HS-LS2-7
Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.
- Life
Explainer: What is an endangered species?
Threats such as climate change and habitat loss can put species at risk of going extinct. Different words describe that risk.
- Environment
Bees and butterflies struggle to find flowers in polluted air
Emissions from cars and trucks make it harder for insects to find flowers. That in turn reduces flower visits and pollination, a new study finds.
- Animals
Living mysteries: Why teeny-weeny tardigrades are tough as nails
Tardigrades often live in cool, damp moss. Their cushy life has somehow prepared them to survive the lethal radiation of outer space.
- Environment
Recycling a climate-warming gas could make ‘greener’ farmed fish
Instead of warming the climate, methane gas can be collected to help farmers. Along the way, it may also save some fish.
- Life
Explainer: What is an invasive species?
These foreign organisms hitchhike, spread widely and stir up trouble in native ecosystems.
- Animals
Rewilding returns lost species to strengthen ecosystems
Restoring the missing species can help undo human-caused problems by aiding forests, slowing climate change and reducing wildfires.
- Animals
As the tropics warm, some birds are shrinking
Migratory birds are getting smaller as temperatures climb, studies had showed. New evidence shows dozens of tropical, nonmigratory species are, too.
- Environment
A new way to make plastics could keep them from littering the seas
Borrowing from genetics, scientists are creating plastics that will degrade. They can even choose how quickly these materials break down.
- Environment
Cheatgrass thrives on the well-lit urban night scene
Middle-grade campers team up with ecologists at Denver University to show that streetlights boost the growth of a reviled invasive species.
- Tech
Synthetic trees could tap underground water in arid areas
They also could also help coastal residents mine fresh water from salty sources.
- Earth
Stores and malls buy into ponds and rain gardens for flood control
An extra bonus: These rainy-day ponds clean up that dirty water running off parking lots.
- Environment
‘Zombie’ wildfires can reemerge after wintering underground
Climate change may make these not-quite-dead blazes more common. Scientists are learning to predict where a zombie might emerge.
