The Great Oxygenation Event

Description:  The Great Oxygenation Event occurred when cyanobacteria living in the oceans started producing oxygen through photosynthesis. As oxygen built up in the atmosphere anaerobic bacteria were killed leading to the Earth's first mass extinction. The change in diversity and the arrival of appreciable atmospheric oxygen (as evidenced by the red bands in the rocks) can be analyzed to see what happens when a resource that was scarce becomes very abundant.

Web Resource: Great Oxygenation Event - Wikipedia

What if we told you that there was a time when oxygen almost wiped out all life on Earth? 3 billion years ago, when the world was a place you'd never recognize, too much of a good thing almost ruined everything for everybody. This episode on the Oxygen Catastrophe is supported by Squarespace.

Biosphere 2

Description:  Biosphere 2 was created in the 1990's to model all the elements of Biosphere 1 (The Earth). Plants in the biosphere produced oxygen and food for the inhabitants. The carbon dioxide released during respiration was taken in by the plants cycling the matter with energy from the Sun. In this experiment oxygen levels steadily fell to dangerous levels and oxygen eventually had to be added to the biosphere. This large-scale phenomenon continues to be owned and run by the University of Arizona. The mystery of missing oxygen could be used as a phenomenon in a unit on matter cycling and energy flow. Students can even create biospheres of their own and monitor life over time.

Warning: This video contains strong language (11:06) and is not appropriate for younger viewers. Please use teacher discretion when showing segments of this video directly to children.

Web Resource:  Biosphere 2 - Wikipedia

http://www.ted.com Jane Poynter tells her story of living two years and 20 minutes in Biosphere 2 -- an experience that provoked her to explore how we might sustain life in the harshest of environments. This is the first TED talk drawn from an independently organized TEDx event, held at the University of Southern California.