This is the town with the ongoing fire underground in Pennsylvania I was talking about today...
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I just wanted to provide everyone with a fairly easy/fairly accurate analogy for the concept of the tragedy of the commons. When using this reference, try to remember that the game board is the "commons", that is a shared area. Understand that private land is not a shared area. Public land is shared. Think of the National Parks and how they are a representation of this concept. The National Parks are amazing, so amazing that for over a hundred years, people have traveled to visit them. Over time, as their popularity rose, the parks experienced more and more use. The final product being that these shared lands are at risk of deterioration due to their popularity. In the game "Hungry, Hungry Hippos", the hippos just want food. Unfortunately, in a shared area with limited resources (the white balls), actions that have no consideration of the future face a certain fate. Evening! I had a few things that I've meant to post for everyone over the past couple of weeks...
4. NPR's Story about the University of Vermont's Ban on Plastic Water Bottles 5. Some Apps for the Phones to Download...6. A Couple of Useful Sites:...and I feel cold! Isn't there some event that is supposed to occur today? One where we are closer to the Sun than any other day? One that is going to change the weather?
If you said, "yes, the world is ending", shame on you! Today is the first day of winter! Happy winter solstice!! As for that other topic, it is fitting that the oddballs that believe an ancient civilization predicted today as the end of times are seeking advice from an organization of scientists: http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/nasa-flooded-with-calls-about-the-world-ending-friday/2012/12/20 My wish is that the lyrics of the R.E.M. song were true. Lets make it the end of the world as we know it. Lets start taking care of our planet. Stop wasting. Start living more sustainable lives. Start appreciating and valuing the beauty of nature and of each other. I hope everyone has a happy holiday and when you wake up tomorrow, realize that science can explain a lot of things. Superstition only gets you worked up in a frenzy... Good evening! Just wanted to get back into the blogging swing! Check out this video of the 2 year old gorilla from the zoo! I was talking to one of the ladies there and she told me how Henry's mom would not let go of Henry's leg. Anytime Henry tries to wander off, she grabs the leg. She said that this is exactly the same way she raised her previous baby. The interesting thing is that the other mother in the habitat allowed her baby to run around everywhere. Different parenting styles!! Additionally, if anyone wants the opportunity for extra credit, you can complete your own Cemetery population study by following the directions on the lab sheet and going to www.interment. Check out Henry the Gorilla doin' his thing! Hahahaha In conjunction with our discussions of air pollution and possible solutions for this environmental problem, I wanted to share with you the case of Chattanooga, Tennessee (My Tennessee hometown). It sits on the Tennessee River in a natural basin formed by the Appalachian Mountains. Lookout Mountain, the home of Rock City and Ruby Falls, is a member of this long chain of mountains. After the Civil War, foundries, mills, and other plants of industry were quickly built and the city became one of the leading places of manufacture in the country. The economic success in Chattanooga was accompanied by negative environmental effects. Because of the topography of the area, being located in a bowl surrounded by mountains, pollutants that were produced from industry were trapped overhead. By 1957, Chattanooga had the 3rd worst particulate pollution in the country and respiratory illness rates were above the national average. In the 1960s, there were many days were people could not see Lookout Mountain from a 1/4 mile away. In 1969, a U.S. survey of the countries air quality confirmed that Chattanooga was the worst city in the U.S. for particulate matter in the air. Before the Clean Air Act in 1970, in 1969, Chattanooga created its own legislation called the Air Pollution Control Ordinance. It controlled emissions of sulfur oxides, allowed open burning by permit only, placed regulations on odors and dust, outlawed visible auto emissions, capped sulfur content of fuel at 4%, and limited visible emissions from industry. Additionally, new pollution monitoring techniques were set in place to make sure these regulations were being followed. These efforts did not hinder businesses, but instead created new industrial opportunities related to cleaning up the air, such as starting a local manufacturer of smokestack scrubbers. As a result of these acts, just 3 years after the passage of the city ordinance, Chattanooga ahcieved compliace with the Clean Air Act air-quality standards. To ensure that the project remained a success, the city government started a comprehensive recycling program to divert waste that would have been incinerated to particles in the air. Public and private sectors joined forces to create the largest municipal fleet of electric buses in the U.S. To read more about Chattanooga and its fight against air pollution, go to www.chattanoogachamber.com If this interests you, I beg you, PLEASE APPLY! This would be such an amazing opportunity for you to experience! The task is simple: Choose an environmental issue that you are passionate about. Then, create a video, digital media project or essay that responds to the following: -What are the global implications of this issue? -What ideas do you have to address this issue? -Why do you want to be part of a team working on a solution? Finally, you will submit your project at facebook.com/eftours by NOVEMBER 1ST. The winner of the scholarship will have the opportunity to explore their environmental passions in Costa Rica by spending 6 days discovering the country and the environmental initiatives being taken to protect it. You will next get to apply your new knowledge during a 2 day summit on environmental sustainability in San Jose, where you will collaborate with peers from the U.S. and Canada. For more information: http://www.eftours.com/student-travel/educational-travel/global-citizen.aspx What Should I Be Studying for the Unit 1 Test???Remember that this test is basically a review of stuff you already know. I would HIGHLY suggest checking out the powerpoints. Focus on the PowerPoint #3 & #4. The following topics should be understood. If you have any questions, please ask! There will be 20-25 questions and 1-2 free response questions. The FRQ are not essays! Topics to include: -Human Impacts on Environment -Environmental Indicator -Renewable vs. Non-renewable -Sustainability -Ecological Footprints -Current Population Growth Trend -Reading Graphs (***Think of the y-axis as a flag pole and the x-axis as the ground. The ground could be the independent variable BUT consider that you cannot stand the flagpole up without the land. So the flag pole depends on the land or Y depends on X) -Differences between theories, laws, and ideas -Anthropogenic -% Increase Problems -Effect of Salinity on Seed Germination -What is a null hypothesis? -Identifying Variables -Atoms, Molecules, Isotopes, Ions -Law of Conservation of Mass -pH: What is an acid, a base, and what does the pH scale show? (Balance of the concentration of H+ to OH-) -Organic Molecules (Containing carbon; Carbohydrates, Lipids, Nucleic Acids, Proteins) -Understand the pH scale is a log scale (For example, a solution with pH 1 is 10x more acidic than pH2 and 100x more acidic than pH3) -Conversion factor between Hectares and Acres -Feedback loops: Understand that a feedback loop refers to the process where information from a system is used to influence future actions of that system. We will use Positive Feedback Loops and Negative Feedback Loops Positive Feedback amplfies the change in the first quantity while negative feedback reduces it. For instance, Positive feedback is seen in climate change. The Ice-Albedo Positive Feedback loop (Snow melts due to heat and exposes more dark ground rather than the white ice. Albedo refers to reflecting the sun light back to space. If the ice melts and sunlight hits the exposed dark ground, it absorbs more heat and causes more snow to melt) MAKE SENSE? Negative feedback is like your body regulating conditions. For instance, when you get a virus, your body increases the heat to kill the bug. When your body gets too hot, the information is delivered to your system and you begin to sweat to CHANGE THE DIRECTION, or lower your body temperature. When you get to cold, the temperature is pushed back up and on and on and on. -Understand inputs, outputs, and systems Also, understand the LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS*** First Law of Thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but can be converted from one form to another. This is explains how it is possible to take energy from burning coal, oil, Uranium, utlizing wind and sunlight, to covert to energy used in electric lighting. Second Law of Thermodynamics states that when energy is transformed, some of the energy is converted to a less usable form, usually heat, and the capacity of that energy to do work diminishes. This explains why no conversion from one energy form to another is 100% efficient and less usable energy is available for applications such as fluorescent lighting. Understand Half-Life: The amount of time it takes for a certain substance to decay half of its mass. Waste is generally considered safe after 10 half-lives. Sooooo, if a sample of Uranium 235 has a half life of 704 million years, how long would it take for the radiation from a sample of Uranium 235 to reach a safe level? 10 half-lives x 704 million years/half-life= 7,040 million years KNOW HOW TO DESIGN AN EXPERIMENT IF PROVIDED A PASSAGE EXPLAINING A PROBLEM..Easy Peasy! Read the NEUSE RIVER CASE STUDY in PowerPoint#1 and understand it! This is "video" is not really a video, but like 3000 pictures compressed and sped up to look like a video..time lapse if you will. I rigged a camera on my dashboard when I drove out west over the summer and took a picture in the same position every minute or so. The clip only shows from Houston to Vegas. Sooooo..I've been meaning to do this, especially for those of you that I have not had the pleasure of teaching in the past and for any parents that may be checking out the page and have yet to meet me. I just wanted to give you a little bit of information about me.
Just the basics: I was born in Central Florida (south of Orlando). My family moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee when I was just a young buck. In 5th grade I moved to Gulf Breeze, FL (sounds dangerous right?) which is a little island like town near Pensacola. I have a bit of an identity crisis in that when I lived in Florida, I really repped Tennessee hard, but since moving to ATL 4 years ago, I think of Florida as home. I do love Tennessee (especially my Vols and Titans), but I have to say that my heart lies in the "Breeze". I received my Bachelor's degree at The Florida State University in Exercise Science with a minor in Biology. My Master's degree was received from Georgia State University and I am currently a semester away from finishing my Specialist degree from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, FL. I am what you might call a snob when it comes to movies and music. I don't know why. I am a list maker to the extreme and my favorite thing in the world is traveling. I have a brother named Tanner who lives in Tallahassee. My mom and step-dad live in Jacksonville and they are the most awesome of people. The other most awesome of people (my dad and step-mom) just moved to New Zealand. I plan on doing a blog post once a week. It may be just plain silliness or it may pertain to something relating to Environmental Science. Check it out to see. Also if you are interested, follow me on Instagram @tdrusky...It has a bunch of pictures from my trip as well. Ok, so I need to go to sleep. I told myself that I was not going to look at what everyone posts right when they post, but I have been reading various reflections, about me descriptions, environmental autobiographies, and cool pictures...I'm going wait and comment on all of them this weekend when everyone has submitted everything so I can do it all at once, but I just want to say that I am proud and thrilled by the effort that everyone is putting into the class. I say this was a bad idea because it is keeping me up by the way :) In the spirit of our Thursday night picture submissions, here is one I took a couple of weeks ago in North Georgia...
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Mr. DruskyI'm your teacher. Maybe. If you take Mr. Drusky. Archives
July 2013
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