Note from the author: While I've been talking with my kids about science-y stuff since before they could talk back, I started regularly recording our conversations about science in January 2006, when they were 6.5 and 4.5 years old. Back then, I was making my transition from blogging under the pseudonym "Dr. Free-Ride" to blogging under my real name. Since I wanted my kids to have some control over their own online identities, I used the old pseudonym in our dialogues to mask their real-life identities.
"Friday Sprog Blogging" became my alternative to the widely-practiced "Friday Cat Blogging." I'm allergic to cats, and I doubt that they'd be such enthusiastic conversational partners. "Sprog" is a British slang term that can be used for a child or a military recruit. I suppose I'm recruiting my kids to the view that science is just a normal part of how we interact with the world.
Younger offspring: The bad thing about all the Canada geese on the fields this summer is that the fields have lots of goose poop.
Dr. Free-Ride: Well, geese gotta poop.
Younger offspring: I don't like stepping in goose poop when we're playing soccer.
Dr. Free-Ride: I can understand that.
Elder offspring: The Canada geese look like they mostly eat grass and weeds. There are other birds that eat lots of berries, and their poop is pretty nasty.
Dr. Free-Ride: It's true that it's not fun to be pooped on by a bird that's just eaten a lot of berries. But it's a good deal for the berry bush.
Younger offspring: How?
Dr. Free-Ride: Think of the berries you've been eating all summer. What do they have a lot of?
Younger offspring: Seeds.
Dr. Free-Ride: And what happens when critters like birds eat those seedy berries?
Younger offspring: They poop out the seeds.
Dr. Free-Ride: Sure, but probably not right away.
Elder offspring: They fly for awhile first and then poop out the seeds.
Dr. Free-Ride: Uh huh. And why is that a good deal for the plant that grew the berries?
Elder offspring: Because then the seeds can grow far away from the original plant -- farther away than they'd grown if the berries just fell off the plant -- and there will be more berry bushes growing in lots of other places.
Dr. Free-Ride: A tidy little plan for world-wide domination.
Younger offspring: Do the berry bushes want their berries to be eaten?
Dr. Free-Ride: Well, they don't have brains, so I don't think they want anything. But it does help the survival of the berry bushes to have critters spreading their seeds to lots of other places they can grow.
Elder offspring: There are some plants where the fruit is poisonous, though.
Dr. Free-Ride: That's true.
Younger offspring: It wouldn't be good for animals to eat poison fruit, so animals couldn't help spread the seeds from those plants.
Dr. Free-Ride: Hmm. Is there any way that it could be a good deal for the plant to be bad to eat?
Elder offspring: Maybe if the plant is poisonous, it won't get eaten by animals before it's done growing and making its seeds.
Dr. Free-Ride: So being poisonous or yucky-tasting could be a protection from predators.
Younger offspring: Seeds don't always need to spread in poop. Some can spread in the wind, and some can get stuck on your clothes and follow you home from the woods.
Dr. Free-Ride: So it sounds like maybe the plants that do really well have ways to spread their seeds to other places, but that different plants have different strategies for doing it.
Younger offspring: Plants have strategies?
Dr. Free-Ride: Well, since they don't have brains, they don't really plan what they'll do. But the plants that have reliable ways to get their seeds out there are the ones that are still around.
Elder offspring: Being tasty seems like a good strategy for plants but not for animals.
Dr. Free-Ride: I guess. Unless the animal only became tasty after having offspring ...
Elder offspring: Some things are tasty and hard to get to.
Younger offspring: Like honey!
Elder offspring: And artichokes. Is it a good deal for the artichoke plant if the artichokes get eaten or not?
Dr. Free-Ride: Well, humans cultivate artichokes. If the first human who ate an artichoke and thought it was tasty hadn't fought her way through all the prickly parts, who knows if there would still be artichoke plants.
Elder offspring: Humans seem less reliable than birds.
Younger offspring: (With a serious look) So when we eat berries, we poop out seeds too?
Dr. Free-Ride: Yep.
Elder offspring: Do you think there are lots of berry bushes growing in the sewer system?
Dr. Free-Ride: I'd be kind of surprised if there were.
Younger offspring: I wouldn't want to pick those berries.
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