Dr. Steve Running, a Regents Professor in the College of Forestry and Conservation at the University of Montana, discusses the paradox of why forests in the West are growing faster while simultaneously suffering from higher die-off rates. Running is a member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and was the lead author on a 2007 report analyzing North AmericaŐs contribution to atmospheric carbon dioxide and its impacts on the global climate. (58 minutes)

Carbon dioxide has been steadily increasing in the Earth's atmosphere since the industrial rEvolution. Join Dr. Tim Lueker as he describes the history of atmospheric carbon dioxide research and the role the ocean plays in global warming. Learn how Dr. Lueker and others gather data that allow them to assess these important changes in the state of our atmosphere and ocean. (54 minutes)

Increases in global carbon dioxide should be mirrored by decreases in atmospheric oxygen. Join Ralph Keeling to learn how his precise measurements have shown that the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere is in fact decreasing slowly from year to year and discover how these data are allowing scientists to place constraints on the global carbon cycle. (57 minutes)

This lesson covers the process of photosynthesis and the related plant cell functions of transpiration and cellular respiration. Students will learn how engineers can use the natural process of photosynthesis as an exemplary model of a complex yet efficient process for converting solar energy to chemical energy or distributing water throughout a system.

This resource is a video abstract of a research paper created by Research Square on behalf of its authors. It provides a synopsis that's easy to understand, and can be used to introduce the topics it covers to students, researchers, and the general public. The video's transcript is also provided in full, with a portion provided below for preview:

"Fixing carbon through biological methanation is a promising technology for generating renewable energy. It remains unclear, however, how microbial species interact to generate biogas. To find out, researchers explored the community dynamics of microbes found in biofilms from four biogas reactors. Metagenomics revealed 59 species of microbes with five accounting for more than 70% of total abundance in the four reactors under investigation. Experiments showed that Firmicutes spp. GSMM966 and GSMM974 and Limnochordia sp. GSMM975 played a central role in biofilm formation. And metabolic reconstruction indicated complex metabolisms for the two dominant species M. wolfeii GSMM957 and Limnochordia sp. GSMM975. Simulations of the core biofilm community showed that these same species exhibit the highest increases in growth rate with increasing uptake. And cross-feeding interactions, not easily measured in vivo, were visualized..."

The rest of the transcript, along with a link to the research itself, is available on the resource itself.

We’ve had people ask us, if climate change is caused by adding too much CO2 into the atmosphere, can’t we just suck it back out? Won’t that solve our climate change problem? In this episode of TILclimate (Today I Learned: Climate), Professor Niall Mac Dowell of Imperial College London joins host Laur Hesse Fisher to demystify the process and feasibility of removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

In our last episode, we talked about using technology to suck out extra carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But you might also be thinking—don’t trees do that? Yeah, they do! In fact, some people have proposed that by planting enough trees, we could make a big dent on climate change. In this episode of TILclimate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Charles Harvey helps us answer the question: could we just plant a whole lot of trees to solve our climate problem?

This article, written for students in grades 4-5, introduces the concept of albedo and describes the shrinking of Arctic sea ice. Modified versions are available for students in younger grades.

Students determine their carbon footprints by answering questions about their everyday lifestyle choices. Then they engineer plans to reduce them. Students learn about their personal impacts on global climate change and how they can help the environment.

In this activity, learners make a yeast-air balloon to get a better idea of what yeast can do. Learners discover that the purpose of leaveners like yeast is to produce the gas that makes bread rise. Learners discover that as yeast feeds on sugar, it produces carbon dioxide which slowly fills the balloon.