Land-Water-Sky Continuum Education Page:

Lesson 6 - The Biotic Pump: How Forests Create Rain This short video below offers a clear, visual explanation of the biotic pump – how healthy forests help “call” rain from the ocean deep into continents. It shows how dense vegetation lifts water vapour, creates low‑pressure zones, and pulls in moist air, turning forests into living moisture pumps that stabilise rainfall and prevent drought and desertification.

Lesson 1 - Water in healthy landscapes 1: Solar energy

This first video in Mulloon Institute’s “Water in Healthy Landscapes” series shows how plants use cycling water to safely manage the enormous flow of solar energy arriving at Earth’s surface. It explains, in simple visuals, how bare, dry ground turns sunlight into harsh heat, while green, well‑watered vegetation turns much of that energy into evapotranspiration and gentle cooling, creating a humid “ocean in the sky” that protects soils, plants and animals.

Lesson 2 - Water in healthy landscapes 2: The small water cycle

This short animation from the Mulloon Institute introduces the small water cycle – the local loop that moves water between soil, plants and sky in healthy landscapes. It shows how living groundcover, deep roots and shade help water infiltrate, rise back through plants, form clouds, dew and gentle rain, and then soak in again, creating a cool, resilient “water sponge” instead of a hot, dried‑out surface where rain just runs off.

Lesson 3 - How Plants Cool the Planet:

This short film explains how plants act as the planet’s natural air‑conditioners by moving water and energy through the small water cycle. It shows how roots, leaves and tiny leaf pores work together to lift water from the soil, release it as vapour, form cooling clouds and rain, and store carbon in the ground, so more living vegetation means a cooler, more stable climate at local and global scales

Lesson 4 - Climate Change: The Water Paradigm This animated explainer reframes climate change through a water‑first lens, showing how a damaged water cycle can drive heating, droughts and floods just as powerfully as rising greenhouse gases. In clear, simple visuals, it contrasts drained, fast‑runoff landscapes with rehydrated ones that hold rain, feed the small water cycle and cool the air, inviting viewers to see land‑rehydration and water‑cycle restoration as core climate solutions, not side issues.

Lesson 5 - Carbon: The Ecosystems View This short animation zooms out from “carbon as a number” to carbon as part of a living ecosystem. It shows how healthy soils, plants, wetlands and oceans continually absorb, store and cycle carbon, and how restoring whole ecosystems can draw carbon out of the air while also improving water, biodiversity and resilience, rather than relying only on narrow, technology‑focused carbon fixes.

Lesson 7 - Understanding the role of forests and deforestation on local, regional and global precipitations: This short video from CIFOR explains how forests don’t just receive rain, they help make it. Using clear graphics, it shows how intact forests recycle moisture, generate clouds and rainfall locally, help feed regional “sky rivers” of moving water vapour, and how deforestation can disrupt these patterns, reducing rain and increasing climate risks from the Amazon to the global scale

Lesson 8 - The Biotic Pump: How Amazon Trees Prevent Desertification This feature‑length documentary follows scientists in the Amazon as they uncover how forests act as biotic pumps, pulling moist air from the Atlantic deep into the continent and preventing vast regions from turning to desert. Through field measurements, sap‑flow studies and satellite views of “flying rivers,” it shows how billions of trees vaporise more water than the Amazon River carries, how this drives winds and rainfall across South America, and why large‑scale deforestation risks collapsing this natural climate engine

The Songlines: This short video from the First Australians series introduces songlines as living maps that connect people, Country and story across vast distances. It offers a First Nations perspective on how songs, stories and Law are woven into the land itself, and why protecting these cultural pathways remains central to caring for Country today.

The Rainbow Serpent: This short video from the First Australians series introduces the Rainbow Serpent as a powerful creation being at the heart of many Aboriginal stories about how landforms, water and life came into being. It invites viewers to reflect on the Rainbow Serpent’s role in shaping Country and law, and on the responsibilities people carry to respect water and land so that this creative power remains in balance rather than turning to flood, drought or harm

The Rainbow Serpent’s Vitality Flux

Elder Kevin L.

"The Serpent is the energy that moves through all three realms. It begins as the lightning and storm clouds in the Sky, descends as the crashing rain and the flooding river in the Water, and finally rests in the deep, cool caves of the Land. When the resonance is high, the Serpent is strong and the life-force flows without blockage. If we disrupt the river (Water) or clear the trees (Land), we block the Serpent’s path. This causes the energy to pool and turn stagnant, leading to sickness in the country. Our role as guardians is to keep the "Songlines of Flow" open so the Serpent can transition smoothly between the realms, maintaining the vitality of the entire continuum."

The Flying Rivers of the High Sky

Elder Mary G.

"In our tradition, the moisture we see moving in the sky is the breath of the ancestors moving through the great sky rivers. These are not just clouds; they are massive currents of life-giving vapor that travel from the coast deep into the desert. We must protect the forests on the coast because the trees are the pumps that push this breath further inland. If the coastal forests are cleared, the breath becomes weak, and the inland country gasps for air. We watch the Wedge-Tailed Eagle; he rides these invisible rivers, showing us where the moisture is thickest. Protecting the Land is the only way to ensure the Sky Rivers continue to flow and feed the hidden springs of the interior."