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Commemorate #EarthDay: Stream one of these videos and celebrate our planet!

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This Sunday is Earth Day, and there are plenty of events going on around the region, but if you're looking for a day of chilling out, we've got your back! You can still commemorate the day (and the planet!) from the comfort of your couch (or recliner ... or bed).

Here are four PBS streaming selections (available on our site, or the PBS app) that will both entertain and hopefully teach you something about our planet!

Dark clouds with dual lightning bolts striking ground.
Nova's Decoding the Weather Machine


  • Katmai: Alaska's Wild Peninsula brings us to the narrow frontier between warm and cold latitudes that extends 500 miles from the Alaskan mainland, separating the tempestuous Bering Sea from the Pacific.At the base of the peninsula lies Katmai National Park, a wilderness larger than Yellowstone and Yosemite — combined. Farther down the peninsula, a giant volcanic caldera emerges on the horizon, so remote that more people climb Everest than visit Aniakchak National Monument. This profile of the remote Alaska Peninsula asks how climate change will affect this magnificent land of wilderness and wildlife. Watch episode.
  • Journey to Planet Earth: Extreme Realities, explores unprecedented extreme weather events through the lens of three questions—(1) Are we merely experiencing once in a hundred year weather events or are they early warning signals of an altered reality–a new normal?; (2) Have we already reached a tipping point pushing our planet towards an environmental cliff?; and (3) Are there ways to mitigate or adapt to these newly emerging threats? Watch Episode.
  • NOVA's Decoding the Weather Machine examines how humans can be resilient in the face of perpetually changing weather cycles and climate. Disastrous hurricanes. Widespread droughts and wildfires. Withering heat. Extreme rainfall. Many scientists agree the extreme weather is the result of the weather machine itself—our climate changing, becoming hotter and more erratic. This film cuts through the confusion around climate change. Watch Film.
  • Nature's Animal Home: Cities gives us a peek at how some species congregate in huge groups. Icelandic puffins form colonies of more than a million, which provide shared information about food sources and reduce the odds of being attacked. Social spiders in Ecuador gather by the thousands to capture large prey. Leaf cutter ants in Costa Rica build enormous acre-wide cities to house multimillion-citizen colonies. Journey to the epicenters of many animal kingdoms. Watch Episode.
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Newborn stars peek out from beneath their natal blanket of dust in this dynamic image of the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. | Flickr/NASA Marshall Space Flight Center/Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0)

Built to Last: JPL's Amazingly Long-Lived Missions

JPL Scientists have performed long-distance tinkering on many projects, helping to extend those satelites' lives many times beyond their original scheduled missions.
Top Image: Griffith Observatory at night. | mimoulamiou/Needpix

A Friendship Fit for the City of Stars: the Griffith Observatory and the Los Angeles Astronomical Society

A partnership between Griffith Observatory and the Los Angeles Astronomical Society enables all Angelenos to enjoy astronomy. 
Raising a water sample from The Red Ocean | Courtesy of Pete Morgan-Dimmick

My Son, the Martian

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