Films Media Group

Home > Environmental Science

Environmental Science

Subject Media type
Featured Producers
Copyright Date

The Crowd & The Cloud 240 min.

Smartphones, computers and mobile technology are allowing people to become part of a revolutionary, 21st century way of doing science. By observing their environment, monitoring neighborhoods, and collecting information about the world around them, citizens are helping professional scientists advance knowledge while speeding up new discoveries and innovations. The results are improving health and...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2017

The Crowd & The Cloud: Episode 1—Even Big Data Starts Small 57 min.

20,000 volunteers across the U.S. measure precipitation: when extreme weather hits, emergency managers turn their data into life-saving alerts. Armchair mappers worldwide update information used by first responders after the Nepal earthquake. A new project, EyesOnALZ, enlists the crowd to speed up research on Alzheimer’s disease. DIY enthusiasts from Public Lab map the BP oil spill with kites, bal...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2017

The Crowd & The Cloud: Episode 2—Citizens + Scientists 58 min.

Citizen scientists track air and water pollution at fracking sites in windswept Wyoming and 5 other states, using simple but science-based techniques developed by the “Bucket Brigade.” On idyllic East Coast trout streams, volunteers from Trout Unlimited monitor water quality regularly, generating baseline data that will prove invaluable in the event of future pollution events. Community members co...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2017

The Crowd & The Cloud: Episode 3—Viral vs. Virus 58 min.

Sensors on asthma inhalers generate real-time maps of environmental dangers to help patients, physicians and disease detectives in Louisville, Kentucky. Street knowledge was also crucial in a historic medical breakthrough: John Snow’s mapping of cholera fatalities in 19th century London. In West Oakland, California, citizens confront air pollution and rising asthma rates by collecting traffic data...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2017

The Crowd & The Cloud: Episode 4—Citizens4Earth 58 min.

Counting birds for more than 100 years generates data on a changing climate and there’s an app for that: eBird. Surfer science using smart tech tracks ocean acidification and coastal temperatures in the Smartfin project, a recent startup. We spend “A Year in the Life of Citizen Science” including a Thanksgiving Monarch Butterfly Watch in California. Seasonal change is tracked by Latina and Native...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2017

The Breakthrough in Renewable Energy 47 min.

You won’t read about it in the papers, but a silent worldwide revolution is taking place: renewable energy is becoming cheaper than energy from fossil fuels. More and more, opting for wind and solar energy is no longer an ethical choice but an economic one. This will speed up the transfer to renewable energy. Countries like Brazil, Australia, Chilé and parts of the United States are switching to r...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2016

Keep Calm and Drill On 27 min.

Oil-rich Norway has adopted the radical goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030. But as ABC Australia correspondent Eric Campbell reports, there’s a catch to this green revolution.

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2016

Wild Things 28 min.

Wolves and bison roaming Germany and the lynx returning to the UK, as Barbara Miller reports, endangered animals are being reintroduced to wild places as part of a radical and controversial idea called rewilding.

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2016

Is It Closing Time for Zoos? 53 min.

For thousands of years we have taken animals out of the wilderness and put them in caged enclosures for our own amusement. However, with our contemporary understanding about the complexity of animal behavior, and the fact that most of us can see animals in their natural environment on TV, can we really justify keeping them in cages? In this film Liz Bonnin, a PhD student at the Zoological Society...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2016

Climate Change: The EPA Has Gone Overboard: A Debate 101 min.

Reducing carbon emissions to combat climate change benefits the environment yet can often impose substantial costs. Such costs are most obvious when coal companies go bankrupt but can affect everyone indirectly through higher energy prices, slower economic growth, reduced employment, and lower business profits. In 2015, President Obama authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to implem...

Formats: DVDStreaming Copyright Date: 2016