Subtopic: Human Influence on Ecology

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Biomes
Students collect information about different biomes. They learn how to read a climograph. Teams research different biomes and present to the class.

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.

Carbon Cycle Diagram
This diagram from NASA's Earth Science Enterprise illustrates the Earth's carbon cycle .

Chris Schneider: Rethinking Conservation
In this interview filmed for Evolution: "Darwin's Dangerous Idea," biologist Chris Schneider discusses the relationship between conservation and speciation.

Compare the Poles
Explore the defining features of the Arctic and the Antarctic in this interactive activity adapted from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

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.

Dare to Care for a Grizzly Bear
Using the Nature episode “The Good, The Bad and the Grizzly,” students will be able to articulate the complex and competing perspectives on how to best handle the growing bear population, and they will investigate the factors contributing to the destabilization of the bear’s Yellowstone ecosystem.

Duckweed
These images of duckweed (Lemna spp.) illustrate the basic anatomy and environment of these fast-growing plants.

The Effects of Global Warming in Alaska
In this media-rich lesson, students learn how global warming is changing the Alaskan environment and examine the consequences of climate change on the region's human and wildlife inhabitants.

E. O. Wilson: Ants and Ecosystems
This segment is from an interview with ant specialist and biologist E.O. Wilson, filmed for Evolution: "Evolutionary Arms Race."

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.

Global Warming?
Students examine the issue of global warming. They calculate how much carbon dioxide all the machines they use produce in one day.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Observations of Climate Change
In this media-rich activity, students learn how data gathered through surveys with local residents and data collected by remote satellites are complementary tools that help deepen our understanding of the effects of climate change in the Arctic and elsewhere.

Oil Contamination Affects Food Web
This video adapted from KTOO explores the impact of oil contamination on the herring population of Prince William Sound, Alaska, in 1999, 10 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

Pearl and Hermes Atoll
This video segment adapted from the NOW-RAMP 2002 Expedition documents a research expedition to Pearl and Hermes Atoll in Hawai`i. Watch as biologists assess the bird and plant populations and then work to eradicate invasive species.

Polar Bears and Climate Change
In this video from the World Wildlife Fund, learn how rising temperatures in the southern Arctic could lead to polar bear extinction.

Restoration of the American Chestnut
This KET video segment from Kentucky Life describes how scientists control pollination of one of the few remaining American chestnut trees to develop blight resistant trees.

Sharks in Our Future
In this video segment from Nature, see the value that sharks can have on the tourism industry in an area.

Soil Microbes and Global Warming
In this video adapted from KUAC-TV and the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, discover how warmer winters in Alaska may cause soil microbes to release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Steve MacLean: Conservationist
In this video profile produced for Teachers' Domain, meet conservationist Steve MacLean, an Iñupiaq from Barrow, Alaska, who works to preserve the health of the Bering Sea ecosystem.

Students Making a Difference
This interactive activity features three video segments produced by students in Alaska that demonstrate fun and innovative ways to help protect the environment.

A Subsistence Culture Impacted by Climate Change
This video adapted from the Arctic Athabaskan Council explains how warmer temperatures in the Arctic are transforming the ecosystem and threatening the subsistence culture of the Athabaskan people.

Taking the Earth's Temperature
This video segment from FRONTLINE/NOVA: "What's Up with the Weather?" depicts research efforts to record Earth's past and present temperatures shifts.

To List or Not to List
In this video from Nature, learn more about the ongoing debate regarding whether or not the grizzly bear population needs special protection .

The Value of Wetlands
This video segment adapted from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department explores the role of the wetlands in our environment, including providing habitats for wildlife, acting as natural water filters, and playing a part in the greater water cycle.

Wild Animal Rehabilitation
In this video adapted from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, see how volunteers care for sick or injured animals. Also learn why human interaction is not always the best solution.

Your Carbon Diet
Find out how much energy you use and common sense ways to conserve. From the FRONTLINE/NOVA Web site "What's Up with the Weather?"