The AFARA Project - Week 1 Report

We're testing soil and water samples here in Chicago and comparing them to samples collected by other students in Detroit, Michigan and in Nigeria, Africa.

NGHS Students: Download the "Week 1 Report Template" from this site by clicking on the "File" menu and selecting "Download Original Document" to save the document to your computer desktop. You can then edit the template by filling in your information and answering the questions and then you can email it to Mr. Cantor at mr.cantor  @  gmail.  com .

If the above link does not work, try this one: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PNyq3VjfAQvM5s0M61gofUa_taxCuJ6uMcTWk1lHRD4/edit?hl=en 

Links to Photos

http://picasaweb.google.com/mr.cantor/AFARAWeek1?feat=directlink 

http://picasaweb.google.com/mr.cantor/AfaraSoilAndWaterLab?authkey=Gv1sRgCLL_joP07aHVMQ&feat=directlink

Food Web Assignment - Ecolog assignment #4

Do the following assignment as Assignment #4 in your eco log.

1. Go to http://www.bigelow.org/edhab/fitting_algae.html#Top 

2. Read through the web page and describe the meaning of the following terms
** Photo
** Auto
** Troph
** Hetero
** Photoautroph
** Primary Producer

3.  Go to http://www.bigelow.org/edhab/game.html  
Play the game of putting the correct organisms in their food web. Use the information at http://www.bigelow.org/edhab/fitting_algae.html#Activity if you need it.

When you are done with the food web game, draw it into your ecolog.

Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Praise, and Backing - New York Times

Read this article about how Google and some other investors plan to build a multi-billion dollar "electricity backbone" 15 miles off the Atlantic coast of the US to encourage the building of giant wind-farms out in the ocean. What do you think about the proposal? Do you think Google and the company "Good Energies" will end up making money on this project? Will it help or hurt the environment?

Protesters for and against building wind turbines near the shore.  Both groups might like the plan to build wind farms far from the shore so they will barely be seen, and won't affect wild-life as much and wind turbines near land.

Just Ouside Chicago, A Major Polluter Lurks - Chicago Tribune

Have you ever driven over the "Skyway" bridge down through Indiana? If you have, you might have seen this coal burning power plant that provides some of our electricity here in Chicago. The article from the Chicago Tribune discusses how this power plant pollutes our air and kills millions of fish in Lake Michigan.

Indiana's State Line coal burning power plant, one of the nation's dirtiest power plants, hangs on despite environmental dangers

What do you think about this source of electricity for Chicago? Why do people protest at the coal burning plants in Pilsen and Little Village? Should people protest this State Line plant? If the plant were shut down, where would we get that part of our electricity from? 

 

Protests in Little Village and Pilsen

How can shutting down a dirty coal plant create "green jobs?"

What killed all these fish? Yes, each dot is a dead fish and that is a river, not a road!

Read the article about the mystery of what is killiing all these fish near the Gulf of Mexico.

"At this point, it's impossible to tell whether hypoxia (low oxygen) from Big Ag's (agricultural) fertilizer runoff (more about that here) or toxins from BP's oil and dispersants killed the fish, or if some unholy conspiracy between the two performed the deed."

Is this evidence that supports the theory of global climate change?

This Yale Environment 360 blog post reports a story from the Guardian UK newspaper which suggests that this phenomenon may cause the extinction of the Alaskan walrus population.

Walruses Abandon Ice
And Move En Masse To Coast of Alaska

An estimated 10,000 to 20,000 walruses, mainly mothers and their calves, have abandoned the shrinking and thinning ice of the Chukchi Sea and hauled out on the Alaska shoreline, according to researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The Legacy of the Gulf Spill: What to Expect for the Future?

This article looks at the how well the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem was able to recover after the 1970 Ixtoc oil rig explosion in the Gulf. The author uses that information to explain what we can expect from the even larger spill caused by BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. 

http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_legacy_of_the_gulf_spill_what_to_expect_for_the_future/2302/

The Gulf of Mexico’s capacity to recover from previous environmental assaults — especially the 1979 Ixtoc explosion — provides encouragement about the prospects for its post-Deepwater future. But scientists remain worried about the BP spill's long-term effects on the health of the Gulf and its sea life.

by John McQuaid

The 1979 Ixtoc oil rig spill which was the largest spill in the Gulf of Mexico until 2010 when the BP spill occurred

The BP Deepwater Horizon rig after it exploded leading to the largest oil spill ever in the Gulf of Mexico