This innovative album introduces one of the biggest, and most complex, of today’s environmental problems – climate change. It features the hard-hitting, "Who Will Pay", selected as a finalist in an international film competition on "Vulnerability Exposed: The Social Dimensions of Climate Change" organised by the World Bank. This 'Earth in Crisis' album offer a sophisticated understanding of the processes and players that shape contemporary international environmental problems, evaluates what can and should be done in the future, and explores how responses to these dilemmas are intertwined with issues of development, international justice and responsibility. The eleven video tracks focus on climate change induced flooding in the delta regions of Bangladesh and in the Thames region of the UK. In the first five audio tracks, members of The Open University course team explore the main issues raised in the videos. The final three audio tracks explore some of the wider political and scientific dimensions of climate change. This material forms part of The Open University course DU311, Earth in crisis: environmental policy in an international context.
Alastair Fothergill, former Head of the BBC Natural History Unit and Series Producer of 'The Blue Planet', 'Planet Earth' and Executive Producer of 'Frozen Planet', talks inspiration, green issues and Sir David Attenborough.
Learn to think like a scientist. In this collection we demonstrate a series of hands-on experiments that you can carry out in your own kitchen. We'll explore some key aspects of life on Earth such as why water is so important to all living organisms, how matter behaves at different temperatures and what are the best conditions for life to flourish. The experiments start off simply, with baking a potato to destruction, but by the end you will be isolating and extracting the DNA of a kiwi fruit! Along the way you’ll learn some key skills that will develop your scientific thinking – like what to look for when designing an experiment, why you should keep a scientific journal and how to report your results. By the end of the collection you will be able to think about how to investigate the world around you and find out how it works. These materials form part of the Open University free courses Basic Science: Understanding Experiments and Basic Science: Understanding Numbers available from OpenLearn. http://www.open.edu/openlearn/free-courses
How can numerical models help us to understand our planet? How do we make sure they represent reality? This album introduces ongoing work to model the entire planet's ecosystems, simulating the complex physical, chemical and biological interactions taking place between every living organism and climatic activity. Since everything is interconnected, Earth systems modelling can help our understanding of how the Earth's processes affect each other. For example, by increasing the rate of decay of leaf litter in North American forests, scientists can investigate the effect on global temperatures. The acid test is to see how well the model reflects reality, by comparing the model's predictions against real-world data. This material forms part of The Open University course S396 Ecosystems.
This series of tracks focuses on geological phenomena, Gaia theory and volcanoes. Included is a discussion on Climate Change and whether the uplift of Tibet caused global cooling. Material is taken from The Open University Course S269 Earth and Life.
This is a one-week residential course which introduces a range of practical skills appropriate to the study of environmental science. You visit a variety of sites where you apply your knowledge of biology, chemistry, earth sciences and physics to study interactions and feedback in the environment, including landforms, soils, water and vegetation. These field studies are supported by tutorials and laboratory sessions in which you analyze your observations and the data that you have gathered; the course includes an introduction to statistical analysis. This material is taken from The Open University course SXR216 Environmental Science in the Field.
Ever wondered where the Universe came from? Or more importantly, where it's headed? Voiced by David Mitchell, this series of 60 second animations examines different scientific concepts from the big bang to relativity, from black holes to dark matter. The series also explores the possibility of life beyond Earth and considers why David Bowie is still none the wiser about life on Mars.
Have you ever wanted to explore a distant planet? In this exciting album, Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon, is revealed live before our eyes for the first time. In January 2005 the Huygens probe parachuted down from its mother ship, Cassini, through Titan’s murky atmosphere to rest on its mysterious frozen landscape. Equipped with an impressive array of scientific instruments, producing an incredible series of images, scientists now have a glimpse of what Earth may have been like before life evolved. The Cassini-Huygens achievement was humankind’s first landing on a body in the Outer Solar System, and its extraordinary results will be studied in the world’s leading scientific journals for years to come.
Want to learn more about the Earth's tectonic plates? Start your journey into the surface of the Earth with these three quick-fire challenges in our science game.
This free badged open course, Microgravity: living on the International Space Station, will help you to consider microgravity environments in more detail than before! You will make direct comparisons of some important physical values between the International Space Station (ISS), the Earth and the Moon.
Scale – dealing with the miniscule to the massive, over milliseconds to millennia – is central to all the sciences. In this free course, Scales in space and time, you’ll go to the absolute limits of what can be measured – all through a study of an oak tree! By studying it you will be introduced to concepts in physics, chemistry, biology and life-sciences, and Earth and environmental sciences. Across these multiple disciplines you will meet time scales that include ages, durations and rates, and size scales including distances in three dimensions, which underpin areas and volumes.