Early on a cool September morning, farmer Josh Payne tends to his flock in Concordia, just east of Kansas City, Missouri. As Payne opens the gate, about a thousand sheep round the corner and bound into fresh grass.
The pasture the flock grazes was once corn and soybeans, along with the rest of the Payne family farm. Josh’s grandfather Charles Payne cultivated nearly a thousand acres of row crops for decades.
With debate ongoing over water allotments from Western rivers, anticipated water shortages complicate the future outlook for agricultural irrigation. And extreme weather has changed the game for row crop farmers — even those with irrigation systems.
The year 2024 was a record-breaking one, and not in a good way. In July, Earth's average temperature was the highest it has been in at least 175 years, with July 22 specifically being the hottest day on record. This past summer was the hottest summer since about the year 1880, this year's hurricane season started with Beryl — the earliest Category 4 hurricane on record — and a report published in June confirmed that human-driven global warming is at an all-time high.
Each year, the U.S. Department of Energy designates October as Energy Awareness Month. During the month, many schools undertake energy efficiency and conservation activities. These classroom activities connect well to student homes as many families approach the winter heating season. Using energy wisely makes sense – both for the environment and for economics.
In October, consider teaching about the energy sources we use and how to use them more efficiently using the following NEED activities.
Teach and read about energy with NEED’s Energy Booklist. This list provides multi-level energy related non-fiction and fiction literature for students.
The Energy Expo was created to provide students with an expanded opportunity to learn about energy efficiency technologies while improving research and presentation skills.
All guides are available at the NEED shop as a FREE pdf download or viewable as an e-publication. Select a category below to get started!
Alyssa Carrell, an ecologist with the Plant Systems Biology group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, started her science career studying the tallest inhabitants in the forest, but today she is focused on some of its smallest — the microbial organisms that play an outsized role in plant health.
Switzerland and Italy have redrawn a border that traverses an Alpine peak as melting glaciers shift the historically defined frontier.
The two countries agreed to the modifications beneath the Matterhorn, one of the highest mountains in Europe, which straddles Switzerland’s Zermatt region and Italy’s Aosta valley.
Livestock production is an important component of U.S. agriculture, with global demand for meat and dairy expected to double in the coming decades. This increase will lead to intensified grazing on U.S. grasslands, potentially exacerbating water quality degradation from livestock waste runoff into waterways.
Zillow has announced that its real estate property listings in the US will soon feature details about climate risks, including the potential for wildfires, flooding, extreme temperatures, high winds, and poor air quality. Buyers will also see what types of insurance are required or recommended for a property.
When worn, washed, and dried, clothing sheds—dispersing tiny fibers throughout homes, soils, and waterways that can take centuries to degrade.
These fibers, often made of polyester and often too small to see, are a major—if invisible—source of microplastic pollution. By some estimates, fibers from polyester clothing account for nearly half of all microplastics in the natural environment, exacerbating a growing environmental and public health hazard.