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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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.

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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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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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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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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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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Amphibian Research

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

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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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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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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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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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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 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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Biological Invaders

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

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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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Changing Arctic Landscape

In this video adapted from the Arctic Athabaskan Council, learn how warmer temperatures in the Arctic are transforming the landscape, triggering a host of effects such as permafrost thawing and insect infestations.

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Chemical Risks to a Fetus

Learn about the risks environmental contaminants pose for a developing fetus, in this video adapted from Contaminated Without Consent.

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Chemist and Biologist Catherine Drennan

In this video produced for Teachers' Domain, learn about MIT professor Cathy Drennan's research into microorganisms that remove carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

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Chicken Waste and Water Pollution

In this video segment adapted from FRONTLINE: “Poisoned Waters,” learn how unregulated waste from large-scale chicken farms contributes to water pollution.

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Climate Change Threatens Pacific Paradise

Learn how climate change has impacted food and freshwater resources on the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea, in these two videos adapted from UNU-IAS Traditional Knowledge Initiative and Pacific Black Box, Inc.

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Collapse of Sharks

This video segment from Nature shows the destructiveness of the shark fin and shark cartilage industries.

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Conserving a Unique Ecosystem in Micronesia

Learn about the steps that the people of Kosrae, Micronesia, are taking to protect their natural resources, in this video adapted from the Micronesia Conservation Trust.

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Contaminants in the Arctic Food Chain

The levels of contaminants found in particular animals vary widely depending on where they fit into the Arctic food chain, as described in this video segment adapted from LOKE Films and the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme.

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Contaminants in the Arctic Human Population

In this video segment adapted from LOKE Films and the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, learn how human populations in the Arctic are affected by industrial contaminants in the food chain.

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Contaminating the Rockies

Learn how abandoned mines have been contaminating water supplies in the Rocky Mountains for decades in this video segment adapted from NOVA: "Poison in the Rockies."

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Converting to Biodiesel

Meet a college student whose class project to turn cooking grease into diesel fuel resulted in converting bus fleets to biodiesel, in this video from Earth Island Institute's New Leaders Initiative.

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Desert Biome

This video segment from NOVA: "A Desert Place" describes the physical characteristics and organisms that define the desert biome.

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Disappearing Plants

Plants can only respond to climate change over the course of multiple generations. Learn about the particular challenges that plants face in responding to global warming.

Dustin Madden: Science Teacher

In this video profile produced for Teachers' Domain, meet teacher Dustin Madden, an Iñupiaq who hopes to inspire students to take an active role in protecting the natural environment by giving them a foundation in math and science.

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Earth Day TV Special: Where We've Been, Where We're Headed

In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, find out how environmental activists have shaped how we work, live, and play in a more environmentally responsible way.

Ecology

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K defines ecology and ecosystems and explains how all living and non-living things in an ecosystem interact and depend on the energy of the sun.

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The Effects of Pesticides on Children

Follow anthropologist Elizabeth Guillette as she studies the effects of pesticides on children in a farming community in Mexico, in this video segment adapted from Playing with Poison.

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Electronic Gadgets

Two kids learn some surprising facts about the parts in their computer game, in this animated video from LOOP SCOOPS.

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Endangered Species

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K explores the many reasons why animals become endangered or become extinct.

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Endocrine Disruptor Hypothesis

Scientists discuss whether or not endocrine disrupting chemicals, which may cause birth defects and other health concerns, should be controlled in the absence of conclusive proof, in this video segment adapted from FRONTLINE: "Fooling with Nature."

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Environmentalist Bill McKibben, 1990

In this 1990 archival news footage from Cambridge Community Television, environmentalist Bill McKibben speaks about the possible effects of climate change at an Earth Day celebration in Cambridge, MA.

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Environmental Justice: Opposing Industrial Hog Farming

Learn about the impact that large-scale hog farming has had on one minority community in North Carolina and how residents fought back to protect their water supply and property, in this video segment adapted from Earthkeeping: "Toxic Racism."

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Environmental Justice: Opposing a Toxic Waste Incinerator

In this video segment adapted from Earthkeeping: "Toxic Racism," learn how farm workers and farm owners formed a rare alliance in an effort to block the use of an incinerator in their Latino community by suing a major corporation for environmental discrimination.

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Environmental Justice: Opposing a Toxic Waste Landfill

This video segment adapted from Earthkeeping: “Toxic Racism” talks about the early days of the environmental justice movement and how the health of minority communities can be compromised by the disproportionate numbers of hazardous waste facilities located there.

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Environmental Justice in Dallas

Follow a Dallas community's fight to receive federal Superfund status to clean up the damage from a high-polluting lead smelter, in this video segment adapted from Earthkeeping: "Toxic Racism."

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Eradicating Malaria with DDT

Learn about the role of the controversial chemical DDT in the worldwide malaria eradication program, and hear from an expert who advocates bringing it back, in this video segment adapted from Rx for Survival.

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Factory Farms and Organic Alternatives

In this video adapted from the series Race to Save the Planet, learn how agricultural pesticides can help increase the amount of food produced, but can also damage soil and wildlife in the process. See how organic farming addresses some of these challenges.

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Farm Nitrates in the Water Supply

Learn how nitrate runoff from farm fertilizers can negatively impact human health and how a water treatment plant is tackling the challenge, in this video excerpted from Big River.

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Farm Solutions to Water Pollution

In this KET video from Common Ground and Cleaner Water, Tribby Vice, a Kentucky farmer, talks about the changes he has made on his farm to protect the water quality of the stream running through his property and the watershed in which he lives.

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Field Biology

This video segment from the teacher video series Learning That Works uses a case study to highlight the effectiveness of a project-based, real-world approach to teaching science.

Fish Research

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K explains the Chinook salmon's life cycle in the Pacific Northwest and why it is an endangered species. A fisheries biologist takes students through some steps of fish research with explanations of the kinds of information biologists gather to perhaps help manage fish recovery.

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Frogs

A boy named Ben learns about the dangers of invasive species—in this case, frogs—in this animated video from LOOP SCOOPS.

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From Salt Ponds to Wetlands

Biologists are working to restore the San Francisco Bay Area salt ponds to healthy wetlands for wildlife in one of the largest restoration projects on the West Coast. In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, students learn why wetlands are important to wildlife.

Garbage

A boy named Oliver learns how to reduce the amount of trash he discards, in this animated video from LOOP SCOOPS.

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Global Warming and the Greenhouse Effect

This video segment from Race to Save the Planet: "Only One Atmosphere" discusses the greenhouse effect and global warming.

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Global Warming Threatens Caribou

This video segment adapted from Arctic Mission presents the challenges faced by caribou herds unable to adapt to a warming climate.

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Global Warming Threatens Shishmaref

In this video segment adapted from Spanner Films, visit the Alaska Native village of Shishmaref, and learn how an entire town may be forced to relocate because of warmer temperatures, melting sea ice, and coastal erosion.

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Global Warming Threatens World Water Supply

Potentially half of the world's water supply may be at risk because of melting glaciers. Learn more about the consequences of global warming in this video segment adapted from FRONTLINE: "Heat."

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Groundbreaking Pesticide Ban

Learn how one child's willingness to share her experience of life-threatening exposure to lawn pesticides helped inspire a citywide ban of pesticides for lawn or garden use, in this video segment adapted from Playing with Poison.

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Gwich'in Tribe Protects Caribou and Culture

In this video adapted from Bullfrog Films, Gwich’in Chief Evon Peter of Arctic Village, Alaska, describes his people's connection to the caribou and their passion to protect Alaska Native land and traditions.

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Habitat

This video segment from IdahoPTV's D4K explains the 4 basic requirements of a perfect habitat and what a niche is within a habitat. You'll see videos of different animals in their habitats, such as; bear, moose, spiders and mountain goats,

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Healing Mother Earth for Future Generations

In this video segment adapted from United Tribes Technical College, meet Native Americans who are concerned about climate change and believe that action today can help future generations once again live in harmony with Earth.

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Health Risks of the BP Oil Spill

In this video segment adapted from Need to Know, learn about the possible short- and long-term health risks for workers involved in cleaning up the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Hog Wild

Wild hogs number in the hundreds of thousands and reside in all but two of California's 58 counties. In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, learn how hunters are stepping up to be part of the solution to this problem.

Homo Sapiens Versus Neanderthals

This video segment, adapted from NOVA, explores reasons why Homo sapiens had an advantage over Neanderthals in the pursuit of territory and natural resources.

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Horseshoe Crabs and Humans

This video from Nature highlights the horseshoe crab and its immense value to humans.

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How the Arctic Ecosystem Might Change

In this video segment adapted from the National Film Board of Canada, learn why the unique Arctic ecosystem may be replaced if global warming continues to melt sea ice.

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Intertidal Zone

This video segment from NOVA: "The Sea Behind the Dunes" explores the community of organisms that exists in the New England tidal marsh.

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Intertidal Zone and Sea Level Rise

Find out how scientific surveys are providing evidence that animal populations in Yosemite and along the California coast have shifted over time in response to rising temperatures.

Inuit Observations of Climate Change

In this video adapted from the International Institute for Sustainable Development, an Inuit community collaborates with Western scientists studying climate change. Inuit observations are recorded and included in the data collection process, expanding the scientists' understanding of changes in the area.

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Iñupiaq Whale Hunt

This video, adapted from material provided by the ECHO partners, provides a portrait of Iñupiaq whaling as a community activity, as told through the story of one hunt.

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Juice Boxes

A kid discovers that an ordinary juice box is surprisingly high-tech and, once discarded, will last for 300 years, in this animated video from LOOP SCOOPS.

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The Kemps Ridley Sea Turtle

This video adapted from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department describes how humans are helping restore safe nesting grounds for the critically endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtle to ensure its successful repopulation.

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La'ona DeWilde: Environmental Biologist

In this video profile produced for Teachers' Domain, meet La'ona DeWilde, an environmental biologist who integrates her Athabascan heritage and her Western scientific training to help remote Alaskan villages address environmental issues.

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Leafy Spurge

This video segment from Evolution: "Extinction!" shows how biological control is successfully combating North Dakota's infestation of leafy spurge, a non-native plant.

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Liberty Lands

In this What's Up In The Environment? video segment, learn how a contaminated plot of land in Philadelphia was recycled into a beautiful public park called Liberty Lands.

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Liquid Assets: A Water System

This segment from a WPSU documentary Liquid Assets succinctly explains how water in New York journeys from its source to our faucets. Although water flows under our feet everyday, we are blissfully unaware of this service and take it for granted.

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Liquid Assets: Community Participation/Activism

This video segment from a WPSU documentary Liquid Assets explains the problem that the city of Pittsburgh faces in terms of its watershed management and the work being done by an environment group in helping its citizens deal with it.

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Liquid Assets: Public Health

This video segment from a WPSU documentary Liquid Assets connects public health to the availability of clean and safe drinking water and elaborates on the threats our bodies face due to increasing kinds and quantities of pollutants.

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Liquid Assets: Sustainable Water Use

This video from a WPSU documentary Liquid Assets shows the transformation of Las Vegas’ water infrastructure. A desert community, Las Vegas is reducing water consumption and re-using wastewater, making optimal use of limited water resources.

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Liquid Assets: Wastewater

This video segment from a WPSU documentary Liquid Assets describes the progression of wastewater management from its early days to present day wastewater treatment systems. The development of Boston’s first-ever waste management system is described.

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Living on the Coast

This video, adapted from material provided by the ECHO partners, illuminates how living on the coast affects individuals and communities, particularly humans' interrelationships with natural resources.

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Magazines

After learning that two-and-a-half million tons of magazines are discarded in America every year, a girl finds creative ways to reuse them, in this animated video from LOOP SCOOPS.

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Malaria Treatment and Prevention Strategies

In this video segment adapted from Rx for Survival, watch a graphic representation of the malaria parasite and hear from experts about the physical and economic effects of the disease on the human population, as well as treatments and preventive measures.

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Mercury in San Francisco Bay

In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, examine the multibillion-dollar plan to clean up the mercury in San Francisco Bay.

Mercury in the Bay Part 1

Did you know that mercury extracts gold out of rock? In this video from QUEST produced by KQED, explore how mercury mined during the gold rush has left a toxic legacy in California.

Micronesia's Changing Climate: The Problem

Discover what Pacific Island communities can do to reduce the impact of climate change, in these four videos adapted from the Micronesia Conservation Trust.

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Mitigating Climate Change in China and Ethiopia

In this video segment adapted from "Hope in a Changing Climate," learn how an environmentally devastated ecosystem has been restored, benefiting both the local economy and global efforts to fight climate change.

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Natural Gas Mining Contaminants

This video segment adapted from Split Estate reveals some community health consequences of natural gas mining.

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Navajo Elders' Observations on Climate Change

In this video segment adapted from Navajo Technical College, hear about changes in climate and in the natural environment as observed by two Navajo Elders.

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