Nature

The latest Ken Burns documentary tells the story of the United States’ national mammal, The American Buffalo. We spoke to an environmental historian and ethnobotanist who is also an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana and Métis and featured in the film.

Chicago's motto is "city in a garden," and there are plenty of beautiful, notable parks with some fascinating history to live up to that ideal, as Geoffrey Baer explores.

More than 20% of material sent to the landfill in Chicago by weight is food waste, which decomposes and releases the harmful greenhouse gas methane. Instead, that food waste could benefit the earth by being composted. 

The Nature Cat Explorer Patch encourages Girl Scouts to explore nature, learn about animals, adopt environmentally friendly practices, and more, all through fun activities inspired by the PBS Kids show.

"There’s a frequently cited statistic that one in every three bites of food is brought to us by an animal pollinator." The Chicago Botanic Garden is celebrating pollinators over the summer. Learn from several experts about what you can do to help these vital species. 

A new exhibit opening at the Kohl Children's Museum before traveling around the country lets children dive into the world of Nature Cat, encouraging them to indulge their curiousity and go outside to explore the natural world. 

New England is famous for its brilliant fall colors, which attract visitors from around the country. Autumnwatch New England brings you into the region's heart to show the wildlife, harvesting, and season changes. Explore magnificent photography here.

Outback explores the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia, which encompasses arid landscapes, rich coastland, kangaroos, crocodiles, oyster-bearing pearls and more. Get a taste through photography from the series.

Wonders of Mexico takes you on a tour of some of our southern neighbor's most remarkable landscapes, introducing you to the people and animals that reside there. Get a preview by exploring the extraordinary sights through some photography from the series.

They may be our closest animal companions, but how much do we really know about them? Discover whether dogs dream, how intelligent they are, what their attachment to humans is, how well they understand us, and why they sometimes eat their own poop.

PBS's Summer of Adventure has begun! There's a lot to explore, including three of the world's most impressive mountain ranges, in Kingdoms of the Sky, and some of Earth's most forbidding landscapes, in Earth's Natural Wonders. See some of the stunning photography from both series. 

"Bonsai" literally translates to "planted in a container," but the Japanese art form is much more complicated than that. The Chicago Botanic Garden's bonsai curator explains how you train a tree, the goals and some basic tenets of bonsai, and shows some of his favorites.

In Rwanda: The Royal Tour, the president of the small but biodiverse African country visits some of the land's natural wonders, from one of the last habitats of mountain gorillas to one of Africa's oldest rainforests to a a savannah and wetland chockfull of large animals.

There's a new Chicago River Tour with Geoffrey Baer, but the TV program isn't the only way you can explore Chicago's vital waterway. You can also take your own audio tour of Riverwalk, enjoy 360 videos, watch an animated history of the river reversal, and more on our companion site.

Helen Macdonald turned to hawking for solace when her father died, chronicling her grief in the award-winning book H is for Hawk. Now she's training her first goshawk since then on Nature. She spoke to us about the meanings give to animals and more.