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 Three Levels of Biodiversity

This interactive adapted from Kentucky's Natural Heritage: An Illustrated Guide to Biodiversity, introduces learners to the three levels of biodiversity: genetic, species, and ecosystem.

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.

Select Species Groups of Kentucky

In this interactive adapted from Kentucky’s Natural Heritage: An Illustrated Guide to Biodiversity, students will learn about the variety of species that call Kentucky their home.

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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Select Natural Communities

In this interactive adapted from Kentucky's Natural Heritage: An Illustrated Guide to Biodiversity, students will learn about the four major natural communities and the types of organisms that live in each.

Cave Species and Karst Landscapes

In this interactive adapted from Kentucky's Natural Heritage: A Guide to Biodiversity, students will learn about karst landscape, where caves are most prevalent, as well as the different species that can be found in and around caves.

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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Migratory Songbirds

Adapted from the Kentucky Life Biodiversity series, this video interactive offers information about the different species of birds and their migration patterns.

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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Scientific Tools and Methods

Adapted from the Kentucky Life Biodiversity series, the videos in this interactive explore three examples of researchers applying the scientific method in various field situations.

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.

Follow Kentucky Through Geologic Time

This interactive shows the location of Kentucky through different geological eras of time.

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.

Life in a Kentucky Village

The mural in this rollover interactive shows the Mississippian people in their day-to-day activities.

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.

Watersheds in Kentucky

This interactive with a short video clip, provides students with a definition of watershed, as well as information about where they can be found in the state of Kentucky.

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.

Lentic Communities

In this interactive students learn about the three types of lentic communities and examples of species that are unique to each.

Lotic Communities

This interactive provides a way for students to learn about lotic communities and the fish, mollusks, and invertebrates that live in these communities.

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.

1900 Air Pollution

Examine this graph from FRONTLINE/NOVA: "What's Up with the Weather?" Web site to see dramatic increases in three greenhouse gases over the last two hundred years.

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.

Acid Lake

Add acidity to a healthy lake and see what happens to the plants and animals in this interactive activity adapted from EcoKids.

Adaptation

Students examine some of the behaviors and physical characteristics that enable organisms to live successfully in their environment.

Adaptive Radiation: Darwin's Finches

Finches on the Galapagos Islands have evolved to exploit almost every possible niche. This diagram shows the range of food sources available on the island and the different beak shapes adapted to exploit each of them.

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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The Advantage of Sex

Why did sex evolve? The likely answers, in this essay for the Evolution Web site by science journalist Matt Ridley, may surprise you.

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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Air Quality Index

In this interactive activity adapted from "Air Quality Index: A Guide to Air Quality and Your Health" by the U.S. EPA, learn about common pollutants in the air we breathe, their health effects, and how their levels are reported.

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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Alaska Native Ways of Knowing

In this media-rich lesson, students prepare classroom science fair projects that demonstrate the application of traditional knowledge to a scientific topic.

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.

Albino Redwoods: Ghosts of the Forest Audio

Park rangers in the Santa Cruz Mountains are protecting a decades-old secret: albino redwood trees. In this audio report from QUEST produced by KQED, learn about these so-called "ghost trees."

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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All in the Family

In this Evolution Web feature, test your skills at judging who's who on the tree of life while you learn about the tools and methods of cladistics.

Allopatric Speciation

These images from the Smithsonian Institution depict Nancy Knowlton's work with snapping shrimp in Panama. Knowlton found that the closing of the isthmus -- dividing the Pacific Ocean from the Caribbean -- resulted in new species of shrimp.

All Systems Are Go

Test your knowledge of the digestive, respiratory, and other human body systems in this interactive game from Kinetic City. Race the clock to put Arnold's organs back into his body one system at a time.

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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Amazing Heart Facts

This feature from the NOVA "Cut to the Heart" Web site highlights facts about the heart -- including its size and placement -- and will help you to understand the importance of this wondrous organ in our bodies.

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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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American Chestnut Tree

This annotated slideshow adapted from KET's Electronic Field Trip to the Forest illustrates how blight decimated the American chestnut tree and the methods scientists use to identify and pollinate the remaining trees to create blight-resistant trees.

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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Analyzing an Ecosystem

In this interactive activity adapted from the University of Alberta, identify the living and nonliving things in an ecosystem. Then look further at the living things to identify the producers, the consumers, and examples of mimicry.

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 and Plant Cell

Think you can tell a yam from a yak? Examine these still images of typical plant and animal cells from Biology by Kenneth R. Miller and Joseph Levine. What similarities and differences can you find?

Animal Babies

This interactive slide show illustrates the variety of animal babies that exist on earth -- some completely independent and others deeply reliant on parental care.

Animal Body Plans: Homeobox Genes

The homeobox genes that define the basic body plan of mice and fruit flies are illustrated in this graphic from The Human Evolution Coloring Book by Adrienne Zihlman. The accompanying article describes how these genes act as "molecular architects" in all animal species.

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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 Classification Game

Learn about classes of animals and test your ability to identify animals as mammals, birds, reptiles and more in this interactive activity adapted from Sheppard Software.

Animal Cloning 101

Learn about clones and explore the methods scientists use to create clones in the lab in this interactive activity from the Dolan DNA Learning Center.

Animal Coverings

It takes a thick skin to withstand the hardships that life has to offer. This collection of images shows a variety of animals, each with a slightly different type of protective covering.

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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Animal Hearing

Students explore how sound is created, the importance of hearing in certain environments and some environmental causes of hearing loss.

Animal Intel

In this lesson, using video segments from Nature episode “A Murder of Crows,” students will explore different aspects of animal intelligence, with a focus on crows.

Animal Mouths

This collection of images of six different creatures, including insects and carnivorous vertebrates, illustrates the wide range of mouth types that exist within the animal kingdom.

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Animal Mouth Structures

Students observe several animals' mouth structures and explore how these structures help the animal obtain, handle, and eat food.

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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Antarctic Ecosystem

In contrast with its largely lifeless interior, the Antarctic coastal marine environment supports a vibrant and diverse ecosystem. Explore the region's living bounty in this interactive activity adapted from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Antarctic Food Web Game

In this interactive game adapted from the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, build a food web that illustrates the flow of energy in an Antarctic ecosystem and the relationships between predators and prey.

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 Atlas

In this interactive atlas adapted from UNEP/GRID-Arendal, explore different environmental features of the Arctic. Select from a list of themes to customize your map, then zoom in to take a closer look at one of six featured regions.

Arctic Ecosystem

Despite seemingly inhospitable conditions, the Arctic environment has a vibrant and diverse ecosystem. Explore the life that thrives in this region in this interactive activity adapted from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

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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