Tracking Insects With a Big Dish, Australian Floods
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how tracking insects can help scientists forecast summer storms and floods, and the role one of Europe's key satellite missions played in the recent floods in Queensland, Australia. The huge Chilbolton Facility…
Homeostasis
This resource from Defence Dynamics helps students to gain a better understanding of homeostasis and, in particular, the regulation of body temperature (thermoregulation). Students consider the needs of a polar explorer on a mission to the South Pole, thinking about the equipment needed as well as the challenges the body undergoes…
Carbon Capture and Storage, Floods, CryoSat-2
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how carbon capture and storage works, why it's here to stay, the effect of floodplains on water pollution, and how the thickness of polar ice can be measured from space. The venue for this Planet Earth Podcast…
Rip Currents in Cornwall, and Carbon Capture and Storage
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at why understanding rip currents at Perranporth in north Cornwall could help save lives; and how exactly does carbon capture and storage (CCS) work and how can scientists be sure that CO2 will be stored forever? There…
Energy Resources
This resource, from the Association for Science Education (ASE) includes a number of activities to support environment teaching in science and citizenship and addresses concerns about our 'environmental footprint'. Our use of energy resources is an important theme in science at Key Stage Three. Students should address…
The Earth's Magnetic Field, Snow, and Chernobyl
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how scientists plan to measure the Earth's magnetic field from space, why one researcher is in the frozen town of Churchill in northern Canada, and how the Chernobyl disaster still affects Northern Ireland 25 years…
Music
This resource, from the Association for Science Education (ASE), provides students with all the images they need to make their own revision package on sound. With Music, students can really enjoy the process of revision. Here they make a dramatic multimedia presentation to 'teach' a part of the topic of sound to the class.…
WWII Bunkers, Thugs and Aliens, and Calving Glaciers
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at why weathermen are using a converted World War II bunker to monitor clouds; how thug species such as bramble, nettle and bracken can be just as damaging to woodlands as alien plants; and why scientists are going to Greenland…
Survival
This resource, from the Association for Science Education (ASE), is designed to add excitement to the teaching of either chemical reactions or heat transfer. Students embark on a virtual mission to the International Space Station (ISS), with the help of audio, images and video clips. When disaster strikes, they have to learn about…
Butterflies, Buoys and the English Channel
In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Sue Nelson goes to the Eden Project in Cornwall, southwest England and to the South Downs in southeast England to find out what butterfly research is telling us about climate change. As well as the bad news, there is good…
Fish Poo, Dead Whales, and the Japan Earthquake
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how the famous White Cliffs of Dover could be made of fish poo (at least partially), why one researcher is so interested in dead whales, and why the Japan earthquake was so powerful and devastating. Scientists have…
Kew Gardens, Antarctica and Ancient Trees
In this podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection, Sue Nelson reports from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew where she finds out that some plants like the Snake's Head Fritillary have enormous amounts of DNA in their genomes. These plants struggle in extreme environments,…
Ocean Currents and Great Tits
In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Richard Hollingham talks to Professor Meric Srokosz from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton about a new European Space Agency satellite, which was due to be launched on 2 November 2009. From onboard the RV Callista…
Romans Recycling, Dinosaur Colour, Gravity Mission
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how the Romans recycled glass, dinosaur colour, and what Europe's gravity mission tells us about ocean currents. The height of the world's oceans can vary by as much as 200 metres. These huge differences…
Biorenewables Podcasts
From the National Non-Food Crops Centre (NNFCC), these two podcasts explore a range of applications and issues in the biorenewables sector. They are primarily aimed at a commercial audience but may be of use to teachers who want to gain a better understanding of plant-derived materials or, when used in part, as stimulus material…
5/5- Publication year: 2000 - 2009
- Audio
Volcanic Ash from Iceland, and Sediment Time Machines
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland gave scientists an unparalleled opportunity for research, and why sediment from rivers like the Thames can act like time machines to bygone eras. On…
Rockpools and Ocean Acidification
In this podcast from Planet Earth Online and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Sue Nelson visits the Anglesey coast of north Wales to learn what these mini marine laboratories can tell us about the value of biodiversity. The effects of climate change range from rising temperatures and higher sea levels to extreme…
Stonehenge, Microscopic Plants, and Baboons
This podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth collection looks at why scientists are working with the National Trust to restore the chalk grasslands around Stonehenge; how scientists are using satellites to study microscopic plants; and the etiquette of dining and bullying in baboons. The…
Palm Oil Plantations, Charcoal, and a Flea Circus
A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Does your shopping basket contain chocolate, biscuits and shampoo? If it does, you may be unwittingly contributing to the destruction of the some of the world's pristine rainforests. Manufacturers now use palm oil in a huge…
Aliens and Underwater Volcanoes
This podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection looks at invasive species of plants and animals. Many of them are well-known. Grey squirrels, harlequin ladybirds, buddleia, Japanese knotweed - the list goes on. Some of these aliens, or invasive species to give them their…
Spreading aliens, Arctic experience, and Antarctica
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how hikers and walkers could be unwittingly changing the landscape by spreading alien species; what it's like to work as a marine biologist in the Arctic in temperatures of minus 40°C; and exactly how stable…
Barrel Jellyfish and Supercooled Water
A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Scientists know surprisingly little about jellyfish.Which is why British and Irish researchers are in the middle of a project to tag them to find out things like where they go during the winter, how long they live and why they…
Noisy Coral Reefs, Melting Ice Sheets and Whale Speak
In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Richard Hollingham hears how the underwater world isn't the soundless place often imagined. From chirping, gurgling and snapping sounds from busy coral reefs to clicking sperm whales, scientists are finding that all…
Leeches, Earthquakes and Weird Sea-life
A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). In this recording, Richard Hollingham talks to expert seismologist Brian Baptie from the British Geological Survey, who uses musical software to find out if earthquakes are getting more frequent. Another report comes from Plymouth…
Antarctica, Wild Geese and Ash Plumes
A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). Richard Hollingham finds out that the freezing seas around Antarctica are not barren and lifeless. The Census of Marine Life is building up a picture of the richness and diversity of life in the world's oceans and has so…
Science From a Plane, and Forecasting Space Storms
This podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) looks at how a specially-designed twin turboprop research plane is helping scientists in a huge range of subjects from archaeology to ecology, and why a violent space storm could spell trouble for communications systems across…
Where Do All the Salmon Go? and Making CO2 Bricks
This podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection looks at how scientists are using fish scales to figure out why the UK salmon population is falling; and how carbon dioxide emissions from power stations could be used to make household bricks. Salmon numbers have been dropping…
Cuckoos at Wicken Fen, Snow, and Radiocarbon Dating
This podcast from the Natural Environment Research Council's (NERC) Planet Earth Online collection looks at the cunning tricks the cuckoo uses to get another bird to do the parenting, why researchers are studying snow in Sweden, and discovers an improved radiocarbon dating technique. The cuckoo is a well-known cheat: it…
Harassed Guppies and Promiscuous Fruit Flies
In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), reporters find out what sexual conflict means for female guppies, how female promiscuity may be a good thing and why female mongooses all give birth at the same time. In an extreme example of sexual harassment, researchers…
Arctic Terns, Satellites and Conker Trees
A podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). As the map of Earth's gravity – as revealed by the European Space Agency's (ESA) sleek GOCE satellite – comes into sharper focus, Richard Hollingham speaks to a researcher who tells us what early results from…
Satellites and Acid Oceans
In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), reporters find out how satellites have revolutionised our understanding of climate change. They provide a completely different perspective on how planet Earth works, which was impossible before the satellite revolution…
Ice Clouds and Viper Venom
In this podcast from the Planet Earth Online collection and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), Sue Nelson visits the ice cloud chamber in the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences. Scientists know that fluffy stratocumulus clouds act like a blanket on the Earth - they stop warm air escaping, but…