Climate Change

Climate Change

Climate change is created by the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and other fluorinated gases create the greenhouse effect. What the greenhouse effect is when heat, is trapped by the atmosphere by those gasses and then can’t escape. Many human activities cause a rise in greenhouse gases (electricity, transportation and human caused forest fires and other human caused natural disasters). From 1990-2007 the greenhouse gas emissions increased by 17%. Mars is a very good example of a planet that does not have enough greenhouse gasses and Venus is a very good example of a planet that has too many greenhouse gasses. Warmer conditions of global warming will cause more evaporation, precipitation and extreme conditions (wet-dry). Throughout the world, all of the continents would be effected by global warming (Antarctica- melted ice, Africa- more extreme drought, Europe- increased risk of flash floods, North America- less snow in the high mountains, but more rain overall.

If the global climate change keeps going as predicted there will an increase of heat waves and ‘hot rain, cyclones will increase in intensity, precipitation increases in high latitudes and decreases in subtropical areas. This would cause some populations in specific regions to decrease due to floods or droughts and some regions to increase in population.

this photo shows the effects of climate change on the weather, enviornment and human popualtion.

this photo shows how global warming happens and how it effects us.

The Sun

Solar patterns are identified by what is called the ‘Solar Cycle’. The solar cycle identifies the 11 year rotation cycle of the sun, the 11th year is also called ‘solar maximum’. The solar cycle was discovered in 1843 by a man named Samuel Heinrich Schwabe. More recently, we have discovered about 28 cycles in the past 309 years (2008) giving the solar cycle an average of 1 cycle per 11.04 years.(1)
The sun causes many disturbances with technology we use now by disrupting satellites or interrupting radio signals. When a solar flare erupts off of the sun, the electromagnetic waves enter the earth’s atmosphere and can interact with some of the radio waves we use as signals. The suns radio waves can cause some of our radio waves to be reflected, refracted or diffracted causing radio stations problems when they are trying to transmit to radios around the area. (2)
Nuclear fusion is when light nuclei combine with other light nuclei to form heavy nuclei (different elements). Stars cause nuclear fusion because the gasses are burning so hot that they cause the elements to combine to elements around them. (3) “This reaction liberates an amount of energy more than a million times greater than one gets from a typical chemical reaction.”(4) Einstein’s equation, E=mc², explains to us how mass can be lost while energy is being created (the sun burning its fuel). (4)
The sun contains 99.85% of all the mass in our solar system. The sun is guessed to be about halfway through its life. Nicholas Copernicus was the first person to theorize that the earth was revolving around the sun, in the 16th century, but it was not accepted until Newton’s law of motion was created. (5)

This photo shows how nuclear fission occurs to create new elements.
http://www.lbl.gov/abc/Basic.html

http://www.frontiernet.net/~kidpower/sun.html

http://studentweb.fortlewis.edu/TPWRIGHT/imagessun.html

1. http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Solar_cycle
2. http://www.radio-electronics.com/info/propagation/ionospheric/solar-flares.php
3. http://www.astrophysicsspectator.com/topics/stars/Fusion.html
4. http://www.lbl.gov/abc/Basic.html
5. http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/07/06_sun.html

White Dwarf Powerpoint

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ATxkg9SwOjFRZGNubnM5ejlfMGNkNzU4bWMy

Northern Lights Powerpoint

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ATxkg9SwOjFRZGNubnM5ejlfOTJmdHRmajdndA&hl=en_US

Lexus Project

https://docs.google.com/present/edit?id=0ATxkg9SwOjFRZGNubnM5ejlfMGNkNzU4bWMy&hl=en_US

Great Lakes in the Regional Context

    Our classes overall q-value was 85.64, so overall our classes tests on the water went very well. My groups q-value was 98 so our phosphate test went extremely well! The health of the river could be improved by protecting waste from entering the river, we could also put more rocks on the rivers edge to protect the river from runoff from the roads. My action project helps the river by protecting it from vegetable wastes produced by the school.

    Lake Superior is the biggest lake and Lake Erie is the smallest.

   The most urban lake is Lake Erie and the least is Lake Superior.

   Lake Huron has the longest shoreline with 3,181 miles.

   We can control our ecosystem by not using water as a waste treatment idea, we could use other sources to clean things.

   Phosphate is a pollutant in the river because food and decomposing plant and animal matter can make an algal bloom and kill animal life in the water. Fertilizer is another pollutant in the rivers because it can runoff of lawns near the river and kill animal life and over-promote plant growth.

   1. The water from my house is recycled in our septic tank and other water goes to our sump pump.
   2. Runoff water is water that goes into rivers, streams, ponds and lakes from roads.
   3. Runoff water and sewer water both empty out into the river but sewer water is emptied in much less increments.
    4. Oil and other car contaminants can go onto the road and then when it rains the water pulls the contaminants with it and empty into the rivers.
   5. A spot where all water in and under it goes to the same place.

Nature Walk

Friday on our nature walk with the kindergarten and 1st grade Montessori class, i learned a couple of things. one is that little kids can love nature while still be scared of it. second, i learned that many young kids do not know very much about nature. third, i learned that kids can be completely  absorbed by stuff they dont understand (such as a butterfly or a tree). Lastly, i learned that some things in nature, nobody understand.

My water test for tomorrow will be about the phosphate in water. i will be doing that because my action project is about compost and the compost we make will be donated to our botany class and any other class in need of good soil.

My project is to transform an old dugout for baseball into at least 2 compost piles. we will tear down part of the dugout, the roof and the front, and then fence in the front again.

Right now our group has not done much action on the project because we are waiting for clearance by our principle and our schools supervisor. We have done some reaserch relating to the subject and found lots of helpful facts.

My responsiblilties are to keep everyone in our group safe while doing the project and to find important info about how to make the specific compost type.