Predicting Volcanoes
The Open University's researcher in volcanoes, Hazel Rymer explains why the Poás volcano in Costa Rica is her favourite, and how evidence form previous experiments there has lead her to believe there may be an environmental crisis - similar to one in the 1990's - on it's way. There have been changes in gravity above Poás, and Hazel talks us through some experiments she will be undertaking in the future.
Learning from a tree
Observation of a single tree throughout the year can be the starting point for explorations of nature, life science, and environmental science.
Jocassee Gorges: Temperate rain forests of the Blue Ridge
A Carolina Environmental Diversity Explorations "virtual field trip" that explores the geology and botanical diversity of the Jocassee Gorges region of North Carolina's mountains.
Environmental Chemistry
178 questions from the field of environmental chemistry.
Lessons from Hurricane Katrina: Can We Save California's Delta?
Lessons from Hurricane Katrina: Can we save California's Delta?
Raymond B. Seed, Professor of GeoEngineering, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering
The catastrophic flooding of New Orleans during hurricane Katrina was the single most costly failure of an engineered system in history. It was also a social and cultural tragedy of unprecedented peacetime proportions for the United States.
After the disaster, a team of leading experts from across the country examined the engineering and
Global Warming: A Time to Act (Cap & Trade Conference)
U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein describes her legislative program to combat climate change and responds to questions. Senator Dianne Feinstein is introduced by Boalt Hall School of Law Dean Christopher Edley at the "Cap and Trade as a Tool for Climate Change Policy" conference.
Leading practitioners and academic experts from the US, Europe, China and India debated key legal, economic, and technology issues associated with "cap and trade" as a policy tool for California, the US and the internation
Distinguished Innovator Lecture Series: In-Sik Rhee
In-Sik Rhee, Co-Founder Opsware Inc.
In Sik Rhee has co-founded 2 successful startup companies and has developed technologies across a wide spectrum of domain knowledge - from end-user packaged software to high-end mission critical enterprise systems. In Sik self-taught software programming at the age of 12 and began developing commercial software as a 19-year old.
In Sik was most recently a co-founder and Chief Tactician at Opsware (NASDAQ: OPSW), formerly Loudcloud. There he played a diverse
Berkeley Writers at Work: Michael Pollan
Pollan reads from his work, is interviewed about his writing process, and answers questions from the audience.
Michael Pollan is Knight Professor of Journalism at the Graduate School and director of the Knight Program in Science and Environmental Journalism. He is a contributing writer at the "New York Times Magazine", and the author of three books: "The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World"; "A Place of My Own"; and "Second Nature". For many years he served as Executive Editor of
The use case specification of actions in the goal oriented knowledge based learning environment
The proposed goal oriented knowledge acquisition and assessment are based on the flexible educational model and allows to implement an adaptive control of the enhanced learning process according to the requirements of student's knowledge level, his state of cognition and subject learning history.
The enhanced learner knowledge model specifies how the cognition state of the user will be achieved step by step. The use case actions definition is a starting point of the specification that depends o
Italian Reading Comprehension 3
Journalistic passage dealing with the area of climate and the environment. Analyze the passage for its main points, discover some vocabulary associated with climate and environmental issues, and look for grammatical details.
Fighting Back! (Lesson)
This lesson describes the major components and functions of the immune system and the role of engineers in keeping the body healthy (e.g., vaccinations and antibiotics, among other things). This lesson also discusses how an astronaut's immune system is suppressed during spaceflight due to stress and other environmental factors.
Just Passing Through (Lesson)
This lesson helps students explore the functions of the kidney and its place in the urinary system. Students learn how engineers design instruments to help people when kidneys are not functioning properly or when environmental conditions change, such as kidney function in space.
Landfills: Building Them Better
Waste disposal has been an ongoing problem since medieval times. Environmental engineers are employed to develop technologies to dispose of the enormous amount of trash produced in the United States. In this lesson, students will learn about the three methods of waste disposal in use by modern communities. They will also investigate how engineers design sanitary landfills to prevent leachate from polluting the underlining groundwater.
Who's Down the Well?
Drinking water comes from many different sources, including surface water and groundwater. Environmental engineers analyze the physical properties of groundwater to predict how and where surface contaminants will travel. In this lesson, students will learn about several possible scenarios of contamination to drinking water. They will analyze the movement of example contaminants through groundwater such as environmental engineers must do (i.e., engineers identify and analyze existing contaminatio
Oil Spill
This lesson will allow students to explore an important role of environmental engineers: cleaning the environment. Students will learn details about the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which was one of the most publicized and studied environmental tragedies in history. In the accompanying activity, they will try many "engineered" strategies to clean up their own manufactured oil spill and learn the difficulties of dealing with oil released into our waters.
Time for Design
Students are introduced to the engineering design process, focusing on the concept of brainstorming design alternatives. They learn that engineering is about designing creative ways to improve existing artifacts, technologies or processes, or developing new inventions that benefit society. Students come to realize that they can be engineers and use the design process themselves to create tomorrow's innovations.
Will It Fly?
In this lesson, students will learn about kites and gliders and how these models can help in understanding the concept of flight. Students will design and build their own balsa wood models and experiment with different control surfaces. The goal of this lesson is for students to apply their existing knowledge about the four forces affecting flight and apply engineering design to develop a sound glider. They will also communicate the reasoning and results of any design modifications made.
Eek, It leaks!
During this activity, students will try to construct model landfill liners out of two-inch strips of garbage bags within resource constraints. The challenge is to construct a bag that will hold one cup of water without leaking. This represents similar challenges that environmental engineers face when building a liner for a real landfill.
How Full is Full?
During this activity, students will learn about porosity and permeability and relate these concepts to groundwater flow. Students will use simple materials to conduct a porosity experiment and use the information to understand how environmental engineers decide on the placement and treatment of a drinking water well.
Energy Detectives at Work
Students search for clues of energy around them. They use what they find to create their own definition of energy. They also relate their energy clues to the engineering products they encounter every day.
