Looking Forward: Our Global Experiment

Unit 1 Many Planets, One Earth

Astronomers have discovered dozens of planets orbiting other stars, and space probes have explored many parts of our solar system, but so far scientists have only discovered one place in the universe where conditions are suitable for complex life forms: Earth. In this unit, examine the unique characteristics that make our planet habitable and learn how these conditions were created.

unit 2 Atmosphere

The atmosphere is what makes the Earth habitable. Heat-trapping gases allow ecosystems to flourish. While the NOAA Global Monitoring Project documents the fluctuations in greenhouse gases worldwide, MIT's Kerry Emanuel looks at the role of hurricanes in regulating global climate.

Unit 3 Oceans

Oceans cover three-quarters of the Earth's surface, but many parts of the deep oceans have yet to be explored. Learn about the large-scale ocean circulation patterns that help to regulate temperatures and weather patterns on land, and the microscopic marine organisms that form the base of marine food webs.

Unit 4 Ecosystems

Why are there so many living organisms on Earth, and so many different species? How do the characteristics of the nonliving environment, such as soil quality and water salinity, help determine which organisms thrive in particular areas? These questions are central to the study of ecosystems—communities of living organisms in particular places and the chemical and physical factors that influence them. Learn how scientists study ecosystems to predict how they may change over time and respond to human impacts.

Unit 5 Human Population Dynamics

What factors influence human population growth trends most strongly, and how does population growth or decline impact the environment? Does urbanization threaten our quality of life or offer a pathway to better living conditions? What are the social implications of an aging world population? Discover how demographers approach these questions through the study of human population dynamics.

Unit 6 Risk, Exposure, and Health

We are exposed to numerous chemicals every day from environmental sources such as air and water pollution, pesticides, cleaning products, and food additives. Some of these chemicals are threats to human health, but tracing exposures and determining what levels of risk they pose is a painstaking process. How do harmful substances enter the body, and how do they damage cells? Learn how dangers are assessed, what kind of regulations we use to reduce exposures, and how we manage associated human health risks.

Unit 7 Agriculture

Demographers project that Earth's population will peak during the 21st century at approximately ten billion people. But the amount of new cultivable land that can be brought under production is limited. In many nations, the need to feed a growing population is spurring an intensification of agriculture—finding ways to grow higher yields of food, fuel, and fiber from a given amount of land, water, and labor. This unit describes the physical and environmental factors that limit crop growth and discusses ways of minimizing agriculture's extensive environmental impacts.

unit 8 Water Resources

Earth's water resources, including rivers, lakes, oceans, and underground aquifers, are under stress in many regions. Humans need water for drinking, sanitation, agriculture, and industry; and contaminated water can spread illnesses and disease vectors, so clean water is both an environmental and a public health issue. In this unit, learn how water is distributed around the globe; how it cycles among the oceans, atmosphere, and land; and how human activities are affecting our finite supply of usable water.

unit 9 Biodiversity Decline

Living species on Earth may number anywhere from 5 million to 50 million or more. Although we have yet to identify and describe most of these life forms, we know that many are endangered today by development, pollution, over-harvesting, and other threats. Earth has experienced mass extinctions in the past due to natural causes, but the factors reducing biodiversity today increasingly stem from human activities. In this unit we see how scientists measure biodiversity, how it benefits our species, and what trends might cause Earth's next mass extinction.

unit 10 Energy Challenges

Global energy use increases by the day. Polluting the atmosphere with ever more carbon dioxide is not a viable solution for our future energy needs. Can new technologies such as carbon sequestration and ethanol production help provide the energy we need without pushing the concentrations of CO2 to dangerous levels?

Unit 11 Atmospheric Pollution

Many forms of atmospheric pollution affect human health and the environment at levels from local to global. These contaminants are emitted from diverse sources, and some of them react together to form new compounds in the air. Industrialized nations have made important progress toward controlling some pollutants in recent decades, but air quality is much worse in many developing countries, and global circulation patterns can transport some types of pollution rapidly around the world. In this unit, discover the basic chemistry of atmospheric pollution and learn which human activities have the greatest impacts on air quality.

Unit 12 Earth’s Changing Climate

Earth's climate is a sensitive system that is subject to dramatic shifts over varying time scales. Today human activities are altering the climate system by increasing concentrations of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which raises global temperatures. In this unit, examine the science behind global climate change and explore its potential impacts on natural ecosystems and human societies.

interactive 14 Carbon Lab

interactive 15 Demographics Lab

interactive 16 Disease Lab

interactive 17 Ecology Lab

interactive 18 Energy Lab