Monday, November 15, 2010

Bad Astronomy

2 true facts:
-Because of the distance that the television station was dealing with when the astronauts were transmitting video there really would have been a delay
-It was defiantly true that there could be a comet the size of, or bigger than, Mount Everest

2 false things:
-the guy that played captain tanner was not actually the last guy to land on the moon
the last two people on the moon were Commander Eugene A. Cernan and Harrison H. Schmitt in 1972
-it wouldnt be possible to drill the hole in the asteroid because of all of the different components that make up and asteroid like ice and rock and all that crazy matter

The Sky at Night:
before: i dont understand the sky at night, or the day for that matter. im terrible at finding the stars and picking things out. i know the moon, the big and little dipper, the milky way, and Orion's belt when you can see it.
after: all stars emit every color of the rainbow
starlight is not bright enough to see anything with
Polaris isnt the brightest star in the sky

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Climate Change

Natural factors such as volcanic eruptions, changes in the Earth's orbit, and the amount of energy released from the Sun have affected the Earth's climate. For over the past 200 years the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil and the direct effect deforestation have caused the concentrations of heat trapping greenhouse gases to increase, abnormally, in our atmosphere. the greenhouse gases prevent heat from escaping to space, somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse; hence the name. Effects of the cliamte change
include sea level rise, shrinking glaciers, changes in the range and distribution of plants and animals, trees blooming earlier, lengthening of growing seasons, ice on rivers and lakes freezing later and breaking up earlier, and thawing of permafrost.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/basicinfo.html, last updated: Thursday, May 20, 2010 Author: US EPA

This website is dedicated to the Nature Conservancy and how that organization has began implementing ways to "tackle" global warming to ensure that future generations will have a planet to live on. They are working to reduce the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere and help natural areas adjust to the impact of climate change. The conservancy is doing three major things to help 1. reducing emmions from deforistation 2. helping natual areas adapt to the impacts of climate change and 3.supporting policies to reduce emmsions.
http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/, last updated: April 30, 2009 author: The Nature Conservancy (the only name i found on the site was the copyright agent: Susan Lauscher)

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Sewer Treatment

On friday when we ventured over to the sewer treatment plant i learned quite a bit. Although all that i learned doesnt apply to me because i live in the country and my used water goes into a septic tank rather than being filtered through the city and reused. I also learned that to put on the entire production a lot of thought goes into how it all works; and for the end result which is basically to have cleaner water flowing into the river.  Todd took us through the facility and showed us where the the pressure for the water flow through out the facility comes from, which is through the blowers that are there and when we (the city) has a power outage the facility will still be able to run the blowers because they have two huge diesel generators to run everything on. It was rather interesting how much of a prodution it is just for used water to be regenerated.

Friday, October 1, 2010

City Talk

1. Mrs Byerly, from the city of Eaton Rapids, came and talked with our class.

2.  The city upgraded the cities sewer water treatment system by putting in bigger storm drains and rain gardens to help prevent icky  stuff from getting into the river when it rains.

3. Adding the storm drain and the rain gardens will help the river tremendously. It will keep chemicals like oil and stuff that comes off and out of our cars and into the environment, specifically the roadways and parking lots, the improvements will help keep the river very clean.

4. My group was responsible for the temperature of the river so i dont think the improvements will really change much of the temperature.

5. The thing i found the most interesting was that even though the construction was to make many different improvements to our town i found the rain gardens to be the most interesting and the fact that main street is opening today! :)

6. My bio bottle is doing well, the grass and the peas are growing well but the plastic in it is not making much of a difference.

7. I havent made any progress on my action plan

8. I don't think we've started our power point.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Water Testing Connection

My group members and i chose to to plastic recycling.
My group members and i are comparing how plastics effect the water cycle and the growing process of plants (peas and grass). We are comparing number 1 plastics to number 2 plastics. We will be observing, over a fifteen day period, how plastics not being disposed of properly can effect how, we as humans, are harming our own natural resources. I feel very strongly about recycling, in general, not just plastic, and im hoping that the information we recover we can distribute and help make people that are....less aware, more aware.
In our Bio Bottles we are hoping to recover information that shows that having plastic in our landfills and littered around the earth greatly weakens the Earths ability to grow plants that are vital for human and animal life forms and how irresponsible not properly disposing plastics really is.
The connection between plastic recycling and the water testing we are doing at the Grand River at McArthur River Drive has many different points. 1. Not all plastics are manufactured the same and some contain chemicals that when they are taken out of there final state of creation cause grave harm to living creatures. 2. It requires 3 times as much water to make the bottle as it does to fill a water bottle up, and if the manufacturer is using fresh water, like water from the great lakes, they could be using water that is vital to humans because we haven't yet found a completely efficient way to turn sea water into fresh water. http://www.bottledwaterblues.com/  3.  it is estimated it takes 700 years to begin composting, meaning that while they are sitting around, waiting for there inatement plastic life to end, they could end up in a variety of different places one such being the river, and if fish or water creatures were to be caught in the plastic bottle, getting out for them could result in death or great harm to that specimen. http://www.ehow.com/about_5414634_plasticbottle.html
Lets start a revolution and RECYCLE!

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Water Treatment Plant 9/13/2010

   Filtering the water in the city of E Rap is quite a complex task: the water starts water can also be run through charcoal to filter out the ickys then backwash the water. Grates are also put into the large holding tanks to filter the water even more.

The Trip: It was quite a trip, needless to say. Literally viewing the entire plant (not ginormous but still good sized) was interesting.
   I found the lab to be the most interesting, i kind of thought that the maintenance people did just that, but good ole Troy and Mike don't just service the cities water supply but they also do labs and make sure our water is up to the EPA's and Michigan's water standards. The thing i remember the most was Mike making the joke that hes the guy that fixes the water mains when they bust and he said that it seems like the mains break during the winter more than anything and he said it was really a pain when he has to get out of bed and go fix it in the dead of winter. That would suck!
    I was quite disturbed by the amount of chemicals that are put into the water system, especially the amount of chlorine, i realize that it is safe for drinking and isn't as harmful to us as pure chlorine but i still disagree with the use of chemicals in the water system that are bodies don't produce and are not recognized with.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Water Treatment stufffffff

1.Granular Activated Carbon filtering: a form of activated carbon with a high surface area, adsorbs many compounds including many toxic compounds. Water passing through activated carbon is commonly used in municipal regions with organic contamination, taste or odors. Many household water filters and fish tanks use activated carbon filters to further purify the water. Household filters for drinking water sometimes contain silver as metallic silver nanoparticle. if water is held in the carbon block for longer period, microorganisms can grow inside which results in fouling and contamination. Silver nanoparticles are excellent anti-bacterial material and they can decompose toxic halo-organic compounds such as pesticides into non-toxic organic products
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_purification#Other_water_purification_techniques

2. The influent sewage water is screened to remove all large objects carried in the sewage stream.[4] This is most commonly done with an automated mechanically raked bar screen in modern plants serving large populations, whilst in smaller or less modern plants a manually cleaned screen may be used. The raking action of a mechanical bar screen is typically paced according to the accumulation on the bar screens and/or flow rate. The solids are collected and later disposed in a landfill or incinerated. Bar screens or mesh screens of varying sizes may be used to optimise solids removal. If gross solids are not removed they become entrained in pipes and moving parts of the treatment plant and can cause substantial damage and inefficiency in the process.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

3. Question 1: What kind of chemicals do you use to treat the water?
Question 2: Are the chemicals that are used state-of-the-art and Eco friendly?

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Carbon Footprint

1. www.greengurl11.blogspot.com
2. I hate blogging so i am very opposed to using this site. i think young children would be extremely confused and stressed.
3. 24 C02 ton emitted per year
4. Myself: Unplug more appliance, Take cooler showers, Use energy efficient lights
School: Recycle more recyclable things, use less electricity during the day, share pencils
Community: Car pool, Have a larger recycling area that excepts more things, make more trips to nature centers to help out
5. Drive less or when we do drive car pool and maybe drive hybrid instead of an old piece of crap car. We could use Eco friendly laundry detergents so that when they recycle back to the earth is not as harmful.