Alexandra+Finck

Alexandra Finck  Outside of school, I enjoy running (XC and Track), and spending time with family and friends Day #1: Science is all around us all the time, since the first instant we are born. There are so many different areas in which you can see in our everyday lives. As seniors in high school, we wake up in the morning and even our drive to school is simply connected to the wide range of science topics and issues. Driving to school depicts the topic of environmental science and the pollution of our world. Unless we all have hybrid cars, we are disrupting our environment every trip to Dunkin Donuts and back. Our cars pollute our environment day after day. This is a popular topic because it surrounds our age group. People our age are getting their licenses and are the demand for new cars that are often very bad on gas in which our generation is hurting our environment. Many parents and grandparents have a lot to say about this issue and the older generations is where I have heard the information before. I believe the goal of this issue to be that they stop producing cars that waste a lot of gas and making them better for our environment because eventually it will really take a hit on us. We will not recognize the issue at hand to really be a global issue until it is too late. Day #2: What are our options for energy resources?  **Renewable Resources:** Any natural resource that can be replenished naturally with the passage of time. Nonrenewable Resources: Minerals, fossil fuels, and other materials present in essentially fixed amounts in our environment.
 * 1. Energy Resources- **

**The Difference:** Renewable resources can be renewed and replaced while nonrenewable resources are limited. We will run out of nonrenewable resources eventually but we will not run out of renewable sources.

Three main types: Petroleum, coal, and natural gas.
 * 2. Fossil Fuels: **


 * Petroleum forms mainly from marine vegetation and bacteria that lived in the oceans or other saltwater environments millions of years ago.
 * Coal forms from plants such as ferns, moss and trees which lived near shorelines and in swamps millions of years ago.
 * Natural gas forms mainly from the remains of plankton, or a type of small water organisms including algae.

__**3. Electricity From Fossil Fuels**__


 * Wind __energy__ is a renewable form of __energy__ that it is converted into wind power to generate electricity by using wind __turbines__. Wind __turbines__ produce electricity only when the wind is blowing. Together with constantly high wind speeds produce the best rest in generating electricity. It is dependent on whether the wind is blowing or not and is unreliable. One of the ways to store wind __energy__ is compressed air. This involves converting wind __energy__ generated from wind __turbines__ into compressed air which can be used to produce electricity when there is no wind.
 * Another way to store wind __energy__ is by using batteries. We can use the generated electricity from wind __turbines__ to charge the batteries. When there is not enough or not natural wind power, switch to these backup batteries that are already charged up to generate power.
 * Using hydrogen is another way to store wind __energy__. Excess wind __energy__ is stored in hydrogen fuel cells. This method involves splitting water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen by electricity which is generated from wind __turbines__. The separated hydrogen is then stored in hydrogen fuel cells for electricity generation when there is no wind.
 * Stable __chemical bonds__ release __energy__ as they form, and bond formation thermodynamically happens spontaneously. However, formation reactions often do require energy of activation to rearrange bonds and get reactions over activation barriers. __Chemical bonds__ contain __energy__ but __energy__ must be added to get any __energy__ out.
 * There are many examples of chemical __energy__ in action, including photosynthesis, respiration, __combustion__, explosives and batteries.
 * __Combustion byproducts__ are produced whenever carbon-based fuels such as gas, oil, kerosene, wood or chemical are burned and are also produced by tobacco smoking.
 * One way to to reduce carbon dioxide __emissions__ is to use carbon-free or reduced-carbon sources of __energy__. Carbon-free sources of __energy__ have their own associated impacts, these technologies generate __energy__ without producing and emitting carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Carbon-free __energy__ sources include but are not limited to, solar power, wind power, and nuclear power.
 * Many power plants use the "falling weight" approach in the form of water. The water is pumped uphill to a lake at night when the power plant has excess capacity. During high-demand daytime periods, the water runs through a __turbine__ on its way downhill to a lower lake.
 * A __generator__ transforms __energy__ typically from burning a fuel like gas to mechanical __energy__ then form mechanical to electrical current.
 * By burning coal, you can use the chemical __energy__ stored in the coal to heat up water until it becomes __steam__ which drives large machines to generate electricity.


 * __4. Renewable Resources:__**

-Solar -Water
 * __Examples:__**

Pro: Solar energy systems do not produce emissions and are often not harmful to the environment. Con: Solar panels may contain hazardous materials thats could be released when a panel is damaged or disposed of improperly.

__** Day 3: Why should we care about global warming? **__

__**Greenhouse effect:**__ The greenhouse effect refers to circumstances where the short wave lengths of visible light from the sun pass through a transparent medium and are absorbed, but the longer wavelengths of the infrared re-radiation from the heated objects are unable to pass through that medium. **__Air Pollution:__** The introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment. media type="youtube" key="UtdKRvWC1yQ" width="420" height="315" **__Global Warming:__** An increase in the earth's atmosphere and oceanic temperatures widely predicted to occur due to an increase in the greenhouse effect resulting especially from pollution.

__**Climate:**__ The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.

__**Climate Change:**__ Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or in the distribution of weather around the average conditions.

media type="youtube" key="3VcmKfemFOI" width="420" height="315"

1. Ever since the industrial revolution began, factories, power plants, and eventually cars have burned fossil fuels such as oil and coal, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases into the atmosphere. As long as industrialized nations consume energy and developing countries increase their fossil fuel consumption, the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will continue to rise.

2. Fossil fuels give off carbon dioxide when they are burned. An increase in the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leads to an increase in the temperature of the planet. Global warming is the steady increase in planet temperature. The greenhouse affect makes the emissions trapped because the natural carbon cycle cannot remove all the extra greenhouse gas.

3. Further warming with rising waters will increase significantly the amount of land under water. Some countries could lose valuable land under water by rising sea levels induced by planet warming.

4. One concern to have if the global warming threat strengthens is that our temperature will increase by two to ten degrees fahrenheit by the end of the century. The increase in temperature will create another concern of rising sea levels which would flood coastal areas. Weather patterns could change making hurricanes more frequent. Severe droughts could become more common and species who are unable to adapt to the changing weather would face extinction.

__**Pick four reasons why we should care that affect you most.**__

1. Loss of oil - The loss of oil when the time comes, will have a tremendous impact on our society and nothing good will really come of it. Today's society is dependent on technology and we have had an overuse of our fossil fuels for energy that our future generations won't even know how to function without todays addiction.

2. Climate Change - The change in climate will affect our future generations, we think it would be a tropical paradise, but what happens in the future generations beyond the future. It will only grow worse little by little.

3. Plants will begin to die - Even though they don't seem like much, we would die without plants. Plants are what makes the air for us to breathe and live. We need plants and sunlight to live.

4. Animals will grow extinct - The problem with this is that some plants and animals go hand in hand and without one you may not have the other. There are a select few that are cross-pollinated and without animals and plants and a control on global warming, our world will just end.

__** Day 4: How is the balance of the carbon cycle affected? **__


 * 1. How does carbon fit into the picture of the greenhouse affect and global warming?**

Carbon is everywhere and plants consume it, when an animal dies or an animal poops, carbon is all around. The animals are made out of carbon and eventually trandforms into gas and coal in the ground. And when people dig it up and burn it for energy it gives off emissions that are awful and harm our ozone layer. Carbon compounds move through plants and animals, the air, the ocean, and the earth. Carbon present in the air as carbon dioxide contributes to the "greenhouse effect" and related global warming.


 * __2. Carbon Cycle:__** The combined processes including photosynthesis, decomposition, and respiration, by which carbon as a component of various compounds cycles between the major reservoirs


 * __Carbon Source:__** A nutrient, (such as sugar), that provides carbon skeletons needed for synthesis of new organic molecules.




 * __Carbon Sink:__** A natural or artificial reservoir that accumulates and stores some carbon-containing chemical compound for an indefinite period.



**Greenhouse effect:** The greenhouse effect refers to circumstances where the short wave lengths of visible light from the sun pass through a transparent medium and are absorbed, but the longer wavelengths of the infrared re-radiation from the heated objects are unable to pass through that medium.

__**Greenhouse Gases:**__ Many chemical compounds found in the Earth’s atmosphere act as “greenhouse gases.” These gases allow sunlight to enter the atmosphere freely. When sunlight strikes the Earth’s surface, some of it is reflected back towards space as infrared radiation (heat). Greenhouse gases absorb this infrared radiation and trap the heat in the atmosphere. Over time, the amount of energy sent from the sun to the Earth’s surface should be about the same as the amount of energy radiated back into space, leaving the temperature of the Earth’s surface roughly constant.

Many chemical compounds found in the Earth’s atmosphere act as “greenhouse gases.” These gases allow sunlight to enter the atmosphere freely. When sunlight strikes the Earth’s surface, some of it is reflected back towards space as infrared radiation (heat). Greenhouse gases absorb this infrared radiation and trap the heat in the atmosphere. Over time, the amount of energy sent from the sun to the Earth’s surface should be about the same as the amount of energy radiated back into space, leaving the temperature of the Earth’s surface roughly constant. A carbon sink is anything that absorbs more carbon that it releases, whilst a carbon source is anything that releases more carbon than is absorb. Forests, soils, oceans and the atmosphere all store carbon and this carbon moves between them in a continuous cycle. This constant movement of carbon means that forests act as sources or sinks at different times. Large amounts of carbon are continually released by natural processes both on land and in the oceans. Anything that releases carbon into the atmosphere is called a carbon source.

The oceans contain large amounts of carbon dissolved in the water in the form of carbon dioxide and methane, a small portion of which is continually released through outgassing.

3. Humans are negatively impacting the carbon cycle by burning fossil fuels. This releases carbon that has been sequestered underground for millions of years. This is far more than would circulate naturally. We have also negatively impacted the carbon cycle by destroying forests and other forms of vegetation without replanting.

4. Humans have positively affected the carbon cycle as well. The way this is done is by gardening and adding more plants and trees into our community. **Analogy:** An analogy to demonstrate carbon sources and carbon sinks is by looking at your coffee in the morning. The pot of coffee would be the carbon sink. The coffee is being stored in the pot for an indefinite amount of time. The sugar is a carbon source that goes into your coffee mug. http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ClimateChanging/ClimateScienceInfoZone/ExploringEarthsclimate/1point6/1point6point1.aspx

http://www.fern.org/campaign/carbon-trading/what-are-carbon-sinks

__** Day 5: What is the size of your (carbon) footprint? **__ **1. Carbon footprint:** The amount of carbon dioxide emitted due to the consumption of fossil fuels by a particular person, group, etc.


 * Ecological Footprint:** The amount of productive land appropriated on average by each person, in the world, country, etc., for food, water, transport, housing, waste management, and other purposes.

-Turning on the light -Showering -Eating breakfast or any meals, even cereal. -Drinking out of plastic water bottles These are just a few, there are plenty that may add to your carbon footprint.
 * 2. Actions that may add to your carbon footprint:**


 * Actions that could lower your carbon footprint:**
 * Buy organic items so everything is eco-friendly.
 * Pay attention to packaging - less is better
 * Get a reusable water bottle
 * Energy-proof your house.
 * Only buy items you really need, every item in a store, no matter how small, has a footprint.
 * Take a direct flight when flying if possible.
 * Unplug the electrical items.
 * Do not constantly replace your cars.
 * Use cold water when possible.
 * Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.


 * 3. My ecological Footprint:**

If everyone lived like me, we would need 5.5 planet earths to provide enough resources.

36% - Services 34% - Food 8% - Shelter 12% - Mobility 10% - Goods


 * 4. Identify two of your lifestyle habits that have negative impacts towards your carbon footprint total.**

One lifestyle habit that has a negative impact towards my carbon footprint total is that I use plastic water bottles and reusable ones. I should really switch to only using a reusable water bottle. Plastic water bottles have a negative impact on the environment. Another lifestyle habit that has a negative impact towards my carbon footprint total is using electronics and charging them. I have a habit of never unplugging the cords. Not doing this increases our overall carbon footprint total. Having it so that I do not use plastic water bottles and also unplugging cords is something so small for me to do but when everyone does it, it would make a big difference and would improve our environment. The resources I would need to make these changes are a renewable water bottle.

-Do you think an individual can make a difference? Yes an individual can make a difference because when one person does something it starts a chain reaction and more people will follow your footsteps, literally!
 * 5. How can you make a difference?**

-What would you say to someone who feels that he/she cannot make a difference because they are just one person? I would say that their actions make a huge difference even when they do not believe so.