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(phone ringing)

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- Hi, it's Doug.

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Have you ever been walking,
like in a park or a forest,

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and you found something that
really got your attention?

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Well, that happened to me recently.

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I was in a forest, and I found this.

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It's a pine cone,

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but I'd never seen a pine
cone like this before.

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I was so curious, I had
all kinds of questions.

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So I came home and I got out some

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of my books that I have about trees.

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These books were written by scientists

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who study things like pine trees.

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Now, sometimes when I have a question,
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I find out that nobody knows the answer,

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and that's always exciting, too.

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But a lot of times,

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there are answers to things
that I'm curious about.

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And it's scientists who figured them out.

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Someone named Barina has a
question about scientists.

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Let's give her a call now.

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(phone ringing)

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- Hi, Doug.

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- Hi, Barina.

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- I have a question for you.

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How do scientists know so much?

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- That's a great question.

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To answer this question, it
might be helpful to think
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about what scientists do when they work.

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Let me tell you a story
about two scientists

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whose discoveries changed the way

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people think about the world.

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You see this thing right here?

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You might know what it is.

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It's a telescope.

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And you know what a telescope is used for,

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to look up at the night sky.

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But it wasn't always used for that.

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In fact, when the telescope
was first invented,

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one of the main ways people would use it

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was to watch for enemy
ships coming from far away.

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No one had thought to point
a telescope up at the sky.

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No one, until this person.

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This was Galileo.

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He was a scientist.

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Galileo was curious, and we
wondered what he might see

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if he pointed the telescope up at the sky.

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One of the first things he
decided to look at was the moon.

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Night after night, he looked at the moon

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through his telescope.

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He wrote notes, and he made
drawings of what he saw.

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He was amazed by all the
details that he noticed.

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You see, before Galileo,
most people thought

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that the moon was this
round, perfectly smooth ball.

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More like a beautiful nightlight,
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rather than some actual place.

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But by carefully looking at the moon,

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Galileo noticed lots of
pointy bumps and shadows.

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He compared his drawings to things

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that he noticed here on Earth,

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and he realized what he
was seeing on the moon

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were mountains, valleys, and hills.

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The moon wasn't some
perfectly smooth light;

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it was an actual place
with mountains and hills,

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just like the Earth.

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Galileo realized, maybe we could even

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go walk around on the moon someday.

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Galileo gave us new ideas

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about what the moon was really like.

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Now, here's another famous scientist.

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Her name was Mary Anning.

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She's known for being one of
the greatest fossil hunters

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in all of history.

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Mary spent almost every day of her life,

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ever since she was a young girl,

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searching along the beach
for interesting fossils.

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One day, there was a landslide.

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A huge piece of the cliff near
the seashore had fallen down.

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Mary wondered, "What if
I go look over there?

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"If I look carefully,
will I find anything new?"

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Digging through the rubble,

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Mary noticed some really
strange markings in the rock.
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It was the fossil of a large skull,

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with lots of sharp teeth.

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As she unearthed the entire fossil

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and put its bones together,

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Mary realized that it was
the fossil of a giant reptile

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that had once lived in the ocean.

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This was unlike any creature alive today.

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It was an animal that had gone extinct.

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All her life, Mary kept looking carefully,

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finding more and more
fossils of extinct animals.

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Mary Anning gave us new ideas

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about what animals on Earth
had been like a long time ago.

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Mary Anning and Galileo were looking

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at very different things.
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But take a moment to think about

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what their stories have in common.

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What did both of these
scientists do that was similar?

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Now would be a good time to
pause the video and discuss.

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Okay, you ready?

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One thing you might've
noticed is that both Galileo

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and Mary Anning started
out being really curious

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about things around them.

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When they noticed something
interesting or surprising,

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they didn't just say, "Oh,
that's neat," and then move on.

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They noticed things, and then
paid really close attention.

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And here's the thing,

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when you start paying close
attention to something,

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you start wondering a lot more questions.

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Galileo started wondering things like,

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"What are those little bumps and shadows?

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"What is the surface of the moon like?"

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Mary wondered, "What kind of animals

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"did these fossils belong to?

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"What does that mean about
life a long time ago?"

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You don't have to be a
scientist to think like this.

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This is a drawing made by
a young girl named Fiona,

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who decided to purposely take
something plain and ordinary,

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these leaves, and look
really carefully at them.

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As soon as she started
paying close attention,

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she realized, she had all
these interesting questions.

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Drawing and paying careful
attention to something

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is kind of like training your brain

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to discover interesting new
things and ask questions.

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You should try it yourself.

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You can train your brain, too.

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For this week's episode,
we have a special activity

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where you'll practice noticing something,

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and asking questions like a scientist.

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See how many questions you come up with.

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I think you'll find it's a lot of fun,

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even if you don't figure out the answers

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to the questions right away.

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That's totally okay.

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Scientists sometimes spend years figuring

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out the answers to the
questions they come up with.

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Even when you do figure out
the answer to a question,

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you'll find it always
leads to new questions.

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That's actually one of the fun things

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about noticing something
interesting and asking questions;

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it just gets more and more interesting,

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and you start having
more and more questions.

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That's why at the end of each video,

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I always say, "Stay curious."

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There are so many interesting things

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out there to notice and wonder about.

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There are so many questions worth asking.

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So, in summary, the reason
scientists know so much,
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is because they pay close
attention to lots of things,

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and they ask lots of questions.

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By doing this, sometimes
they discover things

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no one has noticed before.

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That's all for this week's question.

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Thanks, Barina, for asking it.

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Now, for the next episode, I
reached into my question jar

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and found three questions submitted to me

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that I'm thinking about answering.

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When this video's done playing,
you'll get to vote on one.

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You can choose from:

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"How do hot air balloons rise?"

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"How do trees give us oxygen?"

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Or, "How close could an
astronaut get to the sun?"

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So, submit your vote
when the video's over.

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I wanna hear from all of you watching.

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There are mysteries all around us.

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Stay curious, and see ya next week.