Epidemics

We all know epidemics have happened.", and we all know they can be devastating, but what conditions are needed for a disease to become an epidemic?

While playing the pandemic game, I found that a disease spreads best if it:
- has a long incubation period
- it is heat/cold resistant
- it kills slowly
- and it can spread through air and water
- and vectors such as rats and mosquitos can carry it

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BEZwp69qrt94lsMK9gSev96BcNxScteu-Cjqh12OtI

Droughts

Most of us have heard of the dust bowl, but how did it happen? And could it happen again?

First of all, the dust bowl was caused by multiple factors. First, the midwest receives the lowest annual rainfall of any reigon in the U.S. Second, farmers used to grow one crop there: wheat. In order to grow this wheat, they had to remove all of the native grasses. What they didn't know, was that it was those grasses that were holding the soil where it was. You see, this reigon also happens to be very windy, and without the grasses to hold the soil in place, it was simply carried away.

So now on to the second question. The midwest is still the driest part of the U.S., this means that if there is another drought, the soild could be carried away. In fact, some scientists even predict, that if the world gets much warmer, the midwest could turn into a desert. As far as farming practices go, we have started to change the way we farm. Farmers can plow their fields int the direction of the wind, providing less resistance, as well as planting things called windbreaks, or rows of trees that help to scatter the wind. Alternating rows of crops and grasses gpcan also help.

So I say yes, another dust bowl is possible, but if we get our act together and stop global warming, then it is not likely to happen anytime soon.

Notes
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1i9ON6fLLTeED_gmY-DJsrJlRFmTpSFRF46v5VYSt3ec

https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/US/average-annual-state-precipitation.php
National Geographic: Six degrees could change the world
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=bmNlbnZpcm90aG9uLm9yZ3xub3J0aC1jYXJvbGluYS1lbnZpcm90aG9uLXByb2dyYW18Z3g6NmNlOGMzODg1Y2I1ZGZjNA

Book Club: The Illuminae Files

The book is set on a planet called Kerenza. There is a mine there, that is technically illegal. The competeing company finds out about this mine, and instead of reporting it, they start bombing it. The first big point I took away from this is that they had used up so much of their home planet's resources that they had to go somewhere else to get them. After awile, a black cloud starts oozing down from their atmosphere. It turns out to contain a pathogen. The company had turned to biological warfare. As i mentioned in a previous post, biological warfare is quite deadly, and this was no different. They began to quarantine people, and didn't allow them to have contact with one another. The disease mutates extremely quickly, faster than they can come up with a cure. The third big point I took away from this was the amazing technology in this book. They have artificial intelligence, that basically runs the colony, as well as huge passanger ships, and warships. They have made so many advances from where we are today, such as being able to travel a lot of light years in a lifetime. Also if you were wondering it is set in the year 2575.

Sinkholes

Sinkholes are scary, but they require certain circumstances to form. So where are they most likely to form, and what conditions lead to them forming?

Sinkholes are most likely to form over soluble bedrock, which is also referred to as karst terrain. When the rock erodes, it leaves a large cavern, with a thin layer of soil above it. When that soil is disturbed it caves in, forming a hole in the ground. These holes can also arise if the watertable in an aquifer drops suddenly, weakening the ground. Eroding water pipes and such can also collapse and bring the ground above with them. According to a map I found from USGS, the area where I live is not very prone to sinkholes. The bedrock is not extremely water soluble, so I don't think a hole will open up under my city anytime soon.

Choking on Air Pollution

I chose to research asbestos, because you hear so much about it on HGTV. So what is asbestos, what does it do to you, and how can you prevent it?

Asbestos is a fiber, that occurs naturally in rocks and soils. Asbestos is mostly found in construction materials, but can be found in some things such as heat resistant cloth. Exposure generally occurs only when the fibers are disturbed. It can cause lung cancers as well as a disease of the lungs called asbestosis. There are already some regulations in place to keep asbestos from being used, because it is classified as a human carcinogen, and you can be tested to see if you are regularly breathing in asbestos.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1amfRKKZ1G75qxh6nT7s05McWp1fcShKnEFSyvdk0aIg/edit?usp=sharing

The War for Water

The War Over Water refers to a series of conflicts between Israel, Jordan, and Syria, over access to water from the jordan river. The fights occurred between 1964 and 1967. A first, Israel started a project to put a water intake pipe in the Sea of Galilee. This resulted in Syrians opening fire on the construction zone, and the Israelis moving their pipes. Israel completed it's project in 1964. The Arab states did not like this, and they proceeded to try and divert the Jordan River. It was a barely feasible project, that was extremely expensive. Israel decided this infringed upon it's rights. This resulted in the series of attacks making up the War Over Water. I think a scenario like this could very well repeat itself, as I think it is likely that a war over water would start with minor clashes, that scaled into a full on war.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_over_Water_(Jordan_river)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11L_t80818hE0Ln0TUF1nIZybcK0v0hCr3-6k0KW5G1s/edit?usp=sharing

Don't Drink the Water

I built a typical filter out of sand and gravel from my creek, activated charcoal from and old water filter, a coffee filter, and some paper towels and tissue paper. I layered the in a bottle, and then I filtered water from my creek.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GxdbNLX92RMz16yy86q4KjGx-7-_bAL69ypx3DtOQAM/edit?usp=sharing
http://padlet.com/schouweilerd/p5loafwwmrqp

Landslides

I chose to analyze the risk of a landslide on Mount Mitchell. I have decided that the risk is very high, because the mountain is the tallest mountain in the appalachian mountain range, and a large amount of its trees have been killed off by acid rain, invasive species, and pollution. Also, by looking at a map of where landslide risk is the highest, the appalachian mountains were rated as having a very high risk.
Some ways to tell if a landslide might occur in your area are:
a sudden increase in water levels
new cracks or unusual bulges in the ground
structures tilting
a rumbling sound
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZPmD6tPTXZfTlvm3Xos1v6Wf7LlV9RInI0mz6jQYzcQ/edit?usp=sharing

Our Breathable Eggshell

Ever wonder what goes on in Earth's atmosphere? For this quest we had to look at just that. Below is a link that will take you to a thinglink of Earth's Atmosphere.
https://www.thinglink.com/scene/776159729276682242

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kp6dD8nL4Z4lyKJYxl5DYxOag2KbrM2iZBHD7KwAn9w/edit?usp=sharing

The Green Revolution

Guerilla gardening is a gardening technique that is useful for urban environments. They plant food crops in places such as abandoned lots, medians, and curbs. I feel this could help low income people choose healthier foods.



https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bxuaHyFZGW24YdWNg-TBCRth4kCFSYbHsDBUkQv4thQ/edit?usp=sharing

Envirothon

Envirothon is an environmental science competition. You go and learn about topics such as soils, aquatics, forestry, wildlife, and current environmental issues, and then you compete with other teams to see who knows the most. The topic I studied was soils. There are thousands of different classifications of soils. Some are better for certain uses than others. My section also focused on how growing crops can affect the soil.
Soils naturally have many minerals and microbes in them. When you grow one plant to often, you deplete the soil of some of those nutrients. Fertilizer then becomes necessary, which in turn causes water pollution. It also talked a lot about different types of deposits. For example there are alluvial deposits, which are put there by streams, colluvial deposits, which are moved by gravity, eolian deposits which are moved by wind, and lacustrine deposits which are left behind by lakes. This is only a small part of the 88 page document that I had to study for this. I had no idea that soils were so complex, but apparently they are.

Semester Project

So I am doing a project on environmentally friendly cleaners the link is diycleaners.blogspot.com. I encourage you to make some of these and use them. Not only are they often cheaper, you will be helping the environment.

Enviogamer: Simcity

Simcity is a game by EA. You basically focus on building a city, instead of the people in the city, as in sims. It is necessary to have an uncontaminated water supply, power plants, factories, as well as the houses and other such things. You have choices of what type of power plants to build. You can use coal, nuclear, natural gas, wind, and solar. If you have to many factories and power plants, people start moving away, and dying. They can contaminate the air and the water, causing people to leave. The goal of the game is to get as many people as possible to live in your town, so them leaving is not good.

Promised Land

Promised Land is a movie where the issue of fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is highly debated. So how bad is it really? And is it worth all of the problems it causes?

In order to get much of the natural gas out of the ground, once more reachable sources had been depleted, you have to go deep under the ground, and use a mix of water and chemicals to break apart the rock. Then you use a huge drill to remove the natural gas from the ground. These chemicals may seep into the drinking water, and can be extremely hard to remove. Then, we end up drinking the water, and end up with all kinds of health problems. It also consumes a lot of energy in extracting the gas, and some methane is released into the atmosphere, which contributes to global warming.

Others may say that fracking is great, because it gives us access to a whole lot of natural gas and even oil that we couldn't reach before.

Personally, I would rather not use fracking, because it could end up killing people. So just think about that next time you overuse electricity. Your actions may be indirectly killing someone.


This is a great animated walkthrough of the dangers of fracking:
 http://www.dangersoffracking.com/

And here is a website that shows both benefits and dangers of fracking:
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/benefits-and-dangers-of-fracking.php