February 26, 2009

Student Leadership Program for Chesapeake Bay. For 12-year-old Sarah Wendt, the road to environmental activism began with one small step: a class field trip, and making this video urging action to cleanup the Bay watershed.
As she and her classmates from Harrisburg Academy tested the water quality along Pennsylvania's Conodoguinet Creek last spring, Sarah was horrified by the trash and broken glass that filled the stream—and even more upset by the fact that "this was happening in an area close to my home, and that the people actually living on the creek were not cleaning up their own environment."
The experience convinced Sarah to apply for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's Student Leadership Program, which prepares middle and high school students to be advocates for the environment.
Learn how to apply.

Carbon Capture and Sequestration Video. This new online video, made available by the Carbon Capture & Sequestration Project and the Department of Environmental Protection, includes experts discussing the role carbon capture and sequestration can play in achieving needed reductions in carbon dioxide emissions in order to mitigate global climate change.
Carbon capture and sequestration provides a means to dramatically reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere from industrial facilities or when electricity is generated by fossil fuel power plants. Although carbon dioxide is neither toxic nor inherently dangerous, the overabundance of atmospheric CO2 is believed to be a major contributor to global climate change. (Click here to watch video)

February 19, 2009

TV Program On Climate Change Features Penn State Faculty. The first episode of the National Science Foundation's "To What Degree? What Science is Telling Us About Climate Change" television series will feature Penn State climate researchers Richard B. Alley, Evan Pugh professor of geosciences and Michael E. Mann, associate professor of meteorology and director of the Earth System Science Center.
The program will explore the fundamentals of climate change and peer into the treasure trove of the deep past to see what might lie ahead in a warmer world.
How do we know the climate is changing? Is it just a natural cycle, or do humans have something to do with it? Some of the world’s leading climate scientists explore these questions, laying out the line of reasoning that has led the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and many other scientific groups to conclude that humans are very likely the cause of the majority of current warming. (Click here to watch video.)
Private Drinking Water Well Videos. Five new online videos are now available from the Penn State Extension Service to help the more than 1 million private water well owners properly maintain and identify well problems.
Three million people in Pennsylvania are served by private wells, with 20,000 new wells drilled each year in the state. However, Pennsylvania is one of only a few states with no regulations covering the construction and safety of water coming from those wells. As a result, well owners should learn to identify problems and properly maintain their wells.
The videos cover water supply basics, water supply and conservation, water supply construction and maintenance, water supply testing and protection and solving water problems. (Click here for more water resource information.)

February 18, 2009

Wildlands Conservancy Environmental Education Programs. This video provides an overview of the Wildlands Conservancy’s environmental education department which offers programming to assist local schools in meeting state academic standards. It also offers innovative and exciting programs for families, schools, scouts and other groups at Pool Wildlife Sanctuary and other locations throughout the Lehigh River watershed including the popular “Go Wild” summer camps which take place June through August.
A half a million individuals have participated in Wildlands Conservancy’s education programs since the beginning of the organization, with an average of 16,000 school students participating each year.

February 6, 2009

Legacy Sediments. Franklin & Marshall College professors Robert C. Walter, Ph.D. and Dorothy J. Merritts, Ph.D. talk about the publication of an article in the journal Science that outlines the contributions thousands of 17th to 19th Century mill dams have made to causing legacy sediment and nutrient pollution in today’s streams with New York Times Reporter Cornelia Dean.
The research published by Drs. Walter and Merritts have lead to changes in public policy dealing with the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay and other watersheds.
Financial support for the research was provided by the Department of Environmental Protection, the Pennsylvania members of the Chesapeake Bay Commission and Franklin and Marshall College. (Click here for related article.)