Imagine a wall stretching from Canada to Texas, not built of brick or stone, but of 220 million living trees. In the 1930s, this "Great Tree Wall" was the only thing standing between American farmers and total ecological collapse.

In this episode of Brain Blast, hosts Alex and Jordan travel back to the era of the Dust Bowl, where massive "black blizzards" of topsoil once blocked out the sun across the Great Plains. You will learn about President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ambitious 1934 Prairie States Forestry Project, a massive undertaking that planted a 100-mile wide zone of trees to act as a shield against the wind.

We break down the fascinating science of windbreaks and how an aerodynamic wedge of cottonwoods and shrubs managed to disrupt airflow and ...