Bryn was astonished. She held an old photo of her as a toddler. She was playing in a field of snapdragons. The white and yellow flowers dotted the field. Now she looks out at that same mountainside. It was completely covered in white flowers!
When she found that old photo, she had the idea to ask her dad if they could visit here again and bring her two best friends along: Ruby Mae and Tucker. After some hiking, they finally made it to the very spot where the picture was taken, but it was totally different. Snapdragons were her favorite kind of flowers and yellow was her favorite color. She liked the white snapdragons fine, but why were there so many now?
Tucker ran on ahead of them to the top of the hill. "Wow, take a look at this view!"
Ruby Mae placed a hand on Bryn's shoulder. "This is a really cool spot! And look at all the flowers. Great idea on coming here Bryn". Bryn let out a faint smile but couldn't hide her disappointment. "Hey, what's wrong Bryn? You look kind of down.”
"I'm just a little sad. There aren't as many yellow flowers as I thought there would be."
"Hm, yellow flowers ..." said Ruby Mae as she scanned the field. "Ah, there's one! Oh, and there's another one way over there!"
"Sure, but look at this," said Bryn. She showed Ruby Mae the old photo. The photo showed a field much less full of flowers. As Ruby Mae counted the flowers, she noticed there was an almost equal amount of yellow and white flowers. But looking over the field now, it was completely covered in white flowers!
"That's so strange. Why are there so many more white flowers now?"
"I don't know, it's a mystery."
"Mystery?" said Tucker popping up as if from nowhere. "I love a good mystery. Fill me in!" The three of them sat together sharing their guesses about why this happened.
After some time, Bryn had an idea. "Hey, we all want to get to the bottom of this flower color mystery, right? So, what if we all collected some data and tried to prove one of our guesses right."
"Yes! We totally should!" said Tucker almost jumping up and down with excitement. "But wait. What data do we collect? I mean, we could count how many white flowers and yellow flowers there are. But wouldn't that just tell us that there are more white flowers? We already know that."
"I think I have an idea, be super quiet for a sec," instructed Ruby Mae. A hush fell on the group as they took in the sounds around them. Behind the rustling wind and chirping birds there was a buzzing. The trio looked down at the flowers and noticed the bumble bees buzzing about them. As they crowded around to get a closer look, they noticed a bee landing on a flower. As it rested its weight on the snapdragon, the flower's petal opened. The bee then crawled into the flower covering itself in little yellow spheres.
"You see?" said Ruby Mae in a low whisper. "The bumble bees are pollinating the flowers as they crawl inside them. And that helps them reproduce and make more flowers."
"Ah, I get it!" whispered Tucker a little too loudly. "So maybe the bees just like white flowers more?"
"Which I don't get, yellow is a much prettier color in my opinion," Bryn chimed in. As she got up, she declared "Here's what we'll do. We'll each pick a patch of flowers and count how many times a bee lands on a white flower or a yellow flower."
"We should also count how many flowers of each color we start with" added Ruby Mae. "And then maybe we can come back in a year or so to see if there are any new flowers."
"Awesome," Tucker exclaimed. "Wait, let's make our guesses first. My guess is that the bees just prefer the white flowers. More flower visits, more flowers."
"I'm not convinced," said Bryn. "I mean, both color flowers have what the bees are looking for right? I think bees would visit both the same amount. White flowers are probably just better at making more white flowers."
"I think it depends on how many you start with," Ruby Mae suggested. "My guess is if you started with a field with more yellow flowers, you would eventually get a field covered in yellow flowers."
"Then that's all of our guesses! Let's go count some bees!" Bryn exclaimed. She explained everything to her dad, and he said it was fine as long as they didn't run off too far.
And so, they each found a small patch of snapdragons to keep track of. They counted how many flowers they started with. Then they counted each time a bee landed on a flower over a few days. A year later the trio came back to the same patches. They made note of any new flowers and their colors. Bryn jotted down the new flower count for her patch of snapdragons in her notebook. She took a moment to look back at her notes to see if her guess was right. Her patch started with three white flowers and three yellow flowers. She expected to see an equal number of bee visits to white and yellow flowers. But that's not what happened. She added up all of the visits she saw on each day. She counted 22 visits to white flowers and 10 visits to yellow flowers. "Isn’t that what Tucker said?" she thought to herself. "There must be something about the white flowers that bees prefer. Maybe that’s why there are two new white snapdragons and only one new yellow one this year". She was excited that she finally solved the mystery! She couldn't wait to tell her friends.
Bryn made her way back to the meeting place only to find Tucker and Ruby Mae with a puzzled look on their faces. "Hey Tucker guess what! My data matches what you said! I saw the bees visited the white flowers more."
"What, really?” questioned Tucker. “I didn’t see that in my data.”"
"Can I see your notebooks real quick?” asked Ruby Mae. She studied the data for a while. After a few minutes she looked up confused.
You see, Tucker got some slightly different results. He counted four white flowers and two yellow flowers to start with. He guessed then that the bees would almost never visit the yellow flowers. There just weren't very many of them. He had guessed that the bees didn't like them as much either. He counted 18 visits to white flowers and 12 visits to yellow flowers. This surprised him. The bees did land on white flowers more, but not as much as he thought they would. But returning to his patch a year later seemed to clear things up. There were three new white snapdragons and only one new yellow snapdragon. "That must be it then, it all has to do with how many flowers you start with! Just like Ruby Mae said. I had more white flowers the first year, there are more new white flowers this year, and then they take over." Happy with his findings he returned to tell Ruby Mae the good news. But he only got more confused when Ruby Mae shared her findings.
Ruby Mae knew she wanted to study a field with more yellow snapdragons than white ones. She found a small patch with four yellow snapdragons and two white ones. At first, she thought the data she collected wasn’t very helpful. She counted 22 white flower landings and 28 yellow flower landings. Sure, there were more bees landing on yellow flowers, but there were also more yellow flowers to land on. But that wasn't what she was interested in. She would have to wait until next year to see the results she wanted.
Returning to her patch, she was shocked at what she found. There were two new yellow snapdragons, but also two new white snapdragons. "But there were so many yellow ones to start with. Shouldn't there be more new yellow snapdragons?" Thinking over the situation a bit more, she came to a conclusion. "I guess Bryn was right. There must be something about white snapdragons that makes them better at making more white snapdragons. But what?" Excited to explore these questions with her team, she made her way to their meet up place.
The trio all sat down to review their notes. Bryn had three white flowers and three yellow flowers. She counted 22 visits to white flowers and 10 visits to yellow flowers. She counted two new white flowers and one new yellow flower. Tucker had four white flowers and two yellow flowers. He counted 18 visits to white flowers and 12 visits to yellow flowers. He counted three new white flowers and one new yellow flower. Ruby Mae had two white flowers and four yellow flowers. She counted 22 visits to white flowers and 28 visits to yellow flowers. She counted two new white snapdragons and two new yellow snapdragons.
And so, the trio sat together perplexed. They thought sharing their findings would help clarify what was going on. But soon the group had been asking questions and bringing in ideas they hadn't even thought of before. "Could the bees like the white flowers more because of their scent?". "Are white flowers easier for bees to see?". "Can snapdragons reproduce without bees?". "Can yellow flowers reproduce to make white flowers?".
It was exciting to think about these new ideas. It was also really disheartening to feel like even after their year-long experiment, they still didn't have a good answer to explain why the white snapdragons were taking over the field.
Then for a moment the trio broke off their discussion to notice Bryn's dad was talking to a woman they didn't recognize. As they looked over, he waved to the group saying, "hey guys, there's someone here who wants to meet you all". They all got up and walked over.
"Hi there, fellow scientists" said the woman as they all shook hands. She wore a tan hat and had binoculars around her neck. "I hear you all have been doing some field research. How's it going?"
Bryn responded "we're still not really sure why the white snapdragons took over the field". The three of them started walking the scientist through their data. They explained all the ideas they started with. They explained all of the new ideas they hadn't thought of until today. After sharing everything they did, Bryn asked the scientist, "have you been researching this too? Do you know the answer?"
The scientist thought to herself with a smile on her face. "Well yes, I'm part of a group of scientists that have been collecting data around this very phenomenon. In terms of an answer, the short version is ... we don't know."
"What!?" they all exclaimed in unison.
"That's right. My group of scientists are still collecting data on the same thing you all have been working on."
"Ok, if that's the short version, what’s the long version?" asked Ruby Mae.
"You all have already mentioned a lot of it. The data we have suggests that bees pollinated the white flowers more than the yellow flowers. This might be caused by a lot of things. Maybe something about the flower being white makes it easier to find. Maybe bees think they'll find more pollen and nectar in white flowers. It could be that there were more white snapdragons to start with. It could also be genetic. Maybe new flowers always have a higher chance to be white. Our guess is that it's not any one thing but a mix of a few of these. But even that we haven't proven yet."
Bryn was glad to see they weren't the only ones curious about this. Still, she couldn't help being a little disappointed that they still didn't find an answer.
"But I can't stress enough how proud I am of you kids!" said the scientist.
"Really?" said Tucker. "But we didn't solve the mystery. We don't even know which one of us had the right guess."
"Well science isn't about proving you're right. And it isn't only about finding the right answer either. It's about trying to understand the world around you better. A lot of times it's about asking the right questions. It's making experiments to help us see new patterns. Then it's trying to find out what those patterns mean. Then we use what we learned to make the next one even better. I'm sure you already have a ton of ideas of what you'd want to change for next time."
"For sure!" said Ruby Mae. "I think I would control the number of white and yellow flowers to be equal like Bryn did."
“And at the very least we could collect more data. Coming back year after year might help us uncover more patterns,” said Bryn.
"What if we spray painted all of the white snapdragons yellow!" Tucker blurted out.
Ruby Mae let out a little gasp. "Those poor snapdragons".
"Ok, maybe something else that wouldn't harm the environment," corrected Tucker.
The scientist agreed. "Yeah, we should make sure our experiments don't hurt the things we want to understand. But you all have the right idea. And all of your excitement and curiosity is really inspiring." At that the trio all beamed at each other with pride.
After a while, the scientist had to leave to do her own field work, so they had to say goodbye. Bryn, Ruby Mae, and Tucker all sat down for a well-deserved picnic. They planned their next round of experiments for the next time they visited as the sun set over the distant mountains. Together they headed back down the mountain excited for what their next experiments would find.