Audio-Visual Materials: T: Technology

Try going a day without plastic. In this touching and often flat-out-funny film, we follow "everyman" Jeb Berrier as he embarks on a global tour to unravel the complexities of our plastic world. What starts as a film about plastic bags evolves into a wholesale investigation into plastic and its effect on our waterways, oceans and even our own bodies. We see how our crazy-for-plastic world has finally caught up with us and what we can do about it. Today. Right now.

Explains how air, water, earth, and fire are transformed into clean, reliable sources of heat, electricity, and even automobile fuel. Looks at a solar roof implementation by FedEx at a regional sort facility in Oakland, Calif., a wind power project in central New York using fewer, larger turbines, and the widespread use of geothermal energy in Iceland. Visits Lovecraft Biofuels in Los Angeles, an auto repair shop that converts diesel car and truck engines to run on one hundred percent vegetable oil. Examines the potential use of hydropower from ocean tides, such as tidal barrages, as well as a tidal stream (or flow) power project off the shore of England that uses propeller-like turbines to capture the kinetic power of underwater currents

Incredible footage of Chicago Fire Department firefighters in action during actual emergencies. Experience what it is like to face the destructive power of a raging inferno along side these real life heroes. Also take a look at the Chernobyl tragedy, where a small band of Russian firefighters managed to contain a nuclear meltdown, despite fatal levels of radiation that killed every member of the team but one.

Modern Marvels

Nova goes on the fire line with a team of elite Hotshots to fight one of the worst fire seasons ever in the American west.

Living in Space: Once upon a time life took a big step forward, moving out of the sea and onto the land. Today humankind is taking an equally big step outwards, living in space. As the Russian space visionary, Constantin Tsiolkovskii said, "The earth is the cradle of the mind, but you cannot live in the cradle forever." The Expanding Universe: This two-part program will be an informative and inspiring introduction to modern astronomy.