Summary: How do plants and animals stave off overheating and dehydration under a relentless sun-especially when burdened with thick skins, hides, or shells? This program looks at adaptations and survival techniques that cope with intense heat, particularly in desert environments. Venturing into the Sonora Desert, viewers learn about the sprawling root system of the saguaro cactus and the water recycling...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: More than 1,000 tornadoes touch down in the U.S. every year. While most people run away, one team of scientists heads straight for the action. This program follows their activities, with a primary focus on one team member, Tim Samaras. Viewers learn about the small, armored, camera-laden probes which have been placed by the team directly in the path of several twisters in order to gain...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: Nuclear fusion has kept our Sun burning for five billion years. Might it be harnessed here on Earth as an energy source? This program illustrates the race to create artificial stars that can ensure humanity's earthbound survival. Several facilities and projects are profiled-including the Joint European Torus, or JET, which initiates nuclear fusion at a rate far higher than that inside the Sun;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Talking about energy is tricky because everyday words can also have specialized scientific meanings. Through the process of defining key terms like "power," "work," and even "energy" itself, this program uses a roller coaster, a harmless train wreck, ice-skaters, a boulder, a human cannonball, night-vision goggles, and a supernova to introduce students to kinetic and potential energy,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This Science Screen Report looks at a clean and renewable energy source that is steadily gaining scientific acceptance: hot dry rocks, otherwise known as enhanced geothermal systems. The program shows how masses of heated granite approximately 3 miles underground can be accessed with advanced drilling and computer imaging techniques, and how water forced through fissures in the granite can...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: A fire needs heat, fuel, and oxygen. This Science Screen Report examines that triangle of ingredients, and how scientists study it in order to combat-or harness-fire. With detailed examples of firefighting techniques, the program demonstrates the removal of heat from a class A blaze through the use of water or sprayed polymers, and the elimination of oxygen, a strategy used in fighting oil...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program examines the urgent need-not only in the U.S. but across the world-for sustainable energy; it also illustrates how new power production methods are becoming a reality. Alternative energy trendsetters are featured, including Time magazine "Hero for the Planet" Geoffrey Ballard, who explains his hydrogen fuel cell innovations. Evergreen Solar vice president Mark Farber describes his...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program demonstrates the changeability of solids, liquids, and gases with real-world, easy-to-understand examples. Set at a campsite, the video utilizes simple tools at hand-a camp stove, pots and pans, boiling water, and ice-to explain the concepts of state change, latent heat, expansion, contraction, and sublimation. Viewers will become familiar with the particle theory of matter, how...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program opens in the 1660s when the nature of cold and heat was a complete mystery. Were they different aspects of the same phenomenon? The experiments that settled these questions helped stoke the Industrial Revolution.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Using numerous examples to show how a very important phenomenon occurs and serves various purposes, this fascinating program takes students on a lively journey through the mechanisms and practicalities of heat transfer. Viewers are introduced to conduction, convection, and radiation and encounter the concepts of specific heat and thermal capacity. Topics include the use of heat in power...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the U.S. alone, tornadoes kill up to 70 people a year and injure as many as 1,500 while causing an estimated 400 million dollars in damage. More than ever before, scientists are determined to unlock the mystery of how tornadoes work, especially close to the ground where they wreak the most havoc. But no one has ever been able to get a view from inside the whirling base of a deadly...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010
View online at AVOD
Summary: A 100% efficient automobile engine is a nice idea. Unfortunately, it breaks the law-the Second Law of Thermodynamics, that is. This program judiciously explains both Laws of Thermodynamics, providing details on isovolumetric, isobaric, and adiabatic processes. Heat engines, with their hot and cold reservoirs, are also given their day in court, along with the concept of entropy, which is charged...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: When a werewolf stalks hyperactive teens in Hawaii, only the concept of phase changes can save them. This program outlines the mechanics of heat transference within isolated systems, including specific heat capacity; the relationship between latent heat and changes of state; the processes of conduction, convection, and radiation; and the theory behind the work produced by an internal combustion...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005