i got me a job to do, and i aim to finish it. you standin' in my way? if you're takin' a shot, make it count 'cause you're only gettin' one. a threat? dyin' is a hard way to make a livin', girlie. well, i've got a job to do, too, you know, you're a little too into this. i was thinkin' -- in all the confusion, i kind of forgot. am i supposed to be a dentist or a cowboy? it makes me wonder -- do i feel lucky? i've got your answer. i'm gonna be the dentist. what makes you so sure? 'cause i've got the drill. eeee!

today we'll find out just what it takes to become a dentist and to keep those bright and beautiful teeth. hi, i'm melody young. i have an appointment to see dr. bradbury. he's been expecting you. if you'll have a seat, we'll be with you in just a few minutes. thank you. hi, melody. i'm dr. bradbury. you can call me tim or dr. tim. dr. tim. nice to meet you. how long have you been a dentist? about 15 years.

it was eight years after high school. do you have to like school if you want to become a dentist? that's kind of hard to say. there's a lot of things about school that i liked, but i didn't like all the studying that i had to do. but i knew i had to do it, so i kind of lived with it. the nickel is that one. what was your favorite class when you were in school? "recess and lunch" was the answer we used to give. i liked history the best. this is your office? can you show me around? let me show you in my first operatory here where we do quite a bit of our dental work. just various machines -- dentistry's changed a lot especially in the last 15 years that i've been a dentist. did you always want to become a dentist? i wanted to be one maybe 20, 25 days ago. no, actually it was about my third year of college that i chose dentistry as a profession. when i was growing up,

ow! dr. bradbury: this is one of my favorite toys that i like to work with and play with. it's a neat, little machine that has a little minicamera here. puts me in living color. fortunately, i don't have any cavities today. but i can show the patient what's wrong with their tooth, and they can look at it. is being a dentist easy? dr. bradbury: most days it's fairly easy. some days are challenging. these are the dental drills -- some of the tools that we use. maybe we'll hook one up here. we take it out of its sterilized package. and there's a little bit that goes on it, and it hooks up to the machine here. we just basically put it together. and then we hit a little foot pedal, and it makes the drill go 'round and 'round. and this is what we go in and we get the tooth decay out of the way. how long did it take you to use that with precision?

i remember when i first drilled my first cavity, i was so nervous. and then the really fun part to learning dental school is sometimes you not only have to use a drill, you have to do it upside down and backward. you're holding the mouth mirror, and you have to look in the mirror and be able to drill with the tooth. a lot of times i want to stand on my head, and i do sometimes. what's a cavity? a cavity is tooth decay. bacteria that's in the mouth mixes with sugars that get in the mouth, and it forms an acid. the acid gets in and it eats away the tooth. in other words, it makes part or all of it rotten. those cavities eventually go to the nerve and start hurting. that's why we want to take care of them very soon. this is my little x-ray view box. i'm not going to be using it so much anymore, because i have a new, little toy over there to play with.

my little view box over there. well, on this one, it's called computer digitalized radiography. you said a mouthful. right. we can show them the big x-ray. we don't have to show them this tiny thing and make it to where they have to take our word for it. do you have to take classes every few years to brush up? yes. i only have to go to school about four to five days out of the year now. most of the time, it's on weekends. sometimes it's at nice places like ski resorts. they didn't teach it in dental school when i was there.

how can i help my daughter with her reading? [beep] searching for help with dachshund breeding. why do you not get me? [beep] i do. this is what it feels like for kids with learning and attention issues. redirecting to understood.org. narrator join parents and experts at understood.org. a free online resource about learning and attention issues to help your child thrive. so you want to be an airplane pilot. dr. bradbury: computers are very important to dentistry now. when i was in dental school 15 years ago, i can't think of any reason that we used a computer, but now we use a computer with our business aspect. we use computers now for x-rays.

do you have any of the old? yeah, let me show you one, this kind of brings me back to my days when i was a little boy going to the dentist. this is the dental drill and apparatus machinery that my dentist used when i was a boy in the 1960s. this was an old electric motor with a little pulley system. oh, cool. i remember my dentist would put a toy rabbit on. i would watch it go around and 'round as the hygienist was cleaning my teeth. so everything's pretty much the same principle. isn't it hard to work in people's mouths? it was very hard at first when i was learning, but as you get used to it, it becomes pretty easy. have you ever run out of equipment and had to resort back to the old machine? no, but i'll occasionally get a few patients in -- i say, "this is what we're going to be working on you with today

how many patients do you treat a day? somewhere between 15 and 20. i usually stay pretty busy. do you have a patient here that you need to work on? yes, i do. i have penny today. do you need any help? oh, sure. come on in. let's have some fun. what makes a person a good dentist? i think a person that's able to work with his hands and his mind at the same time. ha ha ha ha. also, if you can work under pressure, and those are something i wasn't born with. this is melody. do you mind if she sits in here with us while we do a little work on you? this is my assistant lisa. lisa, this is melody. penny, i can't remember what we're going to do. we're either going to do a full-mouth extraction and take all your teeth out, make you dentures, or we're just going to polish those silver fillings. do you remember which? why don't we polish the fillings? we'll polish them. we just like to keep everything sterilized because we don't want any germs to spread,

we're going to get penny to lean back a little bit. we're going to have our big flashlight set over here. this is a real soft polishing drill bit. nobody really likes the sound of this. hit our button here. i'm going to polish here, and lisa's got a suction tip to keep the patient from getting too much water. i haven't drowned anybody yet, and i've come close, but i don't want to start now. have you ever had to pull teeth? oh, yeah, i have to do it probably several times a day. a tooth, for many reasons, sometimes it gets so badly decayed. and sometimes a tooth may be a perfect tooth, but the gums just get so much inflammation and gum disease, there's nothing else we can do than take the tooth out. what does it feel like to rip it out? actually, it's not like that at all. we just lift it out. it isn't hurting, is it? you're not just saying that, are you?

that will kill any germ. and that goes along with wearing gloves and a mask. these days, in dentistry especially, that's just very, very important. that is one big toothbrush! yeah, i made that. my hygienist just finished cleaning a patient's teeth, and i need to do the examination now. patty. oh, patty. you need to floss. have you ever worked on an animal's teeth? no, i've been tempted from time to time, leave that to the veterinarians. why don't you give us a kiss? give us a kiss. that's why we wear masks. i know you were polishing fillings. do you buy fillings or do you make them yourself? we kind of buy them ready to be made. it's mixing the mercury and the silver together. when you mix mercury with silver, it becomes very safe -- what we call "inert." it's real soft right now. it's going to harden in about five minutes or so.

ld? yes, i have used real gold to fill cavities. mostly i use it to totally cover the teeth, not just fill into it. i learned how to make the gold crowns when i was in dental school. it took a long time to learn. i did enjoy that class. i made bullwinkle here. wow! i kind of like rocky and bullwinkle. here's rocky. i made him. it's more fun to make these now than the crowns. i think the most important skill is being able to stick with something. get some cases or you're going to get some classes that you don't like. you just go through, and you just take the attitude like "i'm sticking it out. i'm staying with it no matter what." i think, after that, you can be anything you want to be as long as you want to be it bad enough. stay in school, and go as far as you can. dr. tim, we had such a great time learning what it's like to be a dentist. thank you, melody. i enjoyed having you out here.

what's wrong? i think you might want to check with getting braces sometime.

boy: this is the story of a boy who didn't talk for a long time. the boy liked things to always be the same. any changes would scare and upset him. the unknown was an unfriendly place. the boy was very sensitive to lights and sounds. so he built secret hiding places where they couldn't get in. the boy didn't like looking people in the eye. he wasn't trying to be mean, it just made him feel uncomfortable. sometimes he would flap his arms again and again. second boy: one day, i found out i had something called autism.

s i could live with it better. announcer: early intervention can make a lifetime of difference. learn the signs at autismspeaks.org. so, you want to be a cowboy? how about a cowgirl? did you know that there's only two kind of cowboys left? there's the kind that raise cattle on a ranch, and then there's rodeo cowboys. today we're going to meet a real-life rodeo cowboy. in fact, we're going to meet a world-champion bull rider. i guess this is your kitty cat. how you doin', scott? scott, were you scared the first time you got on one of these guys? a little. how old were you? my first bull, i was 14. 14 years old. wait, hold on. you didn't just jump onto a bull. you had to start somewhere else, right? when i was about 5 or 6 years old, we grew up on a horse ranch in california.

thing a little smaller than this, but it was fun. how much does the bull weigh? they weigh about 1,500 pounds to 2,000 pounds or anywhere from 700 to 1,000 kilograms. do you ride horses, as well? i actually use riding horses bareback, lunging them in a circle for an exercise that helps me with my bull riding. what is the difference between riding a bull and riding a horse? a big difference. a horse probably wouldn't try to come after you when you were done riding him like a bull would. more exciting for you -- the danger element? i think so. there is an adrenaline rush. anytime you're dealing with animals, you're going to experience that because they are so much bigger and stronger. how many times have you been thrown off? mendes: a lot, but i've developed my skills good enough to ride more than i get thrown off. that's what makes you a champion.

this is actually buckey. he's a 3-year-old gelding. he's a good, little horse. you mentioned riding bareback on a horse. does that mean just without a saddle? exactly. the rodeo, there's so many different angles to it. you have to be in top shape and conduct yourself as a businessman. are there only rodeos in america? actually, they're in other countries. countries that i know for sure are canada, mexico, brazil, and even australia. understand you come from a rodeo family. can you tell us a little about what your family did? i think it originated with my grandfather in the early '40s. he rodeoed with great rodeo legends -- jim shoulders, casey tibbs. he was a founder to the association i ride for. back then, they were called the cowboy turtles. they weren't riding turtles, were they? no. they were pretty much slow to organize, and they stuck their necks out in doing so.

riding horse and biking and weight lifting. playing basketball really helps me stay on top of my game. do you have to be very strong? you have to be able to control and handle your own body weight. and you're physically fit. you keep your air up by jogging. bull riding is not a physical sport. probably 80% mental to 20% physical. do you have any special devices that helps you train for the bull-riding competition? i have a bucking simulator. so, you want to be a bull rider? ...1888... this is that bucking simulator i was telling you about. this is the rope you're going to use on the bull? why is this special? it just has a certain tie to it? yeah. it's got a double-looped rope

this side, you run your loop through. you have an area where you place your rosin. what does the rosin do? rosin gives the rope a sticky base. rosin just sticks to the glove. you don't have a saddle when you ride a bull? no saddle. no need. i guess the next step is to get on. get my protective eyewear on. this is a left-handed rope, so i guess i've got to use my left hand. exactly. this is the area that we call the block, where you're gonna put your hand up against tight. you really get tied in there. the reason that we go behind our hand is so that we can create a bind, which will help you from having that rope get jerked out of your hand. does this hurt the bull at all? no. it's pretty hard to hurt those guys. do you ever get discouraged when you get bucked off? mendes: it's just like life. you got to pick yourself up, be tough,

i always see clowns out there. they're not out there blowing up balloons, are they? no. there's actually two types of clown -- there's a rodeo clown -- he's a funny guy. he's out in the barrel like a barrel man. and the bullfighter -- the cowboy saver -- he's out there to distract the animal away from the fallen rider. okay, well, i'm all strapped in. i guess it's time to throw me off. as the bull's front end comes up, you lean forward. aren't you going to hit your face? yes. yes. that's what i said. angles and physics. jeez. exactly right. you got to do your homework. is school important if you want to be a bull rider? it's very important. i would encourage everybody to stay in school. this is the good body position that you need to be in. it's a lot easier to practice on this

ays just reach and arch. they twist and move and all kinds of things. whoa! stop the bull! can girls be rodeo riders? they have an association now, the women's professional rodeo association, and they have all of the events that men do. a hang-up is when you get stuck on the bull? exactly. if you've ever seen a rodeo and seen a guy hung up -- you have to be aware of why it's happening, and when it is happening to you, you can't panic. aaah! aaah! it is dangerous and scary, but you got to relax. whoo-hoo! all right! we're here at the practice facility. can you run through some of the gear that you use to ride a bull? do you wear any kind of protective equipment? yeah, i wear a protective vest, which helps with being hit around with the horns and even getting stepped on,

you can feel it. it's not real heavy like it looks. there's some of the same material in this vest that is in a bulletproof vest. secondly, what we have here is a pair of rodeo chaps. gloves. why do you need gloves? if you were to ride a bull without a glove on, it's going to tear the hide off your hand. that's a real important reason. secondly, as you can see, this stuff here that looks like tree sap -- this is called rosin. the sticky stuff is what's going to help the rider hold on. how long does it take you to get ready? i like to give myself anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. once i've gotten the equipment ready and the stretching, hey, i'm ready to ride. i just relax and wait for them to load my bull. what is the biggest crowd you've had to ride in front of? without a doubt, houston astrodome. they can seat, i think, around 55,000 people. i've ridden there when it's been sold out.

a little bit, but i think that's when a guy has to be a champion and use that adrenaline and a little bit of that antsiness towards what he's going to do in the arena. you started riding when you were 4. did you miss any school because of it? you can't get anything in life by skipping out. you've got to work hard and be determined and really listen to the adults around you because they love you and they want the best for you. what should i do if i ever want to become a bull rider? mendes: set goals and work hard and find a place you can practice. f you don't live near animals? mendes: it's going to be a little bit harder, but one of the things you can do is contact some of the national junior rodeo or little britches rodeos association and find out where they're holding seminars and/or rodeos, and just go and participate. it's going to take some hard work, goal-setting, and determination along with a good education. make sure you...

my bull-rididi shades. where's the bull? whoa! i know what you mean now. it's really tough, riding. special thanks go out to scott mendes for showing us what it's like to be a real rodeo rider. and we'll be right back! morning gary. ...dot com. you want a college education, don't you? you know you do. yeah, , t i don't know where to start. that's why we're here. we're free, handsome... oh, i think we're breathtaking. and here to guide you through every step of the way... starting with... attendance. [air horn] gary, financial aid forms... biology homework, g. i got this.

colleges love extracurricular activities. chess really isn't my thing. i got this. doesn't matter! go ahead. picking a college, man! you and us. we go together like tacos and tuesday. and i loooove tacos. fire and ice. those don't really go together.

kids will spend 15 minutes brushing for two minutes now, can save your child from severe tooth pain later. two minutes twice a day. they have the time. hey! did you know 2.4 million loving cats and dogs in shelters and rescues need our help to find a home? let's go to theshelterpetproject.org and meet a few who are in a shelter near you. harlow--whoa! she's one great listener who loves to hear all your stories. my kind of cat. sorullo is a sweet, goofy boy who's eager to please. sounds just like another dog i know. so, go to theshelterpetproject.org, search your local shelters and rescues, and go for a cuddle with your next best friend!

[ moaning ] oh, man, this hurts. jeff, i hope you didn't hurt yourself too badly riding those bulls. remind me to eat more beef. how did the thing at the dentist go? i learned a lot. dentists perform a lot of important procedures, like filling cavities and cleaning teeth. they also have to continue their education. how was the bull rider? it takes a lot of dedication and practice and patience to become a world-champion bull rider, but you know, it's not all just riding the range. it's really a lot of hard work. man, it hurtrt i think i broke my jaw. well, you know, jeff... with all the knowledge i gained at the dentist's office, i think i may be able to help p u. really? because i -- hold still! no, no, no!

oh, , w i love that pcociousnancy drew. oh, well, hello, there, my little wordsmiths, and welcomee to another exciting edition of "fancy book learning." i'm your host, nathan wynne, and today we have someone with us from television, from the exciting tv show, "so you want a thing," ung. it's melody young, and it's "so you want to be." whatever. now, maloda, wouldn't you agree with me that books feed the soul, whereas television robs the mind? it depends on the show. take "so you want to be." it's a very posititi, educational show. today i'm interviewing a park ranger. jeffrey, this is weird. uh, yes, i do like chicken. thank you very much. we hope you had a wonderful time,

my name is nathan. you can take one every single day, and not necessarily to another city or town or nation, but to your imagination. and reading is your ticket to imagination. hi. we're here in the library. this is where you learn everything you need to know. and this is a librarian. hi. this is joel bangilan. how are you today? i'm doing fine. how are you?

about the library? sure, but why are you whispering? aren't you supposed to be quiet in a library? it's good to be considerate and respectful of other people who are using the library, but you don't have to whisper. so we can have fun. speak at a normal voice. haveveou ever had to kick anybody out for being too loud? i have, because they were horseplaying i iide the library and wouldn't stop. were they throwing books, or -- it almost got to that point. the kids were running around. we'd asked them several times nicely to stop. us, we asked them to leave. is it a good idea for children to come with their parents? it's always a good idea for the children to come with their parents. the liliary is a public place, and anybody can come into the library, so it's good to have your mom or dad or an older brother or sister with you. how did you get into working in the library?

opening, and i took it. what did you want to be when you were a kid? was a kid, i wanted to be a zoologist and then a dentist and then a teacher. what should i pay attention to in school if i want to be a librarian? one of the things that you ought to pay attention to in s sool is learning how to read a book and what makes it a good book. everybody in this library had to go to school for this? not everyone. but to be a librarian, you need to have a master's degree in library science. some people can become children's or reference librarians. they help different parts of the community use the library that's inside their neighborhood. where do you specialize? i work as a children's librarian. what's the difference? a children's librarian helps kids who come into the library and their parents to use the materials that we collect here. i guess you have to like kids, then. you do have to like kids. libraries now are places where you get information and not just books. you have magazines, tapes, videos.

the one in your elementary or middle or high school. you have a college library, law libraries. we're literally swimming in a sea of bookok i don't understand how you keep all these things in order. say a guy like me comes along and starts reading t ts book and reads for about 30 minutes and then puts it over here. how are you ever going to find it again? you probably can't. we have people that go through those shelves and put books in order. they go through and look at them one at a time? they sure do. what are these little letters here on the side of the books? the little letters help us keep them in order. fiction books are kept in alphabetical order by t t author's name, and nonfiction books are kept in numerical order according to subjects. what's theheewey decimal system? the dewey decimal system is a number system in which we put books of the same subject in the same place. so you have plants and animals and science books in one place, and art books and geology books in another place.

just start looking through the rock section? you used to do it on a card catalog. now we use computers. are all the books on computer? not all the books. information on how to find the book in the library collection is on the computer. what other things can you use the computer for? you can use it to gain internet access, database access, look up things in a directory. how good with computers do you have to be? you don't have to be an expert and know how to program them. all you have to do is know how to use it as a tool

hey. did you know that 2.4 million loving cats and dogs in shelters and rescues need our help to find a home? go to theshelterpetproject.org and search your local sheltersrsnd rescues. go for a cuddle with your next best friend! adopt. so you want to be an airplane pilot. it looks like the library computer. let's get on this thing. this is a catalog of kids' materials. sometimes you just can't find it inside a library collection,

how valuable a tool is the internet? the internet is a very valuable tool. it's's collection of a whole lot of information from all over the world. so, the internet is sort of like a great, b b, giant, king kamehameha, huge, big, giant, volcano-sized library. yes. are all the books in this library in this computer? a record of all the books are on this computer. do you have to get along with people if you want to be a librarian? you have to get along with a lot of people to be a librarian. what happens if you lose a book? if a person who borrows a book loses it, they have to pay for it. if a staff person loses it, we have to pay for it, as well. do you have to know a lot about mama? i thought you didn't at first, but you actually do have to know a lot about math. you have to learn about budgets, you have to learn about statistics, and a whole bunch of other numbers that help you do your job. what are some of the other duties of a librarian? well, there's telephone references,

any questiti that they ask. also, we help people go to the shelf and find the exact book they're looking for.r. so, it's a whole lot more than just looking up books. i noticed a lot of people just sitting around reading. you don't have to check out a book in the library? you don't have to check out a book in the library. but if you want to take any materials home, you do have to have a library card in order to take things out. so, it's sort of your job to encourage reading? it is our job to encourage reading because that's such an important skill in life. how do you do that with kids and movies and video games? how do you get them interested in reading? we try to excite them with storytimes, crafts, anything that will allow us to have a literature-e-sed program that they can see how this information is stored in books

from food or trash makes it an unpleasant place to be in. also, those sosos of things bring in chemicals that hurt the books or may damage the computers that are inside the library building. are there any other kind of language books in your library? it depends on whwhe the library is located. in our city, there are a lot of spanish-speaking people, and so we do collect a lot of spanish materials. downtown they have a collection in french, german, arabic, and a few other languages from around the world. you don't really love so much? one of the things that i really don't like is putting back books on the shelf. that's really boring. do you have to be a speed-reader to be e good librarian? no, you don't have to read fast. just know how to read well. what was your favorite class when you were in school? my favorite class in school was probably... art class. libraries act also as a community center.

activities, art classes, on-line classes. do you coordinate these things with the rest of the staff? i, in particular, coordinate some of the ones that are for children, but other members of thehetaff do workshops for adults. our job is to unite a person who comes to the library, calls the library, or faxes the library, and get them to the information that they're looking for. oh. i see the problem. the little guy needs to be in water. okay. yeah. thank you, ma'am. good job. it's all in the e oks. jeffrey: the people checking out the books -- is that all they do all day long, or do you alternate the jobs? joel: this is what they do for most of the day. librarians tend to stay with the information desk, while these folks help people here

that's sort of a joke. i'm a big "star trek" fan, and this is a starfleet academy class ring. really? i-i know some people from outer space. where are you from? i grew up in the united states, but i'm originally from the philippines. my brother is a policeman, and my sister is a secretary. you get along with your brother and sister? pretty well. you ever kick them out of the library? i haven't had a chance. would you? if they were dancing around with the monkey, yes. the hardest thing about my job is dealing with people who have had a bad day. are you smarter since you became a librarian? not necessarily, but i do know how to find things in order to help me find answers. joel, i had no idea there was so much to being a librarian. i thought it was just checking out books. we sure appreciate your time.

der whenever there's a bigger group. pretty much a good day for me would be people leaving their hands off of me. i'm always called names. um, everywhere that i go there's always someone calling me names, calling me gay. i've been choked. thrown up against a wall. punched.

i'm anne. i'm a scientist. why don't you let me... ? you're gonna hear what i say... ? i love taking stuff apart and building new things out of it. anne: pal's my most advanced annedroid. [gasps] this is awesome. ? oh ? cardboar. anne: you haven't seen anything yet.

you worked was a park? you'd be surrounded by nature every day, and it wouldlde your job to protect all the plants and animals there. the people who do this are called park rangers, and today we'll find out just what it takes to be a park ranger. this is jerry bartel, and he's a park ranger at brazos bend state park. thanks for taking time out to be with u utoday. tell me, how big is brazos bend state park? itit 4,897 acres. can you explain exactly what is a state park? a state park is a section of land by the state government -- one of the 50 states in the union -- and it's held aside to preserve and manage the wildlife and plant life and also to provide recreation for folks that come inin do park rangers protect people from animals or animals froropeople? a little bit of both. in most cases, we're protecting the animals from the people. making sure that they respect the wildlife in the park is a big part of what we do.

that's certainly an important aspect of being a a rk ranger, especially at brazos bend state park. all the park rangers have a base e owledge of wildlife and animals and plants in the park, but one position that we have -- park naturalist position, which is part of being a park ranger -- that posititn even more so. they present the educational programs in the park. having a background in science, biology, zoology -- those types of things are very impmptant. responsibility is j jt to make sure that the land is clean and safe for all the animals? i'm responsisie for the overall operation of the park. do park rangers live in the woods? well, not really. in our park system, there are residences that certain rangers are required to live in so we are in the park. yes, in that context,

we've got computers -- two stations, here. we're one of the few park systems that has a computer system for registering and reserving campsites, and also doing some of our financial reports is right off this computer. a customer comes in, and they can register the customer through the computer, just like we used to do by handwriting before. of these offices, but now it's automated. their job isiso keep that stuff up. melody: do you talk to the other park rangers? yeah, quite a bit, especially the other park managers. we confer on issues that are affecting the parks and thinin of that nature. we help each other out with equipment and supplies when there's a shortage. are you able to visit other parks for free? our policy for employees in the park system -- when we visit for the day, yes, we can go in, and wewee not charged the entrance fee.

visit with the managers and other staff members to see how they're doing things at their park that we might be able to do the same thing and improve our park with. so, what do you enjoy better -- the paperwork or the outside work? there's no contest. i i ve being outside. do you have to like nature to be a park ranger? yes. being a park ranger, there are different levels of education depending on the positions that we have in the park and its s ployment. for a park ranger position, which is a title given to folks who do a lot of different work out in the field, a high-school diploma is required, plus special skills and d aining in different types of maintenance -- carpentry, plumbing, electrical repairs, those types of things -- ground maintenance.

there is college required in the fields of zoology, botany, ecology, interpretation, education. myself, as the park superintendent, or the park manager -- degrees in wildlife or a related field, recreation -- that type of thing is required. some accounting skills, because e do a lot of business ends of the park -- running it. so there's a varied amount of education, depending on the position that you're talking about. what did you want to be when you were a kid? that's okay, if that's the case. probably one of the key things abououbeing a park ranger or skills or qualifications that you need to have -- you've got to enjoy working with people. you've got to enjoy being around people. this is essential, because you deal with so mananpeople, and you're educating them, you're teaching them about nature, you're teaching them about the park, about our rules and regulations,

why are we sitting here on a park bench? this is one of our picnic areas, melody. like i explained earlier, the park is nature all around, but we do have little pockets of development for people who come and recreate. there are picnic tables, barbecue grills, there are mowed, maintained grounds all around so people can come and have a barbecue or a picnic for the day and put up a volleyball net or a badminton net and play games and things like that and just have a good time in the park. at each one of these stations, we have restroom facilities. we also hit's me, a ay!ots come see what i collected from the creative galaxy in my idea box. would you help me make art? ? each one of our journeys ? ? keeps us young ?

? we'll never get older... ? arty: go be amazingng amazing! announcer: give your cardboard box another life. [music] [splat] [evil laugh] [grunt] [page tearing] [grunt]

boy: once there was a boy who did the same thing again and again. one day, he was told he had autism. he got help and slowly learned how to live with it better. announcer: early intervention can make a lifefeme of difference. learn the signs at autismspeaks.org. man: i adopted bento in 2010 from a shelter. this cat makes me make art. he's my best friend, but a lot of people know him as keyboard cat. [playing upbeat tune] woman: hamilton was adopted from a rescue in 2008. he's quite the pug about town. he gets invited to a lot of parties. he knows he's a pretty big deal.

so you want to be an airplane pilot. of their duties is to take care of this picnic area. is that done by you? that's done by all of us here. we're a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. we do everything here. the tables themselves -- we come in and replace those -- the boards -- or put new ones in. we build our own barbecue grills and put those in the ground. there are a lot of skills involved, especially on the maintenance end. ry, plumbing, electrical repairs, weld, ctors and shredders. you do automotive repairs, there's a tremendous amount of things that you do. can girls be park rangers? definitely. we're walking through our camping areas. it has water and electricity at each one of the sites. you can bring a tent and camp here, or you can bring an r.v. like this one here and camp. as a park ranger, you come in,

and knowledge about maintenance that you need to have. do you fight fires at the park? on occasion, yeah. there are times whenen someone's campfire gets away, or we've had a fire start from lightning thth we had to go put out. is being a park ranger dangerous? for the most part, no, but there may be situations sometimes where things get a little bit on the tense side, and d you're trained properly, you can handle those situations. melody: so how many alligators are here in the park? there's probably 500 to 600 alligators throughout the 4,897 acres in the park. most of them are going to be in the water bodies. they move from one water b by to the next, so it's really hard to say just how many, exactly, there are in the park, but that's a rough estimate. what is the biggest alligator you've ever seen?

are you responsible for the care of all the animals that are here? in the sense that we're stewards to the land and the wildlife here, yes. we are responsible for maintaining the habitat so those animals can live. tory here on their own. the park is not a zoo in that context. we don't interact in feeding or anything like that. we just provide the habitat for those animals so they can live. have you ever fought an alligator? no. we've relocated alligators from one water body to the next. we try to stay away from the animal as much as we can. there's information at our headquarters about the wildlife ininhe park, and the visitors' center has an educational program on the weekend, which is free, where we talk about the nature in the park and let people get knowledgeable on what's out here. the visitors' center is here to provide education and interpretation about all the natural wonders that we've seen today going out.

but get folks to come visit, see nature, learn about nature so they further will appreciate it later on. you bet. it's not boring, because you come into work, and you don't know what's going to happen in the park and what you might have to do that day. one minute, you're out mowing, like you've seen some of the people, next, you get a call -- we've got to move an alligator from a pond. we've got to get him out of there for some reason. or you've got to go up to the headquarters then there are reports you do. we do controlled burns. you do a lot of things. it's never boring. so, that keeps you on your toes because you never know what to expect, and you don't have the same routine every single day. no. we're busy all the time. i had no idea park rangers work so hard on so many things. thanks for showing us. you're welcome. come back and see us. ion. maintaining the land and the water

w to read? yes, i did. i learned that being a librarian is much more than just checking out books. you've got to learn how to relate with people. you've got to learn how to check out what other kindsdsf libraries are there? i've got "moby dick"... [ waves breaking ] "gone with the wind"... [ wind blowing ] and, of course, there's dante's "inferno." i think you need to stick to pop-up books.

[captioning made possible by telco productions, inc.] >> welcome to "tomorrow today." this week... division, the e vie, coming to a lab near you. the uk's biggest power station looks to biomass