Energy Articles Homework

Nuclear Power: Risking a Comeback

Quote: "Calvin Nolt gets more harmful radiation from a day in the sun than from a year near the Three Mile Island Generating Station."
Question: Why is it that you get more harmful radiation from the sun that near a generation station? Doesn't the station give off more radiation than the sun does?
Comment: The quote I picked was actually from the caption from the picture and it interested me because I didn't understand how you could get more radiation from the sun in one day and less from a generating station in a year. I didn't understand how this could be possible because doesn't the generating station give off more radiation so you would get more radiation posioning from there rather than the sun.

Clean Coal? New Technology Buries Greenhouse Emmisions

Quote: "As energy prices continue to climb, researchers are stepping uptheir efforts to turn black, dirty coal into a green, clean fuel of the future."
Question: How can you turn black coal into green fuel? what would it be used for?
Comment: This comment confused me because I didn't really understand how you could turn black coal into a green fuel. I mean how can something as black as coal turn into a green like substance like fuel.

Food Inc. Articles

The Scope of the World Food Crisis

The beginning of this article mostly talked about how the prices for commonly basic foods, like rice and corn, had become to high and as a result there were protests in more than 40 countries, this is know as the World Food Crisis. Towards the middle the article talked about the causes of the food crisis one being unseasonable droughts in grain producing countries caused by changes in the weather. Also in the middle they talked about solutions one being that if the low prices for raw materials that were present in the 1960's were considered a hindrance to development then the high prices today would too. Towards the ending the article talked about the reactions that the international communities had about the crisis, along with some examples of proposals for a sustainable agriculture.

Cheap Food

Basically for this article they are talking about how the workers on the farm are not getting the same treatment that American workers get. For example the article says that a lot of the basic rights that American workers get the farm workers aren't getting any of. They are making the farm workers seem like scaredy cats because they don't want to report labor law violations, but it's because they don't want to lose their jobs because they need to pay for food for their own families. In this article it seems that they are trying to make people feel bad for the farm workers, even though I agree that I don't like the fact that the farm workers hardly get any benefits I do not think that the author of the article should have out it in a way that makes it seem like the farm workers are too scared to stick up for themselves.

The Financial Crisis and World Hunger

In this article one thing that stood out to me the most that I really liked was the program that Muhammad Yunus had launched. The program was to help poor people survive by giving them tiny loans, but it was also created to spark the personal initiative and enterprise to pull themselves out of poverty. The reason that I liked this was because it’s something that could help a lot of families in the world. If every poor family in the world had been apart of this program then I believe that the World Food Hunger Crisis would be solved because no family would be in poverty.

Fields of Poison

In this article they are mostly talking about how the pesticides in a lot of the plants and foods are causing harmful side effects to the farm workers. Even though some side effects aren’t that bad like dizziness or numbness, there are more harmful effects that could cause pain and even death. In the article it states that the elimination of the hazardous pesticides is a sustainable solution to agricultural chemical exposure. The thing that made me angry about this article was the fact that the DPR sent out more warnings of violations than fines and not actually taking action on those farms just giving them a slide by. If they actually do the job that they are supposed to be doing, which is making sure the farms aren’t violating health and environmental problems, then there wouldn’t be as many farm workers that are having side effects that could kill them.

If you were going dedicate your energies to champion one of the issues in any of the writings, which would you choose and why? In your opinion, what is it about your particular choice that ranks it above all others?

If I had to choose I would choose the program that Muhammad Yunus came up with because it seems like a more practical issue that could actually happen. Also I think that it could really help with the whole issue on the World Food Hunger Crisis. Because as I said above if all the poor families in the world were in this program and they got small amounts of loan they could, in time, get themselves out of poverty and get their family back up and running.

An Inconvenient Conversation

There is renewable energy that comes from natural resources like the wind, sunlight and water. Out of all of the forms of energy I think that the form we use the most is electrical and motion energy.

Electrical energy which is stored in batteries that are used for just about everything from cars to cell phones. The electrical energy is a common use for us because we use it for everything not just for batteries, we use it for our food so it could be hot or cold and even for our lights so we could see in the dark and if not for electrical energy then we would be getting even more sick because our soup is too cold or tripping over toys because we can’t see them.

Motion Energy can be used mostly with our cars, bikes, skate boards, basically anything that moves. It is used by making an object, for instance a car, move so all of the energy is being used to get it moving and to get it to slow down. Wind is also a kind of motion energy, also a renewable energy source, because it could be used to make certain objects move. For example, if you have a person flying a kite if there was no wind to blow then the kite wouldn’t have enough energy to go and stay up. You would need the wind to be blowing in order for the kite to even have some energy to push it off the ground. If there was no motion energy we would have to walk to school and work, and little kids wouldn’t be able to fly their kites.

Well in order to provide the energy we need while maintaing ecological balance we need to switch to renewable energy sources. Like using solar power panels to power things in your house, instead of using electricity and raising the cost of the electric bill we should put in the panels to save energy and reduce the cost of electricity.

BACK TO 1983 FOR A DAY

Well for starters I absolutely hated this project when I first heard about it because I also use my computer and cell phone and I hate not being able to use either. Even though a full day of not having them wasn't difficult at all it was still annoying for me because I wouldn't have my alarm clock waking me up or I couldn't text any of my friends.

So for my day of no electronics I at first thought that I would just sit around or nap all day but in fact I actually wasn’t a couch potato at all.

I first woke up because I heard the sound of my sister’s alarm clock go off. Once I got up and ready my sister, cousin, and I had gone to my neighbor’s house to get their daughter so we could walk down to the doughnut shop and get some doughnuts for everyone at my house since there were a lot of us. We spent about an hour and a half walking to and back from the doughnut shop.

Then by the time we got home everyone was awake and so we gave everyone breakfast. Once everyone had finished eating my sister, cousin’s , and I had cleaned up the kitchen and all of the little messes the little kids made. Then once everyone was dressed and fully awake we took the little kids outside so they could play.

So basically my time without electronics was annoying because I couldn’t use the computer and check my Facebook. I couldn’t use my cellphone to text anyone or even check the time (even though I probably could have). And the one thing that I absolutely hated giving up was watching TV because I do it about every single day and I get bored easily if I don’t watch it. But the day wasn’t all that bad, I got some exercise and wasn’t a couch potato for a whole DAY!!

Study Guide Questions

Water Study Guide:
How water can be used in homes, industries, and agriculture?

Air and Land Use Study Guide:
What can people do to reduce the loss of ecosystem services as the human population grows?
a.


Food and Agriculture Study Guide:
What is fertile soil?
a. good soil for growing plants and food
b. bad soil for growing plants and food
c. good soil that is not good for growing plants and food
d. bad soil that is good for growing plants

Biome HW: Part 2

Island Rain Forest
Quote: "If the rhinoveros hornbill doesn't take your breath away - if the Rajah Brooke's birdwing doesn't - have someone hold your wrist and check for a pulse."

Question: What is it about these specific animals that makes the author think that they are the most amazing animals?

Comment: I really didn't understand what about these two species that made the author write so extremely about them, he made it seem like they were the best species ever.

Marine
Quote: "There is a white blue hwale, maybe an albino."

Question: How can you tell if an animal is ablino?

Comment: This quote confused me because you can't really tell if a animal is an albino, because their pigment is different than our is.

Freshwater
Quote: Above him a buzzard floated in the river's canyon's narrow slice of California."

Question: What is a buzzard?

Comment: This quote confused me because I didn't know what a buzzard is, if it was a type of fish or a dead bee.

Biome HW: Part 1z

Freshwater:

Q: If you took a freshwater animal or plant and place it in a area where there was high salt concentration, what would happen to that plant or animal?

A: they wouldn't be able to survive in places with high salt concentration (like the ocean) because they are used to areas where there are low salt concentration.

Marine:

Q: What is the intertidal zone? And what kind of marine animals can be seen during high and low tide?

A: the intertidal zone is where the ocean meets the land; during high tide you would see is algae and small animals, such as snails, crabs, seas stars, and small fishes; during low tide you would see a lot of invertebrates, fishes, and seaweed.

Desert:

Q: Besides regular deserts, like the Sahara, what is the other type of desert? And where are some of those deserts located?

A: The other type of desert are cold deserts, and they occur in the basin and range area of Utah and Nevada and in parts of western Asia.

Forest:

Q: What is the climate for a tropical rain forest? what type of animals are usually found in these types of forests?

A: The temperature on average is 20-25° C; the animals usually found in tropical rain forests are bats, numerous birds, small mammals, and insects.

Grassland:

Q: What is edaphic savanna?

A: They are savannas that are caused by soil conditions and that are not entirely maintained by fire. These can occur on hills or ridges where the soil is shallow, or in valleys where clay soils become waterlogged in wet weather.

Tundra:

Q: What kind of plants and animals can live in the alpine tundra?

A: plants: tussock grasses, dwarf trees, small-leafed shrubs, and heaths; animals: pikas, marmots, mountain goats, sheep, elk, grouselike birds, springtails, beetles, grasshoppers, and butterflies.

4 goals

Goals:

1. Figure out how big each element (pool,deck,gazebo,koi pond, etc.) in my garden is going to be. Figure out the measurements to find out how big my backyard is going to be.
2. Re-do backyard/garden design to make the koi pond visible, and to make room for rock garden as an extra element
3. Make entertainment are do-able. Make enough seating areas for bbq's, etc.
4. Finish plant legend.