History shows that rivers are essential to building thriving communities, but who does a river really belong to? The Ottaway describes the life and livelihood a river provides to both human and natural communities through the perspectives of all who depend on it. Explore with your students the struggle for balance and viability that humans must mitigate to both use rivers to support cities and keep natural areas healthy for wildlife.
What is biodiversity and sustainability, and why are they important? “Bio” refers to living things, and living things do not survive independently of each other. Each organism depends on other organisms for their food, water and shelter in some way. The more types of living things in a community, the healthier the community is for each individual life form. Diversity describes the situation when many different kinds live together. Their relationship is symbiotic, because they all depend on each other. For diversity to thrive, the community must have what it needs to continue, which is the same as being sustainable. Something that is sustainable is meant to go on forever.
Farm fields are an example of a monoculture, which is the direct opposite of a diverse community. Monocultures have only one plant in it, and no other plant, bird, insect or animal life. In a place where agriculture or towns take up most of the land, that can leave little habitat left for animal or insect life. The Green Bay Botanical Gardens demonstrates how people can make diverse, sustainable landscapes at homes, schools and businesses to provide much needed habitat for native creatures.
Because the plants highlighted are native to Wisconsin, they not only attract butterflies and birds to your yard, but they also are easy to care for. You will also learn how plants use abiotic resources such as carbon dioxide and water through photosynthesis to create everything that we need to eat, use and breathe!
The discussion guide link has been provided to help focus students on key points before and after viewing the video. Because the Green Bay Botanical Garden’s mission is to demonstrate what people can do to transform their own spaces into diverse and sustainable natural environments, the most important question is, “What are you going to do, now that you know?”
Downloadable content with ideas and resources from Green Bay Botanical Gardens that will help you plan your own garden are included in the video and links.
This 70-minute documentary explores the challenges and solutions we face in our collective search for sustainability.
We know that all living things need water to grow and survive - people, poodles, plants, potatoes, pike, pelicans, polar bears, pollinators... okay, you get the point. Not all living things need oxygen, but they all need H2O. So despite the price of gold or the world's quest for uranium or oil, water clearly sits on the throne of precious resources on this "Blue Planet" of ours.
Even though we "share" the planet with millions of other species, it's only us humans that make decisions that can affect the quality of the natural world with environmental impacts. We make those decisions to benefit or hinder the quality of life for particular people and/or communities (social impacts), and/or to provide monetary advantages or disadvantages to specific communities, businesses, and/or people (economic impact). As if that's not challenging enough, many decisions humans make fail to fully consider all the other "citizen lifeforms" that share Planet Earth that are now facing extinction rates thousands of times greater than in prehistoric times. So in the end, humans rarely intentionally "share" with other species the environments that they alter because in the end, "sharing" implies equal rights to available resources.
Many regions in the United States currently face the question of how to sustain profitable agriculture along with water quality and quantity, and Wisconsin is no different. In the Central Sands, farmers and agribusinesses grow crops, some that require irrigation to maintain and to maximize profitability. And many of the agribusinesses there irrigate crops by pumping water from the ground using high capacity wells. High capacity wells can pump 70 or more gallons per minute (DNR 2017).
Humans use these crops for their own consumption, to feed animals, and to produce ethanol. Humans and wildlife also depend on that same water, which supports the numerous streams and lakes in the area. Pumping water decreases the flow of water in streams and the water in lakes, which affects waterfront property owners, fish and wildlife, real estate and property tax values, and tourism. With many different stakeholders depending on this water environmentally, socially, and economically, what decisions can humans make to sustain both agriculture and water? And who establishes the "yardstick" of how to measure who gets how much water and for what?
To really dig into the science and solutions of water resource use, have your teacher download the free Lesson Guide below for hours of peer-driven learning in your classroom with your peeps. You can also learn lots more by reading the advanced information in the Learn More section below by clicking on the icon.
If you're interested in truly becoming a more knowledgeable "sustainable steward" of the Planet, discover the greater sustainable story by watching all 17 parts of the documentary, Searching for Sustainability. You or your teacher can also get the full 68-minute DVD on that website.
Like many valleys across the country, Pleasant Valley, located in Dane County, Wisconsin, contained a stream that over time became degraded to the point of being classified as “impaired”. According to the EPA, this means that, “the river was considered too polluted or otherwise degraded to meet the water quality standards set by states, territories or authorized tribes in the U.S.”
The Pleasant Valley Branch of the river became filled with sediment from agricultural run-off. That sediment also contained large amounts of phosphorous and nitrogen that caused excessive algae and plant growth in the river. Fish and other aquatic species dwindled and the waters officially were listed by the DNR as impaired. Like many streams in agriculturally dominated landscapes, the outlook for the river appeared grim.
However, a new creative partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, The Nature Conservancy, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Dane County Land Conservation Division and local farmers began to reverse the fate of the Pleasant Valley Branch.
Using a variety of science and technology to develop a case study, the stakeholders formed a systematic plan to reduce the ag-induced sediment and phosphorous load degrading the steam. They spoke to those farmers about new farming methods and nutrient plans that would help the stream while also helping them make more money through conservation and efficiency. These strategies included no-till planting, dual crop rotation, contour farming, nutrient management of fertilizers, and better practices of handling of manure.
Over time, the stream scientists, known as hydrologists, noticed significant changes taking place in the health of the stream’s ecosystem. Combined with physical stream bank restoration using rocks to stabilize sediment, these improvements resulted in something few expected to see in just a few years… return of trout to the stream.
To discover the science and partnership dynamics of this entire story, watch the video here plus:
Also, find out more about what you can do to keep your local waters healthy and clean by checking out the website of our educational partners, Wisconsin Land+Water and Project WET. Project WET offers a variety of activities (including one here), games and water education resources for teachers.
Karst topography means a landscape that has underlying limestone as its bedrock where caves, sinkholes, underground rivers, and springs can form. You’ve heard of Mammoth Cave, right? Well, that national park and thousands of other limestone caves around the country we formed because they were located in karst topography. These karst areas also often have direct pathways from the surface down into groundwater aquifers because of how easily water passes through dissolved cracks and channels in the limestone. And why does water pass so easily through this limestone?
It all begins in the clouds. Raindrops that fall from the sky pick up carbon molecules from carbon dioxide in the air as they plummet toward the ground. This combination creates a weak acid known as carbonic acid. Limestone (CaCO3) is a weak base so it reacts with carbonic acid and begins to dissolve along tiny fractures in the rock. Over time, and we’re talking over thousands of years, these cracks get wider to the point where they can actually form massive caves. Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky, is one 400 mile-long example. You can imagine how these caves are underground highways for water. And many of these underground waterways also serve as aquifers for drinking water.
Watch the video to learn more about these methods plus use the classroom lesson activities to learn the skinny on karst non-point source pollution in your region. To "spelunker" you way deeper in the hidden world of karst topography and its environmental implications:
Also, find out more about what you can do to keep your local waters healthy and clean by checking out the website of our educational partner, Wisconsin Land+Water.
When it rains, most people are more concerned about finding their umbrellas or raincoats than what happens to all the water draining from their homes, driveways and yards. Yet stormwater runoff, and the pollutants it often carries into our waterways, remains a significant threat to water quality. Likewise, few people consider where all the wastewater goes when you brush your teeth, take a shower, or flush the toilet. It just magically disappears, right? Sorry, it may be out of sight, but if you care about the environment, it shouldn’t be out of mind.
In many cities such as Milwaukee, the largest city in Wisconsin, they use grey infrastructure to help manage their stormwater and wastewater. Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District has the huge task of handling all that sewage and stormwater and to prevent pollution from the discharge of treated water into nearby Lake Michigan.
So what is this grey infrastructure anyway? It’s easy enough to see their massive sewage treatment facilities that handle the sewage generated throughout the city and 28 municipalities that are part of the District. But where does all that stormwater go when it washes off the streets and buildings and runs down the storm drains?
Watch the video below to get an underground look at how their Deep Tunnel system works 24-7 to prevent untreated sewage from being discharged into Lake Michigan.
Another method of managing stormwater runoff is with green infrastructure. This is where individual homes and businesses employ a variety of methods and technologies to prevent runoff from their properties. Watch the video above and to the right to see a Supa-Green Infrastructure in action.
To really dig deeper into the environmental implications of both grey and green infrastructures in your home or city:
Also, find out more about what you can do to keep your local waters healthy and clean by checking out the website of our educational partner, Wisconsin Land+Water.
Did you ever try to eat an entire apple pie chased with a quart of milk? If so, you how too much of a good thing can create problems. It’s the same with algae.
In many lakes and oceans, algae is an important part of the base of the entire food pyramid in naturally balanced ecosystems. But when algae is artificially over-fertilized in an unbalanced ecosystem, it can create waaaay too much of a good thing. And that can make things go horribly wrong.
Take Tainter Lake for instance. It’s located in northwestern Wisconsin and was once a pristine home to a number of bird, fish, reptile, and amphibian species. But nowadays, an organism known as blue-green algae typically forms a slimy mat over the lake during the summer. It not only stinks and prevents people from recreating on the lake, the toxic algae reportedly causes health problems for the lakeside residents. So what’s happening here?
As you’ll see in the video, our eco-investigator, Caroline, met with residents and scientists to discover how blue-green algae forms cyanobacteria each summer, which in turn, produce toxins. These toxins have caused health problems, such as lupus-like symptoms and hives for some residents.
To understand the causes of this environmental problem, we need to look at the basic chemistry and biology of plant and algae growth. Farmers put un-natural amounts of phosphorous (P) and nitrogen (N) on their fields to grow maximum crop yields. Those plant nutrients are often a combination of commercial fertilizers and animal manure. Unfortunately, rains wash off some of those fertilizers from the landscape and the mix ends up in rivers and lakes.
So the main cause for this toxic algal growth at Tainter Lake is the increasing concentration of “plant nutrients” getting washed into the lake. Phosphorous is one of the biggies, that’s contained in the fertilizers that modern farmers apply on their fields, and is a major chemical component of cow manure. Depending on a number of variables such as slope, rainfall, runoff, concentration, soil attachment, and erosion, both sources of phosphorous and nitrogen can get flushed off fields, into streams, and ultimately into lakes such as Tainter. So these forms of fertilizer that cause field crops to grow also functions the same way in the lake, except that it can cause a massive undesired algal bloom. Though not technically a plant, algae uses the same plant-like process of photosynthesis to grow and thrive. And when all that algae begins to die off, it causes depletion of the oxygen content in the water that can kill off aquatic life, creating a "dead zone". To learn more about how nutrient-induced algae causes hypoxic zones, check out the NOAA link below.
So what’s to be done? Society needs farmers to grow crops, right? Well, for starters farmers can limit how much phosphorous and nitrogen gets washed off their fields in a couple of ways. One is by limiting the amount of fertilizers they use on their crops. This is done through what is called “nutrient management planning”. In short, they only apply what the crops can absorb and use to grow. As you might imagine that depends on a number of technical things and the forces of Mother Nature. Another way to limit phosphorous and nitrogen runoff is by using improved farming techniques that help prevent excess nutrients from leaving the soils and landscape. To learn more how this is done, take a moment and watch the video.
To really “plow into” the science and environmental implications of all this, and ignite the chemistry and biology parts of your brain:
Also, find out more about what you can do to keep your local waters healthy and clean by checking out the website of our educational partner, Wisconsin Land+Water.
Society, as we know it, would be a lot different if we didn’t have pollinators. Many of the fruits we consume simply wouldn’t exist without them. In fact, the majority of plants are pollinated by what are called “biotic”, or living, pollinators. These include bees, butterflies, beetles, moths, and even bats.
How do these animals help plants reproduce through pollination? To answer that question we need to become botanists, or plant scientists, and take a closer look at flowers.
Flowers contain a stigma, or the female reproductive part of the plant. The stigma is smack dab in the middle of a flower and is something of a bulls-eye for biotic pollinators. Pollinators find the flower and settle upon the stigma to consume nectar. These creatures brush up against the pollen grains found on the stamen, or male reproductive part of the plant. When this pollen sticks to pollinators, the flower has done its job.
The pollinators, lured in with tasty nectar, now carry the pollen grains with them as they visit other flowers. And when those pollen grains contact the stigma of a flower that belongs to the same species…voila. A new plant is born.
Some plants use nitrogen fixation to gather the nutrients from the soil and almost all plants use the process of photosynthesis to make food from the sun. Not sure what these are? Well, watch the video to find out.
Check out this Serious Science video to learn more about these creatures who help feed the world. You’ll also join Caroline and Josh as they investigate the science of nitrogen fixation and photosynthesis. To take your learning even further, download the lesson activities below. Your teacher can download the lessons for free and you can blossom into a plant scientist in no time flat.
If you’ve ever ridden in a car, then you’ve been transported using the combustible chemical reaction of the renewable biofuel called ethanol. Well, at least 10% of your ride, anyway.
The ethanol story begins with a single kernel of corn in the springtime. But rather than tell you the whole story, you can learn by watching the video above. This overview depicts how that single kernel begins the transformation process that finally ends up in your car’s gas tank … with some chemical conversions and help from technology in between. Keep in mind, this video and the related learning materials below are only a introductory "primer" for the greater ethanol story. As with any science learning, also consider and evaluate the validity and sources of the materials, including videos — especially with potentially controversial topics such as ethanol production.
There’s so much more to learn with upcoming STEM-related videos and companion lesson activities; exploring the deeper science, technology, engineering and math, including the social and economic implications, of ethanol. This video and the companion lesson materials are designed for teachers and students to use in the classroom to foster ethanol discussions, or to launch related learning activities that you’ll find at the bottom of this page. You'll also find some helpful educational links below too, including our educational partners at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, and KEEP. You'll also find resource links from the Wisconsin Corn Growers Association, the Renewable Fuels Association and our friends at the Department of Energy.
Ethanol is a type of “biofuel” that is commonly blended in with gasoline, which most people use to fuel their automobiles. This “ethyl alcohol” is the same type of alcohol that can be found in alcoholic beverages, (consumed responsibly by adults) and it’s produced in a very similar way from the results of a “bio-chemical” reaction.
There's tons more to learn about ethanol history, how they make it, uses, and chemical reactions by opening the "Learn More" icon below. And be sure to share this with your classroom so your teacher can download the free companion lesson activities.