Life After People DVD worksheet

1 day

  1. What percent of electricity is produced with fossil fuels?
  1. What electrical source will be the last the shut down?
  1. Theoretically, how long could it go without humans?
  1. What about dogs and other animals?

6 months

  1. What is happening in urban areas?

1 year

  1. What type of plants will thrive in the new, poor soil? Why?
  1. What will eventually shut down Hoover Dam?
  1. How will fire contribute to succession?

5 years

  1. What happens to roads and buildings in 5 years?
  1. What might happen with zoo animals?

20 years

  1. What has happened in cities?
  1. Where has this already happened?
  1. What two forces can push apart and destroy concrete?
  1. What has happened to the Red Forest ecosystem 20 years after the Chernobyl disaster?
  1. What process is changing in the soccer field?
  1. What is a climax community?
  1. What does this say about life?

25 years

  1. Name two cities that will flood.
  1. What happens to skyscrapers of NYC?
  1. What organisms survive just fine without us?
  1. What evidence is given for the survival of wolves? How many were originally released and how many are there now?
  1. How have roads affected animals?

40 years

  1. Name two things that have happened to wooden structures.
  1. How will stone fare?
  1. How long will Hoover Dam last? No clear answer, longer than stone buildings, longer than 1,000 years

50 years

  1. Describe the deterioration of bridges

75 years

  1. What happens to cars in deserts?
  1. What happens to cars in coastal environments? Won’t last more than 20-30 years due to salt and water corroding

100 years

  1. How long can the following human records expect to last:

Less than a century

100 years or less

Few decades to a few centuries

What will eventually destroy them?

150 years

  1. What happens to the Subways after all this time?
  1. What would we expect skyscrapers to look like now, 150 years after humans?
  1. What about cats? How have they survived?
  2. Dogs?
  1. How will theoceans look 150 years after humans?
  1. How have we treated the oceans historically?
  1. What evidence is given to support this statement?
  1. What happened to gulfs that are use to feeding on human refuse?

200 years

  1. What happens to steel structures?

300 years (era of great collapses)

  1. What happens to buildings that begin to lean?

500 years

  1. Of all human built structures, what has lasted the longest?
  1. Why is modern concrete not as good as ancient concrete?

1,000 years

  1. After this amount of time, what would NYC, specifically Manhattan Island look like?

10,000 years

  1. What is likely to have happened to our culture?
  1. What structures do survive to this length of time?
  1. If condensed into 24 hours, how long in the entire history of Earth have humans been around?