots and lots of years.

Well, thank you so much for your help, ladies.

The data that you've submitted to Nature's Notebook is going to be part of a resource that'll be valuable and used by many for many years to come.

We really appreciate your enthusiasm and your participation.

- Yeah.

Thank you.

- Well, thank you for your time.

Thank you for answering our questions.

- Yeah.

- It was a lot fun.

Yeah.

Okay.

Bye-bye.

(girl) It's May 24th.

- Hi.

- How are you?

- Good.

- Good.

How are you?

(Aki) Okay, here's your box.

Let's get... (Claire) We're excited.

(Aki) I'm excited.

Very, very excited.

(Elle) I'm excited to show the art project to my family and my friends.

Going to feel pretty awesome.

Everyone at my school's asking questions like, "What happens?

What do you do?

How is it made?"

I hope they can come.

I think it'd be really fun for them to see what we've been doing.

- Yay!

- Whoo-hoo!

(Aki) We got it!

High five!

- Ooh.

Ooh.

- You missed it, Elle.

So today was really exciting because some of my friends from school were there.

It was kind of scary, 'cause I thought that, like, less people were going to be there.

So I was kind of scared about that, but it was fun.

During our study, we used a site called Nature's Notebook.

(Claire) And it was fun to just talk to the people.

It was cool, like, to share what we were doing.

(Elle) And we incorporated words into our paintings.

Jordan made a beautiful painting of a bird and a poem.

So we have the average temperature in March and April for Minneapolis/Saint Paul and the sugar maple leaf buds breaking...

I'm hoping that the people here today learned just that anyone can do science.

You don't need a bunch of fancy equipment to do science, like citizen science.

(Claire) And then we also noticed that in the end, it's kind of breaking the pattern.

I thought you girls did a great job with your presentation.

- What did you think?

- It was great.

The other things I love about your artwork is all the medium comings together, and, like, you made the harmony and kind of almost like a partnership that you learned in the nature.

(Lauren) So there's actually a little bit that I would like... (Elle) It was really fun working with Lauren.

She really helped us a lot with Nature's Notebook.

(Jordan) I loved working with Aki.

We learned a lot about details from Aki and to incorporate a little bit of yourself into your artwork so it feels really personal.

(Lauren) So you've been reporting on Nature's Notebook, and Nature's Notebook sends out a newsletter.

And I have a little something I'd like you to read.

[girls squealing] (Elle) "Thank you for your efforts, ladies.

"You are helping us to document how plants are responding to changing climate."

- And for the picture-- - Hey, look at this.

- Look at-- - Oh, look at that.

(Lauren) Cute.

So I hope that you continue to observe nature, I hope you continue to be a citizen scientist, and I hope you continue to journal too.

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- Yeah!

- Awesome.

- Hug it out.

Yeah.

[laughter] (Elle) I guess it's time for our last time lapse.

(Jordan) So we made our time lapse at the photo post at the iris garden, and we put them together in this free editing program.

And it looked really nice to see, like, the difference from winter to spring.

(Elle) Well, this is what it feels like to be a citizen scientist.

(Jordan) Yeah.

[geese honking] - Oh, they're so pretty.

- Oh, look at these, guys.

[shouts and laughter] Pocket full of posy!

[indistinct chatter] (Elle) We all fall down!

(Claire) I remember this when it was winter.

(Elle) I was so cold.

(Claire) Let's go.

[drumroll] And the winner of this year's Hair-a-do-doozy is... Jake!

[cheers and applause] I won?

I won!

[clears throat] I'd like to thank my mom and pop, without whom I'd have no hair, and, of course, my fellow competitors.

[one person applauding] Okay, so technically, I had no fellow competitors, but sometimes a man has to compete against himself.

[cheers and applause] [thumping and metal clanging] [laughter] Yeah, and sometimes a man has to compete against his hair.

Well-deserved win, Jake.

Thanks for your help, Iz, and the SciGirls for the time-lapse video idea.

[tinny techno music playing] [stomach gurgling] Somebody's hungry.

It's weird.

Now that my hair's longer, it's like I need more food.

- I've got an apple.

- [crunches] [giggles] You know you don't need to eat like a horse now that you've won, right?

[neighs] - It is really loud.

- [laughs] 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 ♪