Video length: 3:00 min
Important Notices

BioQuest is a fun and hands-on way to bring sciences to life. Every October, the National Research Council Canada (NRC) and its bioscience partners welcome approximately 200 grade-five students to touch, taste, experiment and see how science and technologies helps keep Canadians healthy. Interested in finding out more about BioQuest, contact us by email at inh@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca.

Video Transcript

Slimy Shore

[NRC research staff help students create colourful non-Newtonian substances (flubber) using plastic syringes and safety goggles]

Students: Flubber!

Female Station Leader: I want you to twist the cap off and what's in that is borate. And that's actually a type of detergent. A laundry detergent. Give it a stir, do you see the change? It used to be a liquid, but it's not liquid anymore.

Male Station Leader: Do you feel it's sort of cold on your hands. That's a chemical reaction.

Female Station Leader: I'm moving it along towards the front of the cup and then I'm going to stick my hand in, grab it, and immediately roll it between my hands, because I want it all the flubber to stick together to make one big ball. So you can take this home and throw it in the fridge . Leave it there for an hour, it'll get just a little bit harder, that way it won't stick to your hands as much when you play with it.

Agriculture Alley

[Students test acidity levels of plant extracts and look at ultraviolet fluorescence views of Island blueberry extracts with NRC colleagues from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.]

No spoken lines.

Gadget Grotto

[Students make a basic magnet, watch a magnetic stirrer and learn about rare earth magnets and role of nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometry to study the chemical makeup of terrestrial and marine things for bioscience research.]

Male Station Leader: That's a magnetic stir plate. So what's inside that little metal box is a magnet that's moving around at 550 rotations per minute.

You can make magnets at home with very little. All you need to have is a metal nail, that's made out of iron. You need to have some wire, and you need to have a battery.

Kids: Oh my gosh!!

Boy 1: Ah, it's pinching.

Kids: Science is Cool!

Way Cool Kingdom

[Students witness the making of instant ice cream with liquid nitrogen & sample the treat with wild PEI blueberries, an important source of healthy antioxidants and other nutritional benefits.]

Male Station Leader: So a hot summer day is about 30 degrees. A cold winter day is minus 25 Celsius. The dry ice that Katherine over there is filling a balloon with is dry ice. So that's solid carbon dioxide. The air that you breathe out from your lungs is mostly carbon dioxide. And that's been squeezed and compressed and turned into a solid. Lloyd has some in his glove. It looks like ice, but it's dry ice because it doesn't have any water in it. It's just carbon dioxide solidified. So that's minus 78 degrees. If he had his bare hand, it would burn his hand.

Kid: I'm a deep thinker.

Kids: Ice Cream!!!!!

Parasite Pavilion

[Students look through microscopes at tiny parasites, see a 25-metre tapeworm, samples and photos of animal and human parasites, and discuss the difference between science fiction creatures and real parasites.]

Male Station Leader: So to start we'd like to take a nice look at each other. Turn look at the person beside you. There you go. Well done. There is one thing that I can guarantee you about the person you are looking at. They're full of parasites. We are all full of parasites. And these are the most common types of parasites (pointing to wall chart).

Viruses are parasites. Viruses are the smallest and most abundant type of parasite. You all heard about the flu virus that's going around. They're very, very small.

Bacteria are about 10 times bigger then a virus. So not all bacteria are harmful. Some are, some are parasitic. We're all full of bacteria. You all know about worms. Worms are among the oldest type of parasite. About 3 out of 4 people have some sort of worm living inside them.

They may not know it, but about 75% of the population has worms. Worms have been around probably the longest in terms of larger parasites that effect humans.

That picture is from the movie "Alien" and it's not real.

Molecule Ranch

[Volunteers from Chemaphor help students make their own science outreach bandanas using markers and solvents. The experiment is about solubility, movement of molecules and smart painting of cells.]

No spoken lines.

Treasure Plunge

[Volunteers from the University of Prince Edward Island and Nautilus Biosciences show students that natural medicines can come from the sea. Students learn about marine bacteria, touch coral samples and slimy tunicates, and watch a cone snail video.]

Female Station Leader: The animal living in the shell needs to protect itself with the hard shell. But how does the sponge protect itself. It's really soft, so animals can eat at it. So how does it protect itself?

Kid: Poison.

Female Station Leader: Exactly, it can produce these really potent compounds, that can protect itself and these compounds we can make into medicine.

Other Female Station Leader: There would be two compounds that a lot of adults use to reduce inflammation. They can make themselves feel better. And did you know medicines like Aspirin actually comes from a tree.

Bioscience Investigation

[Volunteers from NRC's science library and NRC-INH help students implode an aluminium can using water and a hot plate. They learn about changes in water, gas and solids, and discuss how experiments don't always turn out how you expect (the importance of trial and error in the scientific process and encouragement to participate in science fairs).]

Kids: Five... four... three... two... one...

Female Station Leader: Lift off! Okay, here we go we're going to implode it. Woohoo!

Kid 1: Weird!

Kid 2: If you were doing this for a science fair and it went wrong, and went explosion, um would it hurt?

Female Station Leader: It would hurt. If you wanted to explode this can, don't try it but what you have to do is probably cover it up, so the steam has nowhere to go. It's just getting bigger and fatter, and more excited and if you had enough water and steam in there. Boom!

Cell Cavern

[Students hear about interesting cell and DNA facts, immunity and health, then watch a three-dimensional animated movie called "The Inner Life of a Cell," created for Harvard University.]

Male Station Leader: How many cells do you think we have in our bodies?

Kid: I think it's 60 trillion.

Male Station Leader: This guy is brilliant! He gets an "A"!

DNA Dungeon

[Students get to see their own DNA after separating it from spit with a salt water, detergent and alcohol solution, based on an experiment from Genome Canada].

Male Station Leader: Are you ready for sacrifices? Who are we going to sacrifice today?

Kid: Me, me!!

Male Station Leader: Are you ready to give me your blood?

Kid: Okay.

Male Station Leader: Alright you're a brave guy, but I'm not going to take your blood today, I was just kidding. But still for sacrifices you have to taste this salty water in your mouth.

Other Male Station Leader: Look at it, put together as a double strand. this is a DNA structure, looks like is called Double Helix. You know Helix? Yes, this is a Helix.

Kids: DNA!!!!

Picture Pit

[Students dress up as scientists complete with lab coats, safety glasses and gloves for holding a glass beaker of coloured water combined with dry ice. Discussions about lab safety and carbon dioxide.]

Male Station Leader: So what we're going to do here, we're going to dress you guys up like scientists. And take your picture. We're going to take pictures of everybody and we're going to put them on magnets. Then you can take the magnets home and stick them on your fridge. So let me see your funny face. Perfect you're up. Let's see the next one. Okay. I like the eyes, nice. Let me see yours. Oh, you look like a bit of a mad scientist.

Conclusion

Students chant: "N.R.C."

Students chant: "We love Science!"

Related Links

• Student Science & Tech
• Biology: Building a Better Tomorrow
• Periodic Table of the Elements
• Scientists and Innovations
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