The Ugly Duckling: Science Style!
Once upon a time a proud mother duck watched her beautiful babies hatch. One by one they came out of the eggshells, until all of them had hatched except one. It was a very large egg with greenish spots on it and mother duckling wondered if it would ever hatch! Finally, the egg cracked, and out toddled the largest ugliest duckling mother duck had ever seen! He was a lot bigger than the rest and had a strange pair of glasses with thick lenses strapped around his oddly shaped head. She nudged him into the water, and loved him just the same. Then she noticed something weird. He ran off and came back with a 100mL graduated cylinder, an eyedropper, and an electronic scale.
"What are you doing," she asked him.
"I'm trying to find the density of this pond water," he replied boastfully.
She gave him a funny look, but told her little ducklings to watch.
"You might learn something," she told them when they started to complain that they wanted to move on.
The ugly duckling took the graduated cylinder and placed it on the scale. Then he hit the tare button to make the scale read zero. He then
filled the 100mL graduated cylinder with about 50mL of the pond water. He used the eyedropper to get the meniscus at exactly the 50mL mark. Then he recorded the mass on the scale. Next, he took the mass and divided it by the volume. That gave him the density of the water.
"Look! Look! You guys it says the density of the pond water is 1.09 g/mL. The real density of water is 1.0g/mL! I got really close!" he squawked in disbelief. "I hope I become a scientist when I grow up that would be so cool," said the ugly duckling.
"Whatever!" quacked one of his brothers. "I'm starving can we go get something to eat?"
"Sure," said mama duck.
"Can we not bring that little weirdo over there," said one of his sisters. "He is embarrassing to even be seen with!"
The pour ugly duckling, sad and ashamed, ducked his head under the water as mother duck hurried the flock along.
"Come on dear," she said softly as to pretend nothing had happened.
The next day proud mama duck showed her ducklings around the barnyard. To get them acquainted with everything and everyone that was there.
"What pretty ducklings," said the fanciest duck in the yard. "Except for that ugly one with the glasses! Get him out of my sight!" she screeched loudly.
The ugly duckling lowered his head in sadness, as though to cry. But of course no one paid attention. Finally, mama duck waddled over to him and put her wings around him for comfort.
"Why can't he look like the rest of us mama?" asked one of his sisters.
Mama duck looked at her little boy duckling with discomfort, and started to feel ashamed that he was hers and he was so very ugly.
Life grew harder and harder for the little duckling. He was always being teased by something or somebody all the time, and it was hard for him to handle because now even mother duck was too embarrassed to even comfort him.
One day he was waddling along the pond shore and he started to wonder how fast his average speed was. So he got out a meter stick and measured off 15 meters and marked both ends with sticks. He started waddling along and with a stop watch timed himself for about 10 trials and then took the average to see how much time it took him to waddle 15m. His average time was 15 seconds. He divided 15m by 15sec. and figured out that his average speed was exactly 1.0m/sec.
As time passed, the leaves changed form green to yellow, and the grass turned form green to a brownish yellow. One day the family of ducks were lurking around an unusual place the ugly duckling had never seen before. The pond there was much bigger than his own, and he was a little nervous, because as usual he was far behind the others. But this time he was afraid he might get lost! He scurried to keep up with the flock. All of a sudden a few shots sounded off from hunters' rifles, and all the birds in sight scurried off to find somewhere to hide. The ugly duckling hid alone in the tall weeds until it was safe for him to go out. Finally, when he came out his family was gone.
The ugly duckling finally settled in a secluded part of the pond. As the days grew colder and colder chunks of ice appeared in the pond. The ugly duckling noticed that there was only ice at the top of the pond. His feet stayed warm in the water below the ice. Then he realized that the ice was only at the top of the pond because it floated on the water. The ugly duckling figured from this that the density of frozen water is less than the density of liquid water. Therefore the ice will always float and his little webbed feet will never freeze. It was a long, cold, miserable winter and the ugly duckling felt more alone than ever. One night, the ugly duckling made his way through the melting pond; he heard a cry form a bush across the pond. He peaked through the bushes and saw beautiful white birds. The ugly duckling could not imagine what kind of creatures they might be. They were so graceful, and stunning. He thought about it and figured these birds would run from him too, so he didn't even give it a try.
As spring rolled around the flowers began to come into bloom, and the grass and leaves changed once again to the beautiful greenish tint.
He didn't know this but he had also been growing and changing too. He stretched his wings out to feel the sunny day and to his surprise a gust of wind lifted him high into the air. He gracefully landed in a serene lake beside a beautiful orchard. Near by swam four long-necked white birds. He recognized them; they were the beautiful creatures he had seen before.
The ugly duckling was sure these magnificent birds would chase him away, but instead they simply welcomed him by bowing their long graceful necks. So he did the same thing. When he looked into the water he realized he looked just the same as the other birds.
The ugly duckling had transformed into a magnificent swan. He joined this new flock with great pride and joy. And he never allowed the swans to call anyone different from them ugly.