Articles for category: Climate & Environment

white and red sail boat on blue sea near green and brown mountain under blue and

Lake Taupō: The Supervolcano That Changed Global Climate in 180 CE

Maria Faith Saligumba

Imagine standing on the shores of New Zealand’s largest lake, watching the gentle waves lap against volcanic shores, completely unaware that beneath your feet lies one of Earth’s most terrifying geological monsters. Lake Taupō appears peaceful today, but nearly 2,000 years ago, this very spot unleashed an explosion so massive it literally changed the world’s ...

The 6 Ways Humans Have Changed the Food Chain (Without Meaning To)

The 6 Ways Humans Have Changed the Food Chain (Without Meaning To)

Trizzy Orozco

We’ve all heard the saying “you are what you eat,” but what happens when what we eat fundamentally changes? For millions of years, nature’s food chains operated like perfectly orchestrated symphonies, with each species playing its part in an intricate dance of survival. Then humans arrived on the scene, and without even realizing it, we ...

Explore the dramatic geothermal landscape with steaming vents and distant mountains.

6 Sites Around the World That Show Earth’s Violent Past

Maria Faith Saligumba

Our planet might seem peaceful today, but beneath its serene surface lies a story written in stone, ash, and twisted metal. Earth has endured catastrophes so immense they’ve reshaped continents, wiped out entire species, and left scars that remain visible millions of years later. These aren’t just geological curiosities – they’re windows into our planet’s ...

a hill covered in lots of trees next to a forest

Can We Control the Climate? A Teen’s Guide to Geoengineering Debates

Maria Faith Saligumba

Picture this: It’s 2050, and scientists deploy giant mirrors in space to reflect sunlight away from Earth. Massive machines pull carbon dioxide straight from the air like cosmic vacuum cleaners. Ocean-spraying ships create artificial clouds to cool our planet. This isn’t science fiction anymore – it’s the wild world of geoengineering, where humans attempt to ...

International Significance of Parisian Fossils

Prehistoric Climates Preserved in Ice, Mud, and Stone

Trizzy Orozco

The Earth keeps its secrets hidden in plain sight, locked away in layers of ice that haven’t seen sunlight for millennia, buried beneath muddy lake beds that have quietly accumulated sediment for thousands of years, and embedded within rocks that witnessed the planet’s most dramatic transformations. These natural archives hold the keys to understanding how ...

The Power of Citizen Science

5 Times Citizen Scientists Made Major Contributions to Science

Trizzy Orozco

Picture this: you’re sitting in your backyard, casually observing birds, when suddenly you notice something unusual. Maybe it’s a migration pattern that doesn’t quite match what you’ve read about, or perhaps a species showing up where it shouldn’t be. What if I told you that observation could lead to a groundbreaking scientific discovery? This isn’t ...

A dramatic scene of a dust storm engulfing a building and sparse vegetation in the foreground.

The Dust Bowl’s Echo: Could It Happen Again in the 21st Century?

Maria Faith Saligumba

Picture this: you’re driving down a highway in Kansas when suddenly, the sky turns black. Not from storm clouds, but from billions of particles of topsoil being ripped from the earth and hurled skyward by relentless winds. For those who lived through the 1930s Dust Bowl, this nightmare was reality. Today, as we face unprecedented ...

Emerging Research and Discoveries

Beyond the Bag: What Happens When Animals Ingest Plastic

Annette Uy

Picture this: a majestic sea turtle gliding through crystal-clear waters, mistaking a floating plastic bag for its favorite meal – a jellyfish. This isn’t just a tragic accident; it’s happening millions of times across our planet every single day. From the tiniest plankton to the largest whales, creatures everywhere are consuming plastic at an alarming ...

Gyres: The Ocean's Plastic Collecting Systems

Ocean Currents and Trash: How Far a Plastic Bag Can Travel

Annette Uy

Picture this: you’re walking along a beautiful beach, the salty breeze carrying the sound of crashing waves. Suddenly, you spot a plastic bag dancing in the wind before it tumbles into the ocean. What happens next might shock you. That simple plastic bag you just witnessed entering the water could potentially travel thousands of miles, ...