- [Mister C] What time is it?

- [All] It's science time!

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

Working together with my crew makes learning so much fun.

Actually, you should join us!

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

Today, we're talking about cellular respiration.

What time is it?

- [All] It's science time!

(feet scampering) (Mister C gasps) (footsteps skittering) (trumpet blowing) What's up, everybody?

Welcome back to "DIY Science Time."

(audience cheering) My name's Mister C, and I'm so happy that you're here to be part of our crew today.

(whip swishing and snapping) Today, we're talking about making energy, and our bodies do that through cellular respiration.

So, we're gonna head back to the studio and get ready for an awesome day of learning, because you, me, and the other crew members, we're gonna have a blast doing some science today.

Let's get to it.

Later!

(bell dinging) - Take a deep breath and get ready to expand your lungs and your mind.

Today, we're building a model that's going to show us how your lungs work.

You'll need to gather the following materials: scissors, a balloon, small straws, big straws, clay, tape, a cup, a one-liter bottle with cap, plus, you'll want to grab your breathtakingly brilliant Science Notebook.

- [Linky] A Science Notebook is a tool that every scientist should have, because it gives us a place to record all of our learning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- Breathe in, (inhales deeply) breathe out.

(exhales deeply) That's your body taking super deep breaths, getting oxygen after you go out for a jog or a run.

And today, we're gonna be building a lung model which allows us to see how your lungs actually function.

See, what's super cool is you take in air through your mouth or your nose and it goes down into the trachea and it goes into two branches and then into your lungs.

Your diaphragm pulls down, and it causes your lungs to expand and pull in air.

And then when it pushes back up, you breathe back out.

So, we're gonna use this bottle to represent our body, some balloons to represent our lungs, and these straws to represent our trachea and the branches that get to the lungs.

Let's get to building, and let's breathe a little easier knowing we're gonna have a model here that represents our lungs.

First thing: we're gonna take a drill, or a pair of scissors, we're gonna cut a hole right down here into this.

(drill whirring) (techno upbeat music) So once you have that drill, we're gonna see if our straw fits in.

And it does, it's nice and snug.

Now, we're gonna take our straws here, we're gonna cut off the bendy parts.

(straws snapping) And then we're going to insert our straws into thicker straw, just like that.

Trachea, and then your two little branches going off to each of your lungs.

But what we're going to do is take one of the balloons, cut off the neck.

So we're gonna put one balloon onto one of our straws, then we're gonna take another balloon onto one of our straws.

(intriguing techno upbeat music) We need to tape our branches off into our trachea as well.

There we go.

(intriguing techno upbeat music continues) And that should now hold it, hopefully.

Okay, so we're gonna put this into this here in just a moment, but we need to cut this bottom off of this bottle.

Now you can use a bottle for this, or if you only have a plastic cup, you can do it, same thing would work.

And now what we're going to do, we're gonna push this up here through here.

So now we have our two lungs, and then we're gonna put this back down here onto the lid.

There we go.

(intriguing techno upbeat music continues) So I'm going to take this balloon, cut off the neck, and now I'm going to try to pull this across the bottom.

Now this is gonna be difficult.

(intriguing techno upbeat music continues) If you have another set of hands, it's super helpful because they can hold this while you pull the balloon over the top.

- Oh my goodness!

(audience chattering) - Wow!

- Wow.

(audience cheering) - Just like that.

See?

Another set of hands could do lots of wonders for you.

Now this balloon is on here, but if I pull on it, it's going to wanna come off.

So I'm gonna put a little bit of tape around the lip here to help secure it.

I'm gonna put a piece of tape all the way around the lip just to give it a little extra backup, so to speak, so that it doesn't wanna slide off.

But the thing is, is I need to seal this off here because there's air probably scooting in and out of here, sneaking by.

So we're gonna take a little bit of this clay, and we're just gonna put a little seal around the edge.

(intriguing techno upbeat music continues) All right, now, let's see what happens.

(chuckles) That's so cool.

Take a deep breath in, (Mister C imitates breathing in deeply) your lungs fill up.

Relax and breathe out, (Mister C imitates breathing out deeply) your lungs let the air out.

Isn't that so cool?

A working lung model that you can make at home.

Breathe in, (imitates breathing in deeply) breathe out.

(imitates breathing out deeply) In, (imitates breathing in sharply) breathe out.

(imitates breathing out sharply) ♪ In, breathe out ♪ ♪ In, breathe out ♪ (chuckles) There you go, give it a try.

Our bodies are amazing, and have the ability to release energy.

Energy!

- Energy!

- But in order to release energy and create energy for our bodies, we need a few inputs like sugar and oxygen.

When we eat our food, sugar enters the bloodstream and heads to the cell to be converted to energy.

But in order for that to happen, we also need to get oxygen from the air that we are breathing.

The oxygen we inhale moves through our lungs, into our blood, and moves into the eukaryotic cells where cellular respiration takes place.

For the purpose of this explanation, I'm going to simplify the process just a bit.

Within the cell, there are mitochondria.

Sugar and oxygen enter the mitochondria where they are converted to carbon dioxide, water, and ATP.

ATP stands for Adenosine Triphosphate, and it is the energy that fuels our bodies.

This energy is used to think, to play, and most importantly, can be used to do science.

While we use the ATP that is produced to fuel our bodies, this process also produces waste, like carbon dioxide, which we exhale, and also water which we sweat out.

Cellular respiration is a critical process that all humans do in order to function.

ATP, whoop-whoop, makes some energy!

- Although our respiratory system makes us breathe automatically, we can still hold our breath for short periods of time.

But did you know that some people actually train to hold their breath for a long, long time?

The world record for the longest held human breath was set in 2021.

A Croatian free diver was able to hold his breath for 29 minutes and three seconds, beating the previous record by almost five minutes.

Whoa, that's longer than an episode of "DIY Science Time."

- Calling all crew members: give this activity a try.

- I'm back at the McWane Science Center with my science crew.

And today, we're gonna talk respiration.

Are you guys ready to have some fun with this?

- [Crew] Yeah!

- Are you guys feeling relaxed?

- [Crew] Yeah.

- All right, let's take a deep breath in.

(all inhaling deeply) And out.

(all exhaling deeply) And in.

(all inhaling deeply) And out.

(all exhaling deeply) What we were doing right now is we are breathing, we're doing respiration, our body's taking oxygen, it's converting it to energy, and then we use that energy to think, to do science, to play.

And speaking of playing, we're gonna exercise 'cause I wanna get your breaths up higher and more quick to see how it changes how you breathe if we exercise.

(air whooshing) (timer dinging) So get your clickers and keep track of your breaths.

In three, two, one, go.

We count the number of breaths in 15 seconds and multiply that by four.

Now we have a baseline for each of our crew members.

The crew uses a data collection sheet to gather information before and after each exercise.

Now we exercise.

Here we go, in three, two, one, go.

We do jumping jacks for 60 seconds, we run in place for 30 seconds.

After each exercise, we gather breathing data so that we can compare with our breathing resting rate.

- Recording the data on my sheet helps me because sometimes I can forget and it's nice to look back to see how much you've increased or decreased your breath rate.

(object chiming) (liquid burbling) - Looking at our data, we see trends.

So different exercises are going to demand your body to do different things.

Our bodies use respiration in order to breathe, take in oxygen, give off that CO2, but in that process we break down and you make energy called ATP.

When we ran an exercise for the most amount of time, Arjun, how many breaths did you do in a minute when we did the jumping jacks?

- I did 48.

- 48.

Compared to how many when you did the actual running in place for 30 seconds?

- I did 68.

- So the running created more exertion for you?

- Yeah.

Yeah.

- Okay, awesome.

Okay, so from jumping jacks for 60 seconds, so you had 44, and then for our running in place, you had 40 breaths per minute?

- Yes.

- So actually for you, jumping jacks was... - Yes, a little bit more tougher.

- A little tougher, all right, awesome.

What about you, Cole?

Which one was harder, the jumping jacks or the running in place?

- For the jumping jacks for 60 seconds, I got 32 breaths per minute, but for the running in place for 30 seconds, I got 36 breaths per minute.

- So it was harder for you also, right?

- Yeah.

- Well, not harder, but your body demanded more from you.

- Yeah.

- Okay.

What about you, Camille?

- For the jumping jacks, I got 84 breaths after 60 seconds of exercise, and for the running in place, I got 54 breaths after 30 seconds of exercise.

- Okay.

So we had a difference in what we did though, right?

So we did 60 seconds of jumping jacks, only 30 seconds of running in place.

Do you think if we actually double that, we would've had more breaths probably?

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Definitely, for sure.

So I think this is something our kids at home, our friends at home, should actually try this, don't you think?

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- So grab a crew member at home, have some fun and exercise together, and compare what type of exercise requires you to breathe more often and more frequently.

Your body's doing respiration, it's pretty awesome, right, guys?

- Yeah.

- Did you have some fun?

- Yeah.

- What time is it?

- [All] Science time!

- Our lungs are filled with a system of tubes that lead to air sacs called alveoli.

These balloon-like pouches bring oxygen into your body and also remove waste like carbon dioxide with each breath.

Although adult-sized lungs are only about 2.2 pounds, there are 300 to 500 million alveoli inside and have enough surface area to nearly cover a tennis court.

(air whooshing) - Respiration.

(twinkling music) (air whooshing) - We've been talking cellular respiration, but now we're gonna talk a little bit about photosynthesis.

See, plants do photosynthesis during the day to create their own food.

They take things like sunlight, water, carbon dioxide, bring them in under their leaves through the stomata, and then they create sugar, glucose, and also oxygen, which they give off.

And we're gonna prove that to you right now.

This is something you can try at home as well.

What you're going to do is you're going to take a leaf from one of your favorite plants, with permission; I did ask Mrs.

C if I could use one of her leaves from her philodendron plant.

What we're gonna do is you're gonna take a hole punch and you're gonna punch about 10 little spots out of your leaf.

Try to avoid any sort of like really stemmy, rooty kind of looking parts.

So we're gonna punch out 10 holes.

(mellow techno upbeat music) 10.

So now we have our 10 teeny-tiny little parts of our leaf.

And what we're going to do is we're gonna create a solution that has lots of CO2 in it to help kickstart that photosynthesis process.

So I have warm water, well, room temperature water, and I have 900 milliliters, and we're going to an eighth, one-eighth of a teaspoon for each 300 milliliters, which is three-eighths teaspoon baking soda for our solution.

(mellow techno upbeat music continues) And now I'm gonna add just one drop of dish soap per 300 mil.

One, two, three.

And now, I'm going to... (liquid burbling) Bubbles.

(chuckles) And now I'm going to carefully mix this up, but I don't wanna create bubbles in my solution.

I just want it to be nice and dissolved without the bubbles for now.

I'm gonna open up my syringe, and then I'm going to place all of my teeny-tiny little punched out leaf into my syringe.

(mellow techno upbeat music) Now I'm going to close it, so I have about just a little bit of space for some water.

And now I'm gonna take my solution, I'm gonna pull a little bit of water in.

As you can see here, they all float to the top.

I'm gonna push out all the extra air, and now we're gonna create vacuum.

I'm gonna hold this, and I'm gonna pull really, really, really, really, really, really hard, and I'm gonna hold it and shake it.

I'm gonna hold that vacuum, I'm gonna just hold it, hold it, hold it for about 15, 20 seconds.

And what we're going to do is, when we release this, I'm gonna push the air out.

And, look, all of the plants are now on the bottom.

And we need this because what we're going to do next is we're going to take our solution, pour it into this container, trying to avoid making the bubbles.

And now, I'm gonna open, I'm gonna open my syringe, and I'm gonna pour my little plants in.

Now if they get stuck, which mine did, I'm gonna have to dip it in and get a little bit of the solution and get them to fall out.

And we want them to be on the bottom because when we turn this light on, with sunlight, CO2, which the water is very rich in CO2 right now, these guys are going to start producing oxygen.

And if we're lucky, we'll be able to see them rise to the top, and then when we turn off the light, they'll stop doing photosynthesis, and then they'll fall.

(air whooshing) (timer dinging) There it goes!

It's happening pretty quickly, relatively quickly.

I'm actually pretty surprised that it's happening in 15, 20 minutes.

It was just like all of a sudden... Oh, the other one's going too, they're both lifting right now.

So this is something that you can try at home yourself.

Give it a try, get a hole puncher, try different plants, see if they're able to all do this, and you can see the oxygen being formed.

You can see the teeny-tiny little bubbles that are rising off of the plant and rising up to the top of the water.

This is so cool, you have to give this a try, and it's super simple.

All right, science crew, give it a whirl.

So awesome, it's so cool.

(chuckles) During photosynthesis, plants use carbon dioxide, water, and sunlight to produce glucose, food, and oxygen.

And it's able to happen because of the tiny holes found mostly on the underside of leaves, these holes are called stomata.

Each stomata is controlled by two guard cells that work together to open and close.

When they are open, they allow the carbon dioxide to enter the plant and allow oxygen they have produced during photosynthesis to exit the plant.

During sunny days when photosynthesis is happening, stomata are wide open, but when it's hot or dry, they close to preserve water.

At night, most plants close these tiny holes to prevent excessive water loss.

And then, when the sun comes back up, they begin doing photosynthesis and open the stomata once again.

(intriguing techno upbeat music) - Have I got a tale for you, Mister C. You might already know that animals breathe in many different ways, using lungs or gills, but did you know that sun turtles can breathe using their tushies?

This type of respiration is called cloacal respiration.

While underwater, the oxygen found in water is absorbed through tissue around their little turtle tushies.

This breathing gives them enough energy to survive without surfacing.

Sun turtles survive for months during winter hibernating while breathing this way.

Now that's a pretty cool behind-the-scenes fact, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

- "Here, YEAST!

Here, YEAST!"

(trumpet blowing) It's time to experiment!

- Barf bags.

(imitates retching) - Grab three of your favorite cereals and three plastic bags.

Be sure to pick cereals that have different amounts of sugar.

Place one half of a cup of each cereal into each bag.

Add two teaspoons of yeast, then add one cup of warm water.

Now, carefully squeeze out as much air as possible and seal the bags.

Because the bags are sealed, we'll be able to see how the sugar content in the cereal impacts the fermentation of the yeast.

Fermentation can occur even when oxygen isn't available.

This metabolic process is used by microorganisms like yeast to break down sugar to get energy.

This process also produces carbon dioxide.

Look at that yeast go as it fills up those bags with gas.

Give it some time, and before you know it, (imitates air shooting) your bags are spewing out fermented cereal.

Exploding baggies, that's actually the "yeast" of your worries.

Now it's time to clean this mess up, Mister C.

- "Stomata, stomayta, sto-mata."

What's stomata?

We're making leaf impressions, let's get to it.

Now for this activity, what we're going to do is we're going to check out the bottom part of the leaf.

See, leaves are really cool because the bottom part is where the stomata, or stomota, (chuckles) are.

I've punched a hole in here, and what I wanna do is I wanna put it under the microscope so you can see what these stomata actually look like.

So if you join me right here... Let's put it here, I have that little slide.

(mellow techno upbeat music) (glass clicking) There we go, let me get this focused.

(mellow techno upbeat music continues) And I can actually see the little openings under the leaf.

But if you don't have the ability to punch out this little leaf and put it under a microscope, another really fun way is to make a leaf impression.

The first thing we're going to do is we're going to use the underside, and what we're going to do is we're going to take a piece of tape.

For my larger leaf, I'm gonna put a piece of tape right here on the side, I'm gonna fold the edge, so I have something to grab, and I'm gonna put it on just partially about halfway.

There we go.

And then I'm gonna take the nail polish and I'm gonna do a nice coat of nail polish over the plant and off onto the actual tape.

And basically what I'm trying to do is allow the nail polish to cure onto the leaf and also onto the tape.

And then when I lift it up, I should hopefully be able to lift up a huge nice chunk of the impression when I pull the tape.

Now for this one over here, I'm gonna do it differently.

I'm going to cover this entire fern leaf with nail polish.

It's so teeny-tiny, it's hard to work with.

Ah!

And now, I'm just gonna let it sit.

And on this one, I'm just gonna take a piece of tape and I'm just going to grab the entire impression like this because it's so teeny-tiny.

So we're gonna let that sit and cure.

It's gonna take a couple of minutes, so we're gonna do a little time lapse.

(fingers whooshing) (Mister C imitates chattering) And now we're done.

(timer dings) It's been about 15 minutes or so, and we're going to remove the tape from the leaf.

But we have to be really careful.

So, I'm going to pull the tape off the paper first, and now I'm going to carefully (grunts) lift.

(mellow techno upbeat music) Oh.

Nice.

It might be hard to see.

I'm gonna put this onto a slide.

(mellow techno upbeat music continues) So I pulled off that extra tape.

And we're going to remove this slide, and we're gonna put this slide underneath it.

And if we're lucky, we'll see the impressions of the underside of the leaf.

(mellow techno upbeat music continues) I think I need to find more leaves to try.

These impressions are amazing.

I get to see the bottom structure of the leaf, and I wonder, "Are all plants, do they look alike?

What makes them different?"

I need to do a little bit more research, but I think you and your crew should give this a try.

(monitor whirring) - Not all creatures have lungs to get the oxygen they need to survive.

Some insects have holes called spiracles that open to a network of tubes called tracheae that directly deliver oxygen throughout their bodies.

Fish use gills, and creatures like sponges don't have any respiratory system to deliver oxygen.

Instead, each cell has to independently get the oxygen and nutrients it needs to survive through diffusion as water passes by.

It's really every cell for themselves out there.

I think we can breathe easy with the lungs we've got.

- [Linky] Shoo-wee!

I'm finally able to catch a breath from taking all of these amazing notes.

That lung model was so cool, and watching the stomata do respiration in a glass of water almost made me bubble over with joy.

I've added lots of notes and vocabulary words: cellular respiration, stomata, fermentation.

Speaking of which, what's your favorite cereal?

And do you think it will ferment any faster or slower than the cereals we used today?

Give this stinky experiment a try.

- We had so much fun learning today, and I'm so glad that you're able to join us to talk about respiration and breathing.

Speaking of breathing, take a deep breath with me right now.

(Mister C inhale deeply) (Mister C chanting mantra) Somata-somata-somata, somata!

(Mister C chuckles) That's right, we had so much fun doing leaf impressions, building lungs, and talking about photosynthesis.

Plus, we did some exercises with the crew down at the McWane Science Center.

So, if you want to get focused, you can take a deep breath and relax because all of our information can go into your DIY Science Time Notebook.

That's right, it's a great place to keep and store all of your information from all of the experiments that you conduct.

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

Take care, everybody.

Bye!

Stomata, sto-mota, sto-mata!

What's stomata?

(chuckles) (Mister C chuckles) That's so cool!

Every day, I'm taking... (gibbers) ♪ Learning fun for everyone, everyone ♪ - I could use some help.

How about a hand?

(imitates robot hand whirring) (Mister C chuckles) You can see it, it's... (chuckles) Like I'm full... (chuckles) I don't know what... (imitates monkey panting) You can do it, you can do it!

Talking about breathing all across the nation, awesomeness.

Respirator... (gibbers) (Mister C blows raspberry)