Cars

From my apartment I can see MLK dr, a major downtown thoroughfare, so I used this view to observe and count cars.

In five minutes twenty one cars drove by. I could not always see the driver totally clearly but I counted seven on their cell phones and one eating (it appeared to be french fries).

I was glad that only 1/3 of the drivers I counted were on their phones and only 1/21 was eating while driving. Hopefully most were focused on the road!

Ethnicities

These women are from the Masaai tribe that live in Kenya and Tanzania, Africa.

A woman from rural China

An American Indian 

An Argentinian woman

A Spanish man

                                                 An Australian Aboriginal man

A man from Antarctica 

There are many reasons that people have developed physical differences over time. People who live in hot climates naturally developed darker skin to absorb the sun's rays. People in cold climates often evolved to be stockier and shorter, because they conserve more heat and can deal better with the harsh conditions and lack of food. Even today, there are people whose communities are primarily fishing communities, living on islands and spending much of their time n the water. They have developed great lung capacity, and are able to swim deeper and for longer time than those of us who did not evolve alongside the water. It makes sense that, like all other life forms, humans adapt and evolve to fit their climate. All of our differences are just our different strengths, developed in their own independent way.

Trees

MAGNOLIA: This tree is common in the South and grows to huge proportions. It can have low-slung branches that sweep the ground (making them a good location for childhood fort-building, I can attest). They produce large, lovely white flowers with a sweet smell.

MAPLE: These trees have gorgeous colors in the fall and can grow in our Southern climate. They are also popularly found in Asia. Sugar Maples produce syrup, and maples are a national symbol of Canada. 

GINGKO: The Gingko tree turns bright yellow in the fall and has fan shaped leaves. They can grow very tall but often have to be trimmed to get the classic "tree" shape, since little branches grow off in many directions from all over the trunk. The females give off a bad smell when they drop their fruit, and you must have a male and a female to cross polinate.

HOLLY: This shrub has spiky little leaves and red berries. It is often associated with Christmas and can be planted under windows to deter intruders since it is difficult to penetrate with its sharp leaves.

CRAPE MYRTLE: This shrub is very popular with land-scapers because it is easy to trim down and reshape. It produces big groupings of flowers, some are white and some are pink. They grow well in the South and are the state shrub of Texas.

Map

Chloropleth maps are maps wherein  differentiations are indicated by different colored areas. A common use  is showing Red and Blue states during political campaigns. I chose this Chloropleth map because it shows the methane emissions of counties in North Carolina due to beef production. As a vegetarian, I am very interested in our farming practices and the ways that cutting out meat – – particularly beef – – can help the environment.  This kind of map is good for organizing comparative data because it provides obvious, visual differentiations that are fairly simple to understand and allow us to target, in this case, problem areas.

 Dot Density maps  use dots to show high levels of concentration of the thing being measured. They are often used by cell phone companies to show areas where cell phones have service.This Dot Density  map shows areas  in Ukraine where  there has been unrest, protests, and riots. The reason this map is important is that it shows that there is unrest all over Ukraine, not just between police and rioters in Kiev and Crimea. Maps like this are important because they also show us different sized dots  to indicate where the protests are larger and where they are smaller and more controlled.

Proportional Symbol maps use a symbol, often a circle or a symbol related to what is being mapped,  in different sizes to  indicate larger or smaller groupings of the things being measured. This Proportional Symbol map shows cattle and calves  sold in Maryland in 1997. I like this one because it dealt with beef, like my Chloropleth map,  and also because it used a proportional symbol that was not a circle which made it stand out and also made it more visually interesting for me. The different sizes of the symbols indicate larger and smaller groups  of Cows sold in the area.

Isopleth maps  differentiate areas of measure by contour lines on the map. This Isopleth Map shows major religions around the world. This type of map is perfect for a topic like "world religions" because these religions do not fall along state or country boundaries. Isopleth maps  are often used to show geographical contours, but I found this not much more interesting.

Rocks

Igneus Rock: Obsidian. 

Produced when lava cools rapidly and with minimum crystal growth. Obsidian is commonly found where the chemical composition of lava induces a high viscosity. Since it is hard and brittle it easily fractures and can have very sharp edges. These sharp edges have been used in the past as tools for cutting and piercing and as surgical scalpel blades. Two interesting nicknames for Obsidian that i found are "Apache Tears" and "Volcano Glass". I chose it because of its unique experimental uses and because it is so beautiful. http://www.mindat.org/min-8519.html


Metamorphic Rock: Marble 

Marble. 

Marble is formed by the metamorphing of sedimentary rocks, mostly limestone. It is often used in sculpting and building because it is a soft rock, easily shaped and molded, and also because it is so beautiful. Marble is famous for its characteristic many colors, as well as its colored swirls and veins which are usually due to mineral impurities. I chose it because it is so commonly used to make statues and in homes, making it a highly relevant rock. (We actually wanted to use marble in our house, to build our kitchen counters, but chose a marble-granite mix instead because marble is so soft that we would damage it with kitchen wear-and-tear) http://www.softschools.com/facts/rocks/marble_facts/371

Sedimentary Rock: Sandstone

                                                                    Sandstone. 

Sandstone is a classic sedimentary rock made up of sand-sized stone granules. It is commonly compose of Quartz and Feldspar and is a very porous rock. Some types of sandstone are excellent materials from which to make grindstones, for sharpening blades and making grindstones for grinding grain. I chose them because of their many uses and because it is so colorful and emblematic of the American Western landscape. http://geology.about.com/od/more_sedrocks/a/aboutsandstone.htm 

Barometric Pressure

A barometer is used to measure atmospheric pressure. Here are a few pictures of barometers that have been used over time.

This is our homemade Barometer: 

                                                           

This is a barometric pressure map of Georgia:

We measured the barometric pressure by marking where the tip of our straw was ever day, and checking the barometric pressure for that day. This way we were able to see whether the straw went up or down when the pressure went up and down. We saw that as the pressure went up the balloon was pushed down, moving the straw up. As pressure went down, the straw moved down, since the balloon was being forced up. This is the chart I made on Excel for our in class data.

Plant

First plant growth--Feb. 21. We set her on the bathroom windowsill.

March 4-- Plant has grown! She is now almost 3/4 of an inch tall

March 25--Plant has only grown 1 inch and 1/4. Now she is 2 inches tall. She must be a late bloomer...

   

SunCalc Lab

     For this lab I took six measurements over two days. I will list the measurements from the earliest time to the latest time.  I measured the shadow and recorded it as the adjacent line (a) for my sine, cosine, and tangent measurements, the stick (27") as the opposite (o),  and the distance from the end of the shadow back up to the top of the stick as the hypotenuse (h)  which I calculated using the A squared + B squared = C squared formula. I rounded my measurements to the nearest whole number,  which I believe skewed my measurements slightly as my sine, cosine, and tangent did not always  produce the same angle of the sun when I looked them up on the chart.  I observed that at the beginning and end of the day the angle of the sun was smaller, and in the middle of the day the angle was the largest.


 Time: 8:46 AM
 Direction of shadow: 302° Northwest
  a = 100 "
  o = 27 "
  h = 104"

sin: 27/104 = .25
cos: 100/104 = .96
tan: 27/100 = .27

 When I looked these numbers up on the chart, the angle of the sun was 15°  for all three.


 Time: 10:40 AM
 Direction of shadow:  319° NW
 a =  57"
 o = 27"
 h  =  63 "

sin: 27/63 = .4
cos: 57/63 = .9
tan: 27/57 = .47

The angle of the sun for my sin and cos was 24° and for tan was  25°

Time: 11:35 AM
Direction of Shadow:  341° NW
a =  35 "
o = 27"
h = 44 "

sin: 27/44 = .6
cos: 35/44 = .8
tan: 27/35 = .8

The angle of the sun for my sin was  37°, for cos  36°, for tan  39°.

Time = 12:14 PM
Direction:  355°N
a =  33 "
o = 27 "
h = 42 "

sin: 27/42 = .64
cos: 33/42 = .76
tan: 27/33 = .81

The  angle for sin was  40°, cos was  41°, tan  39°

Time: 3:15 PM
 Direction:  33°NE
a =  49"
o = 27"
h = 56 "

sin: 27/56 = .48
cos: 49/56 = .875
tan: 27/49 = .55

The  angle for sin was  30°, for cos and tan  29°

 Time: 4:59 PM
 Direction:  54° NE
a =  134"
o =  27"
h = 139 "

sin: 27/139 = .2
cos: 134/139 = .96
tan: 27/134 = .201

The  angle for sin and tan  was 12°, cos was  15°

Water Run-Off

Surface water run-off can be very dangerous for the land and water around the impervious surface (such as the parking lot). The problem with an impervious surface is that it does not have any of the natural filters, such as grass, leaves, and soil, that soak up and slow down the passage of water. When water builds up in/on an impervious surface, the runoff will be a huge amount of water hitting the ground very quickly. This can "scar" the earth, pushing the natural filters out of the way and causing bad erosion. Another danger is that as this water moves along the ground tearing up layers of top-soil, it becomes contaminated with pesticides, chemicals, and other things that were in the soil. This turbidity is a big problem, since the water will drain eventually in to another source of water, like the Ocmulgee River, and will contaminate it. This can lead to health dangers for the plants, fish, and other organisms, as well as for the people who eat those fish or play in the water itself.

(The above picture has Willet Science Center's parking lot traced in a white line)

Rachel Carson

  http://www.rachelcarson.org/

 Rachel Carson  was born in Pennsylvania in 1907.  She is credited with being one of the first politically active female environmentalists as well as one of the first proponents of an environmental movement. Her importance as an environmentalist figure comes from the fact that she worked on multiple levels to promote the interests of the environment, as a writer, marine biologist, educator, and ecologist. She worked for 15 years as a scientist and editor for the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, where she wrote pamphlets and edited articles on conservation as well as doing a series of seven minutes radio pieces on marine life.  During this time she And writing writing letter letter and and articles in newspapers and urging people to focus on the environmental repercussions of development and to think of animal and environmental welfare.
  She was not only a scientific presence, but also capable of writing her findings in poetic lyric and prose. Her  first book was published in 1941, and was titled  Under the sea wind. Writing in a style that was readable and enjoyable for the average person  made her work accessible to everyone, not just the scientific community-- an important part of getting laypeople involved in the environmental movement. She  published  to more books on Marine ecology that were successful enough to allow her to quit her job at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Her fourth book, Silent Spring,  is perhaps her best remembered contribution.  It drew attention to the possible dangers of pesticides such as DDT,  and as such created a huge amount of controversy and invoked the anger of the pesticide companies.  as a result of her book, Carson was asked to testify before a congressional committee for a federal government  examination of pesticides and DDT was banned.
   She died in 1964 of cancer, and is still remembered as one of the first scientists to engage public attention and interest in the environment.