Tuesday, April 6, 2004, 7PM | Room A118 Pendergrass Library / Veterinarian Hospital [Directions...]
Biodiversity: [Film] [Issues] [Science] [Resources]

Biodiversity

Film: Natural Connections

Our planet Earth furnishes everything life needs. It is a strong, yet fragile interweaving of plants and animals, including humans. Yet we seem to function apart from this fabric of life; we seem to have lost touch with our natural connections and the world's astounding variety of species and habitats. Indeed, humans are the largest threat to biodiversity, and the result of this threat will be an enormous loss for all time to come. Using stunning photography, Natural Connections illustrates this alarming trend with a look at five habitats and the scientists who work within them... Read the complete film description ››

Focus on Issues: Biodiversity

In a book published in 1864 called "Man and Nature or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action," George Perkins Marsh wrote passionately about the devastating impact that humans were having on the landscape. Taking a broad historical view, Marsh described the changes in the landscapes of Europe, the Middle East and Africa since antiquity, and of North America in the nineteenth century. He warned that just because we don't know exactly how human actions affect the world, we should neither ignore nor underestimate these effects. He suggested that human ingenuity, so evident in the impressive engineering feats of the modern age, might be turned to rebuilding and rescuing wasted lands... Read the complete Essay ›› [pdf]››

Focus on Science: Biodiversity

In the middle of the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace arrived independently at the same remarkable conclusion: Given enough time, the natural variation in life from generation to generation would lead to certain individuals being better able to survive and reproduce, and this variation in itself-this "natural selection"-would be enough to account for speciation. They were led to this conclusion by their observations as naturalists, by the discovery of increasing numbers of unaccountably strange fossils, and by the vista on the past opened by the new uniformitarian geology, which required huge stretches of time... Read the complete Essay ›› [pdf]››

Research More:

Best Biodiversity Film: Ferngully: The Last Rain Forest
See more Biodiversity Films ››

Best Biodiversity Reading: The Biodiversity Crisis: Losing What Counts
See more Biodiversity Reading ››

Best Biodiversity Web Site: Wild Places: Endangered Animals & Biodiversity
See more Biodiversity Web Sites ››