Summary: What do we mean when we talk about sustainable communities? How can they be created? This program joins architects, urban planners, civic leaders, business owners, and community residents in three separate localities as they respond to the challenge of building a sustainable community. A number of environmental and urban-planning questions are addressed, including: Is the architecture sound,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Called "the rainforests of the sea," the world's coral reefs are home to millions of species. But these underwater ecosystems are in grave danger. This program travels to Chumbe Island Coral Park, Zanzibar; Mafia Island Marine Park, Tanzania; and Ras Mohammed National Park, Egypt, to study the fragile ecology and amazing biodiversity of coral reefs-and the impacts of tourism, pollution,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Ranging from rivers and lakes, to wetlands and intertidal zones, to coral reefs and kelp forests, aquatic ecosystems are as diverse as the life-forms that inhabit them. This program introduces students to a variety of the world's aquatic biomes. The characteristics of saltwater and freshwater environments are clearly described, as are the plants and animals that call these watery regions home....
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report examines different ways marine species confront their environments using elaborate, specialized survival adaptations. Parallels between hunting techniques and defensive methods are described by contrasting aquatic predators with more vulnerable creatures, which rely on camouflage and sophisticated mobility. The program emphasizes that the oceans are not only the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
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 Science Screen Report explores the challenges that marine plants and animals face in rocky shoreline areas, and vividly illustrates the diversity of those life forms. Examining crustaceans, gastropods, mollusks, and other shoreline creatures, the program shows how tide pools form a marine sub-habitat, and how rocky shore dwellers have evolved specific abilities to survive powerful waves...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report shows how human interests and the needs of aquatic life can be balanced. It describes the efforts of scientists, engineers, farmers, and fishermen to address shoreline habitat problems and support endangered species. Citing ways these cooperative efforts have succeeded-for example, by rehabilitating gray seal populations, redesigning dikes to aid migratory birds, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Despite the extraordinary engineering of Brazil's Porto Primavera Dam, many scientists and environmentalists view its ecological effects as catastrophic. This program offers a sobering look at a nation's effort to balance its growing energy needs against the long-term benefits of preserving unique and irreplaceable ecosystems. Produced prior to the completion of Porto Primavera and the creation...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: The tropical rain forests of the world are home to nearly half the animal species on earth and contain some of the most fascinating examples of natural adaptation ever seen. This classic program takes viewers into the rain forests of Costa Rica to witness a richly varied habitat under threat from human encroachment. Here, a basilisk lizard walks on water, howler monkeys bask in the sun, and...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
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
View online at AVOD
Summary: Nothing is so familiar, and yet so elusive, as water. A running faucet would require 136 trillion years to discharge the Earth's 326 million cubic miles of water, but only fresh water-less than three percent of the global supply-can sustain life. As we transport, utilize, and consume water, we are tempted to view it as eternally plentiful. But its protracted cycle of falling from the sky,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Drawing astonishing connections between forces thousands of miles apart, this program shows how life on earth is being pushed to extremes by a one-degree rise in average temperature. Specific topics include animal population declines, atmospheric developments above the oceans, and the widespread appearance of a previously rare respiratory illness. Viewers learn how many scientists believe these...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: In this program, James Lovelock explains the development and evolution of his Gaia hypothesis, which considers the Earth as an intimately linked system of physical, chemical, and biological processes, interacting in a self-regulating way to maintain the conditions necessary for life. He discusses counterarguments proposed by scientists including Richard Dawkins. The Daisyworld climatic...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Traveling from Gaumukh, the source of the holy Ganges, to Gangasagar, where the river enters the sea, this program acquaints viewers with some of India's venerable cultural traditions-and reflects on environmental factors that are steadily destroying this sacred Indian waterway. The Durga Puja Festival at Gangnani, a wedding procession in Haridwar, ritual bathing at Allahabad, and ritual...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report studies the Wollemi Pine, its 100-million-year history, and the methods used to protect and sustain it. Describing the tree's physical characteristics, its unusual way of propagating, and the medically valuable fungi that grow on its leaves and stems, the program explains how this living organism closely resembles fossils of long-extinct species, and how seed...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Across the world, plants and animals are silently finding their way into places where they don't belong. These interlopers, upon which scientists frequently bestow the term invasive species, have been known to display fearsome powers-including uncanny abilities to spread disease, damage soil, even devour buildings. This program examines the dangers posed by invasive species and the roles they...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Born in London in 1934, Jane Goodall spent decades in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park, studying the social and family structures of chimpanzees and helping to bring their ecological vulnerability into the public consciousness. She also founded and remains integral to the Jane Goodall Institute, which encourages environmental activism and stewardship among young people. In this program,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: At one time, lush, steaming jungles covered much of the planet's land mass. Through this program, students can expand their understanding of rainforests and how their inhabitants live. Special attention is given to the threats to these incredibly rich ecosystems, home to more than half of the different kinds of animals and plants that live on Earth.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: As visually spectacular as it is informative, this program thoroughly surveys the world's varied climate systems. Using simple color-coded maps based on the Koppen classification system, the video identifies the characteristics of the following zones: humid tropical climates, wet-dry tropics, dry climates, subtropical and mid-latitude deserts and steppes, humid mid-latitude climates, humid...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: From the forests and coral reefs of the developing world to Yellowstone's majestic wilderness, researchers are learning more about the role predators play in the health of our natural systems. This program illustrates what happens when species that naturally prey on other species disappear. Does the general public need to rethink deep-rooted views of predators? Can we re-create missing links...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report studies how deserts form and how organisms adapt to these harsh environments. Defining a desert as a vast area of windy, arid land, the program identifies the Gobi and Sahara as common examples as well as regions of the Arctic and Antarctic. It demonstrates that many of these supposed wastelands contain surprisingly high levels of biodiversity, and shows how...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: Whether it's a stretch of sand dunes in equatorial Africa or a cactus-covered plain in California, any place that receives less than ten inches of rain per year is considered a desert. By comparing and contrasting arid and semi-arid regions, this program provides students with a balanced picture of the Earth's desert biomes. The program also investigates how the few plants and animals that...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: From 1968 to 1972, photographer and filmmaker Bob Campbell documented the activities of Dian Fossey as she developed a cross-species bond with Rwandan mountain gorillas. Campbell shot 70,000 feet of film, but only a fraction of his material was edited into the lecture presentation that preceded Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist. This program compiles highlights from the previously unreleased...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Eminent biologist E. O. Wilson has spent his life studying creatures great and small-from humans to insects-as well as the fragile and complex nature of the biosphere as a whole. Bill Moyers Journal profiles the two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient, his advocacy of environmental stewardship, and his latest project: the Encyclopedia of Life, an online digital catalog of every living species on the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007