"World population reaching seven billion is a great opportunity for you to incorporate environmental education and global studies into your classroom. The following teacher-friendly activities are classroom-ready and will get your students to actively engage in these timely issues. All of the lesson plans are correlated to the national content standards for eleven middle school subject areas.
Themes:
P = Population Dynamics
E = Environmental Connections
S = Societal Connections"
Some populations of frogs are rapidly adapting to a fungal pathogen called Batrachochrytrium dendrobatridis (Bd) that has decimated many populations for close to half a century
Update to Anna Savage's research: "Some populations of frogs are rapidly adapting to a fungal pathogen called Batrachochrytrium dendrobatridis (Bd) that has decimated many populations for close to half a century"
This report provides a new approach to examining the links between ecosystem services (the benefits derived from nature) and the poor.
Through a series of maps and analyses, the authors focus on the environmental resources most Kenyans rely on such as soil, water, forest, rangeland, livestock, and wildlife. The atlas overlays georeferenced statistical information on population and household expenditures with spatial data on ecosystems and their services (water availability, wood supply, wildlife populations, and the like) to yield a picture of how land, people, and prosperity are related in Kenya.
"Have you ever wondered what the tree population and density of the United States looks like? This amazing map shows just that. Created by Josef Kellndorfer and Wayne Walker of Woods Hole Research Center in conjunction with the U. S. Geological Survey Science Center's Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center and the US Forest Service, the map was generated based on a series of data sources including readings collected from space-based radars, satellite sensors, computer models, and simply counting trees the old-fashioned way. The map was created for NASA to help determine how the world's forests have the potential to store more carbon in the future."
Multimedia, lessons, data, and background information about the Great Lakes. Includes a "Listen to the Lake" podcast and several webcams. Lessons to download relate to watershed land use, fish life cycles, invasive species, human population, and others.
"With soaring human populations and rapid climate change putting unprecedented pressure on species, conservationists must look to innovative strategies - from creating migratory corridors to preserving biodiversity hotspots - if we are to prevent countless animals and plants from heading to extinction."
Nearly 100 endangered species should be on track to meet federal scientists' recovery goals, according to a new analysis by a national nonprofit organization that seeks to protect the planet's biological diversity.
The Center for Biological Diversity's review examined population trends of 110 endangered plant and animals protected under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in every state across the USA, including Florida's American crocodile, the gray wolf of the Rockies, and the black-footed ferret, which once existed from southern Canada to Texas.
The group found that 90 percent of the species listed are on a positive trajectory toward recovery - and some are even doing better.
Source: redOrbit (http://s.tt/1cmi1)
"Deer alone may not threaten any species with extinction but could locally be the straw breaking the camel's back for many songbird populations when acting in concert with other stresses"
A great variety of unusual maps to trigger discussion, especially if you trim off the labels and ask students to speculate on what they are seeing.
- World Map of Earthquakes Since 1898
- Map of Where 29,000 Rubber Duckies Made Landfall After Falling off a Cargo Ship in the Middle of the Pacific Ocean
- The 7000 Rivers that Feed into the Mississippi River
- Worldwide Annual Coffee Consumption Per Capita
- Earth's Population by Latitude and Longitude
This interactive map provides layers for population density, mortality risk, and tectonic plates lines.The quakes can be filtered by magnitude and timeline.
Taza set up this crowd-funding site to fund satellite transmitters for better tracking of Clark's Nutcrackers than she's been able to do with the hand-held units.
"Clark's nutcrackers are pivotal players in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, dispersing whitebark pine seeds and enabling the trees to reproduce and regain their population amid a decline. The whitebark pine trees are critical to the ecosystem because of their role in feeding wildlife and stabilizing the water supply. In light of the severe decline of whitebark pine trees, tracking the movement of the nutcrackers will yield crucial findings which will help managers ensure persistence of the Clark's nutcrackers, whitebark pine and the nutcrackers' important seed dispersal function.
Please help support this first-ever satellite tracking of Clark's nutcrackers by giving to this project, which will cover the satellite transmitter costs for one full year. Read on for more information!"
National Geographic Channel's groundbreaking series Great Migrations explores the massive movement of animal populations around the planet. The project chronicles these inspirational, often harrowing journeys that are marked by unforgiving odds, and what it means to move like your life depends on it. Wildebeests, zebras, red crabs, Mali elephants, walruses, monarch butterflies, jellyfish, and whale sharks will all be on display, and the production crew traveled some 420,000 miles, filming hundreds of stories in more than 20 countries. Using new science and technology, the series reveals how animals make death-defying journeys to survive. Great Migrations is the largest undertaking of its kind in the National Geographic Society's 120-year history. The seven-hour miniseries premieres globally in fall 2010. National Geographic's net proceeds support vital exploration, conservation, research, and education.
"With the steep decline in populations of many animal species, scientists have warned that Earth is on the brink of a mass extinction like those that have occurred just five times during the past 540 million years."
"Use the Interactive Footprint Calculator to find your country and see how it compares to others.
See what makes up the biggest components of our water footprint.
Watch how the index for species populations move and change over time."
High-resolution earth imagery has provided ecologists and conservationists with a dynamic new tool that is enabling everything from more accurate counting of wildlife populations to rapid detection of deforestation, illegal mining, and other changes in the landscape.
We live in the Global Location Age. "Where am I?" is being replaced by, "Where am I in relation to everything else?"
The Geospatial Revolution Project is an integrated public service media and outreach initiative about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact.
Mission
The mission of the Geospatial Revolution Project is to expand public knowledge about the history, applications, related privacy and legal issues, and the potential future of location-based technologies.
Geospatial information influences nearly everything. Seamless layers of satellites, surveillance, and location-based technologies create a worldwide geographic knowledge base vital to solving myriad social and environmental problems in the interconnected global community. We count on these technologies to:
* fight climate change
* map populations across continents, countries, and communities
* track disease
* strengthen bonds between cultures
* assist first responders in protecting safety
* enable democracy
* navigate our personal lives
A new census found this winter's population of North American monarch butterflies in Mexico was at the lowest level ever measured. Insect ecologist Orley Taylor talks to Yale Environment 360 about how the planting of genetically modified crops and the resulting use of herbicides has contributed to the monarchs' decline.