What if you could figure out nearly every single thing you wanted to know about nature. As a scientist, you could, and you can in fact become a scientist.
Overnight, actually! How is that? Many people forget that a scientist isn't someone who has multiple degrees and beakers. It's actually someone who observes nature and asks questions about what they see. I've recently been prattling on and on about this (inaturalist.org/journal/iamsharkgirl) but it's true! In fact, these chemists use it, too. We just forget, and maybe they do, too. They observe the chemical reactions of the earth and ask why that happens. If they didn't ask, they would be out of their job, maybe bakers or builders or something else. But I dedicated a whole other post to this, so I'm going to get right into it… You can figure everything out that you want to know about nature!
I'm going to use an example question for this, then. Here's a story where you'll see that you can answer anything...and how.
I'll use the character Julie in this, although she is not a real-life person.
Julie and her five-year-old son are doing a summer science experiment that she found online when searching for ocean lessons before they went on their beach trip. It's all about dissolving seashells. When put in a mixture of water and salt (seawater! artificial seawater!), a seashell doesn't do anything, but in the vinegar, it eventually dissolves. Julie's son loves this experiment and finds it so fascinating. He can't wait for the next one.
Julie gets her National Geographic for that month and reads all about ocean acidification and what issues it's causing for the ocean animals and plants. One says that it's dissolving the shells of invertebrates. Julie remembers the experiment her son did dissolving seashells. The two events are similar. Now Julie has a QUESTION: can ocean acidification or the dissolving of seashells in vinegar, can they be reversed or stopped? She decides to find out.
Julie wants to turn this into another experiment. She thinks as her HYPOTHESIS that it can't be reversed, but that if we start now, the biggest damage can be prevented.
First, Julie turns online for research. After the search bar loads, the first thing that pops up says, "Researchers are finding that kelp, eelgrass, and other vegetation can effectively absorb CO2 and reduce acidity in the ocean. Growing these plants in local waters, scientists say, could help mitigate the damaging impacts of acidification on marine life." She's glad that ocean algae and plants are helping, but she can't really get that for her experiment. She writes it in her notes just in case, and keeps looking.
Another article Julie sees says, "When seawater absorbs carbon dioxide, chemical reactions reduce the ocean's pH, making it more acidic." She thinks that is interesting. How could it work? She clicks on the article. "Pumping lime into the ocean would balance out anthropogenic emissions, akin to how a Tums tablet settles a sour stomach. But there is a catch: all the Tums on Earth would not be enough." it says when she scans it quickly. Julie doesn't think we can actually do that, and there wouldn't be enough supplies to do that. She keeps looking.
On a clip to another article, it says, "The most effective way to limit ocean acidification is to act on climate change, implementing solutions to dramatically reduce the use of fossil fuels. If we dramatically cut our global warming emissions, and we limit future warming, we can significantly reduce the harm to marine ecosystems." Julie thinks that's interesting. First, she notes it, and wonders if she could represent that in her experiment. How could she represent that pollution? But she'll consider that later when she's done. She clicks on the article. She wants to learn more. The article tells her what ocean acidification actually is–when carbon dioxide enters the ocean and dissolves into an acid, which is actually really bad.
Julie thinks that the way to represent pollution, now that she knows how ocean acidification actually works, is by adding more vinegar to her experiment, but she's not sure if it will actually make it go faster or not. She decides to try it out just in case.
But before that, she does a little more research and finds out that anything with sugar in it can reverse vinegar. She's not sure if it will work in this case, but she thinks she'll try it out. She adds it to her notes.
Then Julie wants to know how plants draw in carbon dioxide. It might help her with her demonstration.
Before she researches, though, she prepares some more parts of her experiment. She lets her son help and he's enthusiastic about doing it. They're watching their seashells from yesterday that went in the vinegar. They aren't completely dissolved, but are definitely changed and more delicate. In one of their new bowls, Julie represents pollution and increased acidification by adding another cup of vinegar to their usual 1 cup. Maybe it will take less time to dissolve the seashells. In another bowl, they use 1 cup of vinegar and put some leaves from weeds in the bowl. Will they make dissolving slower? She will research later if she can represent it better. And in the other, Julie also adds some sugar to the 1 cup of vinegar. Will THAT make dissolving slower? She'll research more on that, too. Her son puts a seashell in each bowl. She adds these steps of her PROCEDURE and what MATERIALS she used to her notes.
Julie spends the rest of the day doing her at-home computer work, but she doesn't forget her experiment. The next day, she checks in on everything. Her first experiment's shell is still there, but more delicate than ever. The bowl with more vinegar in its shell is very, very delicate in less than 24 hours, when the first test took over 24 hours. The bowl with the leaves in it has a surprising change–there's hardly any shell left. THIS is definitely also most delicate. Julie hasn't expected this. And the leaves are a brownish or gray-green color instead of their earlier vibrant light green. She isn't sure what happened here. One guess she made is that the decomposed (if it is) or dead plant matter added to the acidity. But she's not sure. Maybe she'll research later, although she will likely not get very many results. Or maybe she'll do the same thing and see if she'll get similar results. She adds these ideas to her notebook and checks out the last bowl, with cane sugar added. There are hardly any changes here! She finds this interesting.
Julie takes her son to the park before it gets too hot. Then they read a book together and do a puzzle. She plans their experiment for the afternoon, which will be about how blubber keeps whales warm. Then she turns to her research. The first site she sees says, "For photosynthesis green plants take carbon dioxide from the air. The carbon dioxide enters the leaves of the plant through the stomata present on their surface. Each stomatal pore is surrounded by a pair of guard cells. ... During photosynthesis, the oxygen gas produces goes out through the leaves of the stomatal pores." This is interesting and complex, but doesn't help her with what she's actually looking for. She thinks that she would need plants, but she knows they don't do well in vinegar. Maybe she will try to put another test in the garden. Will it make a difference?
Then Julie researches more: are there any sugary components in the ocean like what she used in her experiment? First, she brainstorms. What defines sugar? She thinks that it is something high in the sweet components sugar has with the same nutrients. There might be sugary components in the soil or in decomposed animals and plants. She's about to research, but then remembers the importance of answering the question yourself. She'll research later. Right now, she'll test to see if sugar is present in the soil that her garden has. She wants to try plant matter again as well. She knows that they make sugar.
But what Julie REALLY wants to know is if anything can make the already-dissolved seashell come back into its visible form. She decides to take the not-yet-dissolved seashell out of the first experiment and add some sugar to see. What else could she try? She thinks that she will try, in another bowl, baking soda.
Later, she doesn't really find any results. Maybe another time, she'll try putting a bowl out into the sun. But for right now, she thinks it is time to review her question and create her conclusion.
Question: Does anything reverse the effects of vinegar dissolving calcium carbonate shells when it is already dissolved?
Conclusion: So far, baking soda, plants, and sugar don't reverse the effects in pure vinegar, but sugar can really stop the reaction. And the related ocean acidification can be helped by kelp and seagrass. There is hope.
And remember–you can learn anything!
