Acid Mine Drainage and Precipitates

In this video, environmental scientists measure the pH of water to detect acid mine drainage from an abandoned coal mine and then demonstrate how metals present in acid drainage fall out of solution as precipitates when a basic substance is added to the water.

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Controlling Water Run-off

This video shows how the environmentally friendly design of the Visitor Center at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest near Louisville slows down water run-off and helps to control non-point-source water pollution, conserve water, and prevent soil erosion

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What is Biodiversity?

This excerpt from the KET Kentucky Life Biodiversity series, offers a brief overview of what we mean when we refer to the biodiversity of a particular area or region.

Environmental Impact of Acid Mine Drainage

This video shows how acid mine drainage from an abandoned coal mine has affected Wildcat Branch in Kentucky's Daniel Boone National Forest. Because the creek has a very acidic pH of 2.9, most organisms cannot survive there, and Wildcat Branch is essentially dead.

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Reusing Wastewater

This video demonstrates how peat filtration beds at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest near Louisville, Kentucky purify and conserve wastewater and eliminate one cause of non-point-source water pollution.

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Think Garden: A Year in the Garden

This video tells the story of a traditional summer garden over the course of a year. Learn how to prepare for a garden during winter months. See students get their gardens ready for planting, and then watch as they tend to their gardens all summer.

The Geology of Coal

In this video, a geologist describes how coal, a sedimentary rock, was formed when organic materials piled up in swamps millions of years ago. Over time, heat and pressure transformed the buried materials into forms of coal that cause acid mine drainage when exposed to oxygen.

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Recycling and Restoration

This video explains how Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest near Louisville, Kentucky used recycled cypress from pickle vats to build its visitor center and then “paid back” nature by creating a cypress-tupelo swamp at one end of a lake on the park grounds.

Think Garden: What's a Food Chain?

This video illustrates why all living things need food and explains how organisms provide energy to each other. Colorful graphics show the difference between a food chain and a food web, and an animation and poem make food chains easy to understand.

High-Sulfur Coal and Acidic Water

In this video, a geologist measures the pH of water after high-sulfur coal from a Kentucky coal mine has been added to it. This test demonstrates that the sulfate salts found on the coal’s surface cause the water to become much more acidic.

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Think Garden: The Importance of Water

This video explores why plants need water to survive, and how they tell us they’re thirsty. Learn about the part water plays in the process of photosynthesis, and find out how to conserve and improve water quality. Also an animation explains the water cycle and transpiration process.

Rain Gardens

This video shows how a rain garden at Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest near Louisville, Kentucky slows down the flow of water from the forest’s parking lot and helps prevent soil erosion.

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Think Garden: Location, Location

This video shows how location is important to the health of a garden. Learn about the factors that go into choosing a location for a garden. See a variety of alternatives to a traditional garden plot like raised beds, container gardens, hoop houses, and small kitchen gardens.

Mycoremediation

This video explores the process of mycoremediation: planting fungi such as oyster mushrooms to mitigate non-point-source water pollution caused by oil, gasoline, and other toxic substances.

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Restoring Lower Rock Creek

This brief video describes how Lower Rock Creek’s location between two National Wild and Scenic Rivers caused Kentucky environmentalists to choose the creek as a target for acid mine drainage remediation.

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Acid Mine Drainage Remediation

In this video, an environmental technologist visits an abandoned coal mine in Kentucky to talk about how a remediation system (a series of settling ponds and treatment cells) is neutralizing the acid drainage flowing from the mine and keeping it from damaging a creek downstream.

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Applying the Scientific Method

This video provides a real-life example of the scientific method: testing hypotheses about which plants will grow most successfully on a green roof in Kentucky.

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Think Garden: Soil Composition

This video explains why soil is more than just dirt. Learn how to tell if soil is rich and healthy or lacking in nutrients, which nutrients are essential, and what happens if plants lack these nutrients. Also find out how to improve soil, and find out what compost is, and how to use it.

Think Garden: A Gardener's Poem

This video explores the many roles of a gardener through a short, fun poem.

Results of Acid Mine Drainage Remediation

In this video, a biologist visits Rock Creek in Pulaski County, Kentucky to show how acid mine drainage remediation has increased the stream’s pH from acidic levels to almost neutral. Although the ecosystem has not been completely restored, many species have returned to Rock Creek.

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Stream Restoration

This video explores how Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest near Louisville, Kentucky has restored a channelized or straightened stream to its original meandering path, thereby improving the stream’s water quality and creating a better habitat for wildlife.

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Aquatic Insects

In this brief video, a biologist talks about the macroinvertebrates (typically aquatic insects) that form the basis of food webs in healthy Kentucky streams.

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Detached Wetlands

This video depicts a detached wetland, a small pool that forms beside a shallow meandering stream when it overflows its banks. These wetlands are important breeding grounds for the invertebrates that live in and beside streams

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Indicator Species: Hooded Warbler

Adapted from the Kentucky Life Biodiversity series, this video interactive offers information about the Hooded Warbler and its role as an indicator species in the Natural Bridge region of Kentucky.

Think Garden: Plant Families

This video breaks down the scientific classification of living organisms. Learn about the order of classification: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. Also get a closer look at some specific plant families to find out which fruits and vegetables are in the same family.

About the Seasons

Children learn how seasonal weather changes affect everything, from the behavior of animals to the way we dress and play.

Think Garden: Cool Crops

This video explores the possibilities of gardening in the cooler temperatures of spring and fall. Learn about which vegetables like cool weather, and techniques to help plants grow in these conditions like raised beds and hoop houses. Also find out why cool crops are ideal for school gardens.

Think Garden: Photosynthesis

This video explains the process of photosynthesis through a fun poem with stop motion animation. Learn about what chloroplasts and chlorophyll do, and why sunlight, water, carbon dioxide, oxygen, glucose, and carbohydrates are important to the process.

Biodiverse Regions: Blood River

Adapted from the Kentucky Life Biodiversity series, this video looks at the natural significance of the Blood River region of southwestern Kentucky.

Think Garden: Garden Pests and Helpers

See how some creatures benefit the garden by being pollinators, while other creatures help by eating insects that attack garden plants. Also learn techniques to prevent bigger pests from damaging the garden.

Biodiverse Regions: Black Mountain

Black Mountain in southeastern Kentucky is one of the most biodiverse regions in the state. This KET video offers a brief overview about the factors that make this area so unique.

Think Garden: Sustainable Gardening

This video examines methods of practicing sustainable gardening. Examples explored include companion planting, composting, and more. Also learn about things not to do in a sustainable garden.

Think Garden: Garden Health and Maintenance

This video explores what a garden needs to remain healthy. See the ways thriving gardens depend on humans, and find out special needs of specific plants.

Think Garden: Plant Structure

This video examines plant structure by taking a closer look at the root and shoot systems. Learn about roots, stems, leaves, flowers, seeds, and fruit through engaging illustrations and animations.

Acidic Seas

For years, our oceans have been hard at work absorbing the carbon dioxide that humans create through burning fossil fuels. Find out what effect that extra CO2 is having on our seas.

Adopting Sustainable Food Practices

Hear about how respect for Earth can help us attain a more sustainable lifestyle in the face of climate change in this video segment adapted from United Tribes Technical College.

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Agricultural Runoff and the Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone

This video segment adapted from Big River: A King Corn Companion shows how agricultural chemicals from the Midwest that travel downstream in water runoff create a vast marine "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Alaska Native Teens Help Researchers

In this video adapted from KUAC-TV and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, Alaska Native students contribute to research on how their environment is changing as a result of global warming.

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Albino Redwoods: Ghosts of the Forest

Pale ghosts that hide amid their gigantic siblings, only a few dozen albino redwood trees are known to exist. In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, track down these elusive phantoms of the forest.

All in the Family

This video from the series Faces of America details the process of documenting family history and tracing lineage back through maternal and paternal lines.

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Alzheimer's: Is the Cure in the Genes?

An estimated 15 million Americans will suffer from Alzheimer’s by 2050. QUEST visits with researchers at San Francisco’s Gladstone Institutes who have found that a gene may hold the key to a cure for this debilitating affliction.

Alzheimer's Disease

This video segment from the Secret of Life School Video: "Genetic Medicine: Tinkering with Our Genes" explores the potential for gene therapy to cure diseases like Alzheimer's.

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Amazon Rainforest

This video segment from the Race to Save the Planet teaching module "Saving the Diversity of Life" describes the ecological value of tropical rainforests and explores some of the causes of their destruction.

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Amphibian Research

This short video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K explains how frogs help biologists study problems in the environment.

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Amphibians

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K points out what it means to be cold-blooded. A frog's life cycle is revealed as well as why it croaks, why it hibernates, and how it catches its prey.

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An Alaska Native Community Helps Seals

This video from First Alaskans Institute spotlights the Alaska Native community of St. Paul and its hands-on commitment to care for the land and animals on which it depends.

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An Ancient Legend Teaches Climate Change Adaptation

Today’s unsustainable use of natural resources is compared to the legend of the giant Uab, in this video adapted from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

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Ancient Farmers of the Amazon

This video segment from Evolution: "Evolutionary Arms Race" tells the story of the leafcutter ant and the fungus it farms -- an example of mutually beneficial symbiosis.

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Anglerfish

This video segment from NOVA: "Animal Imposters" shows the lightning-fast strike of the anglerfish.

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Animal Chefs

Ever wonder how to tempt the taste buds of a 400-pound mola mola? In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, learn how the chefs at the Monterey Bay Aquarium prepare meals to feed thousands of species.

Animal Defenses

In nature, survival is the name of the game. This video segment explores the world of animal defense and shows that predators don't always have the upper hand.

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Animal Families

How long does a baby elephant stay with her mother? What do you call a baby goat? Young children learn some interesting facts about the lives of baby animals in this original video from KET.

Animal Hearing

This video segment discusses the physical adaptations that give several nocturnal animals a heightened sense of hearing. Footage from NOVA: "Mystery of the Senses: Hearing."

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Animals Making a Living

For most animals, finding food is a full-time job. This video segment explores the food-finding strategies of a variety of creatures, illustrating the idea that different animals have very different ways of getting enough to eat.

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Animals on the Go

This video segment shows a wide variety of creatures in their respective habitats, with a focus on how the animals move.

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Ants: The Invisible Majority

"The Ant Guy" is on a mission to show the world just how important and amazing ants are and in the process, catalog all of the world's 30,000 ant species. In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, find out how you can help.

Arctic Summer

See the many birds that spend their summer in the Arctic in this video segment from Nature.

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Arctic Tundra

This video segment from Wild Europe: "Wild Arctic" explores the struggle for survival in one of Earth's most extreme environments.

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Are We Alone?

This video segment adapted from NOVA features a variety of scientific perspectives on the age old question, "Are we alone in the universe?" Animations make vivid the improbability that we could intercept a radio wave signaling extra terrestrial intelligence.

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Asexual Reproducers

This video segment explores the benefits and pitfalls of cloning as a means of reproduction. From Evolution: "Why Sex?"

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As the Crow Flies

In this video from Nature researchers from the University of Washington conduct a long-term experiment to see if crows can pass information down from one generation to the next.

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Asthma: What Brought on the Epidemic?

In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, learn about research that is being done into the possible environmental and social culprits of childhood asthma that could one day lead to measures that prevent kids from developing the disease.

Atrazine Affects the Water Supply

In this video segment featuring live-action animation, adapted from Big River: A King Corn Companion, see how the agricultural pesticide atrazine impacts both crops and human health.

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Backyard Birdfeeders

This video from WPSU’s series Outside suggests how to feed birds in winter, a hobby that can foster awareness, care, and respect for birds.

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Backyard Turtles

In this video from the WPSU’s series Outside, learn about backyard turtle habitats, their favorite foods, and why they don’t make good pets.

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Backyard Wildlife

Squirrels and chipmunks are just two of the animals you might see. Backyard Wildlife, an original KET video, encourages children to explore the world outside their back door.

Basic Instincts

This video from Nature: "My Life as a Turkey" explores the knowledge wild turkeys have about the world around them.

Bats of the Southwest

This video segment from the Nevada Department of Wildlife looks at various species of bats and how they impact the environment.

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Bear Necessities

This Nature video segment focuses on the four foods most important to the grizzly bears' survival, and it describes the threats to the supply of each of them.

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Bear Research

In this video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K tag along with two biological researchers as they conduct their research project about bear movements.

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Bears

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K shows bears' adaptations for eating.

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Bears' Lunch Counter

This Nature video segment explores how the relationship between humans and grizzly bears has changed over the course of American History, and it describes the closing of the Yellowstone National Park garbage dumps in the 1970s.

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Bears Don't Recognize Boundaries

In this video segment from Nature, learn about the problems bears are creating on ranch land surrounding Yellowstone National Park.

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Bears in the Schoolyard

Learn about the precautions humans must take in the face of a growing grizzly bear population in this video from Nature.

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Beavers

This video segment explores the world of the beaver, including the biology of the species and, more importantly, its ability to transform an ecosystem for its own benefit.

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Becoming a Fossil

This video segment describes how the Australopithecus afarensis skeleton known as Lucy could have been fossilized. Footage courtesy of NOVA: "In Search of Human Origins."

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Becoming a Mosquito

Join students as they observe mosquitoes in different stages of development and learn about the insect's life cycle in this video from Curious George.

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Bee Navigation

This video segment from NOVA: "The Mystery of Animal Pathfinders" explores honeybee communication and navigation.

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Beneath the Waters of Cocos Island

The nutrient-rich waters surrounding Cocos Island set the stage for astounding predator-prey interactions, as seen in this video segment from NOVA: "Island of Sharks."

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Beyond the Present

This video from The Human Spark provides a look at humans' unique ability to reflect upon events that have happened in the past and think about things that could possibly happen in the future.

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Bighorn Sheep

This video segment from Outdoor Nevada explores the adaptations that help desert bighorn sheep survive in their habitat.

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Bioengineering Body Parts

In this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, scientists discuss their attempts to grow human body parts in a jar.

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Biofuels: Beyond Ethanol

In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, find out what scientists are discovering in investigating the newest methods for converting what we grow into what makes us go.

Biological Invaders

This video segment from Evolution: "Extinction!" shows the impact of invasive species on native ecosystems.

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Biome in a Baggie

This ZOOMSci video segment shows how to create self-contained environments and explore how plants grow under different conditions.

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Bird Migration

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K discusses the purpose of migration and shows researchers and students working together to study bird migration at the Idaho Bird Observatory.

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Birds of Kundha Kulam

In this Nature video, learn about the extraordinary impact that birds have on the agriculture of a small Indian community.

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Birds of Prey

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K defines birds of prey and explains what characteristics they have that identify them as a raptor and help them catch their prey.

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Blood Vessels Help Tumors Grow

In this video segment, adapted from NOVA, Dr. Judah Folkman uses the scientific method to discover how cancer cells induce the formation of new blood vessels, which in turn nourish those cancer cells.

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Body Waste

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K takes a look at the reasons why body waste keep you healthy and the parts of the body form the waste products, urine, pus, carbon dioxide, gas and feces.

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Body Waste that Protects You

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K covers the body wastes that protect you: earwax, mucus, tears, sweat and vomit.

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The Bounty of Bees

Bees are an extremely vital part of life on this planet. In this video segment from QUEST, explore the huge impact these small insects have on our civilization.

The Brain

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K explores the anatomy of the brain and how your brain interacts with the rest of your body.

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The Brain in Action

This video segment from The Human Spark observes the brains responses to a series of cognitive tests.

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Brain Trauma

Find out how serious head concussions can be in this video segment adapted from NOVA scienceNOW.

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Bt Corn

This video segment from FRONTLINE/NOVA: "Harvest of Fear" looks at corn that has been genetically modified to resist one insect pest, and the multiple concerns it raises.

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Bubonic Plague

In this video segment adapted from A Science Odyssey, learn about bubonic plague and how city officials in San Francisco tried to contain its spread in the early 1900s.

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Building the Alaska Oil Pipeline

This video segment adapted from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE tells the story of how environmentalists, Alaska Native peoples, and engineers concerned about the effects of permafrost challenged plans for the Alaska oil pipeline.

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Burrowing Owl

In this video segment from Outdoor Nevada, learn about burrowing owls, yearlong residents of open, dry grassland and desert habitats, and the only owls that nest underground and are active both day and night.

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Butterflies

This video from Vegas PBS features colorful insects known as butterflies, and looks at the coloration, species, life cycle, and migration habits within their habitat.

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