Summary: As fresh water sources dwindle in the arid American Southwest, California faces growing difficulty in managing and sustaining its irrigation infrastructure. This program analyzes the multifaceted problem, sifting through environmental and political factors and assessing a number of potential solutions. Beginning its fact-finding tour at the Water Education Foundation in Sacramento, the film...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Rising from a Himalayan ice cave and emptying into the bay of Bengal, the Ganges River is sacred to Hindus as a purifying spirit-yet it currently suffers from pollution and neglect. This program follows the Ganges through various Indian cities, studying their relationship with the river and assessing its uncertain future. Beginning in Gangotri, the program profiles a photographer who has...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Sediment sequences deposited under glacial conditions during the Pleistocene period cover some 10% of the earth's land surface. This program concentrates on the interpretation of a sediment sequence exposed in a river cliff cut by the River Severn in England. Techniques of sampling and analysis are illustrated, with emphasis on the measurement of particle size and of particle dip and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Will biofuels reduce greenhouse gas emissions or actually increase them? Does the biofuel industry threaten the world's rainforests? Is corn, palm, rapeseed, or sugar cane the best plant source? What about recycled cooking oil? This program explores the ongoing controversy over biofuel technology, raising disturbing questions about sustainability and environmental impact while evaluating...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Have Earth's vibrant waterways-its streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans-become delivery systems for pollutants and poison? This program points to signs that toxic substances are overwhelming our planet's aquatic ecosystems. Viewers encounter many of the causes for this concern, including a radical decrease in frog populations, distressed marine mammals in estuary habitats, and disturbing changes...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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Summary: Stretching over 4,000 miles across South America, the Amazon River has long defied human efforts to tame it. Not a single bridge crosses it, and not one dam halts its flow. This program visits urban centers on the banks of the Amazon and examines new attempts to harness-or exploit-the river's energy and natural abundance. The journey begins at Iquitos-a Peruvian city blighted by poverty and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: When a volcano erupts, the earth is transformed. When the flow of lava stops, there is a dangerous new world to explore, another planet, so to speak-a land of spectacular craters, strange lakes of acid water, and glaciers melting from the inside out. This program follows a German photographer and researchers from the University of Nice as they document volcanic activity, as well as its effects,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: As current sources of fresh water become increasingly inadequate to support the needs of North America below the Canadian border, the U.S. and Mexico are looking toward their northern neighbor for relief. This program examines the political and commercial ramifications of NAFTA on the bulk export of water, as well as initiatives to conserve and recycle fresh water in the Sun Belt and in...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: At ground level, shallow seas, broad beaches, dunes, and waterlogged hollows seem to comprise a chaotic environment. In fact, there is order and form, produced by the interaction of wind, vegetation, and moving sand. Because sand dunes develop rapidly, the development of a landform can be observed. Measuring wind velocity demonstrates how saltation, sand movement, and erosion happen. The...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The lowland basis around Los Angeles contains the most extensive water conservation and flood control system in the world. In 1917, work began on a system of dams and improved channels to control the floodwaters entering the basin. This program looks at the way this system was built and the problems entailed in its design and construction.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Among the most utilized waterways in the world, the Yangtze River is also one of the most volatile. This program sheds light on humanity's battle to tame and profit from the river-specifically, a project initiated by Chiang Kai-shek in the 1930s. The program also studies corresponding ecological problems. Viewers are introduced to the Three Gorges Dam, a concrete mega-structure visible from...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Its name conjures images of America's mythical past, encoded in the stories and novels of Mark Twain. But today's Mississippi River is rife with challenges no 19th-century storyteller could have imagined. From issues of basic survival to triumphs of creativity and profit, this program follows the day-to-day lives of those who dwell on the Mississippi. Starting in the town of Cairo,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Beautiful and mysterious, powerful and violent, oceans define our blue planet. How did they come to be, and how long will they exist? Beginning with the primordial weather that first formed the seas, this episode from the Amazing Planet series tells the geological story of Earth's ocean realm as it travels from coral reef shallows to the depths of the Mariana Trench some 36,000 feet beneath the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Peak oil: the point at which oil-producing countries, faced with diminishing crude reserves, can no longer keep pace with growing demand. Has the world already reached it, or is the point of irrevocable decline still decades away? That is the slippery question that frames the narrative of this program as experts from around the world give their views on factors associated with escalating oil...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Through volcanic eruptions of molten rock, Planet Earth is forever giving birth to itself. But this engine of landmass creation is also a vehicle of cataclysmic destruction-particularly in the form of the super-volcano. This episode from the Amazing Planet series takes viewers backward into the dim reaches of geologic time and forward into the not-too-distant future to illustrate how magma and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why do mountains tend to have a triangular shape? How much rain must fall to start a river? How do single grains of sand accumulate into a dune? This episode from the Amazing Planet series answers those and other geologic questions by capturing the beauty born of eons of unceasing environmental violence as water, wind, and ice erode the surface of the Earth into an ever-changing sculpture of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: A progenitor of the National Geographic Society, John Wesley Powell was a naturalist, a rough-and-ready explorer, and a visionary in his understanding of the uncharted Colorado River. This program illustrates Powell's historic passage through the Grand Canyon in 1869, when the 35-year-old set out with eight companions from Green River, Wyoming, into the unknown. The film describes how, at...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Despite great strides made in reducing point source pollution, America still has 300,000 miles of rivers and streams and 5 million acres of lakes that remain contaminated. This documentary examines how coastal and inland communities across the country are turning their attention to controlling non-point source pollution through watershed management and TMDL-total maximum daily load-programs....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: When the USDA replaced MyPyramid with MyPlate, the goal was to simplify dietary recommendations by providing at-a-glance guidelines without having to weigh and measure at every meal. This program explores the key concepts of MyPlate and how it correlates to the more detailed Dietary Guidelines for Americans, including portion sizes, proportions, food group choices, and caloric balance. The...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Were it not for the elemental forces of the Nile River, the great architecture of ancient Egypt and Ethiopia might never have been built. But in today's water-starved world, the river could lead both countries down a destructive path. This program examines lives and livelihoods that depend on the Nile, from the humble to the hugely ambitious. In Egypt, viewers encounter a struggling Cairo...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Beneath our feet lies a world of violence, death, and renewal-the soil. This program takes viewers deep inside that unseen realm, focusing on the chemical and ecological complexity that enriches soil and sustains plant and animal life. A wide array of fungi, microorganisms, insects, and small animals are examined, illustrating the roles they play in the development of root systems and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program analyzes the dynamic nature of rivers and the relationship between their forms and processes. It examines the various functions a single river needs to perform, and shows how to measure river form and process, relate the two, and synthesize several attributes of the form of a river channel. It examines the differences between low and high flow, and explains how to calculate the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program a young environmental engineer takes viewers into the field for an in-depth look at the rock cycle and the geologic processes that occur within Earth's core, mantle, and crust. Using dynamic graphics to illustrate essential terms, the video covers the formation of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks; their physical and chemical properties; subgroups and examples of each;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2011
View online at AVOD
Summary: Plate tectonics is the movement of the super-continents as they split apart. They also collided and joined back together again. When they did, mountains, such as the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau, were formed. These collisions also disrupted prevailing weather patterns and established new ones. See how 7 million years ago, as a result of India colliding with the Asian land mass, Africa...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007