Animal Adaptation

All animals live in habitats, Habitats provide food, water, and shelter which animals need to survive, but there is more to survival than just the habitat. Animals also depend on their physical features to help them obtain food, keep safe, build homes, withstand weather, and attract mates. These physical features are called called physical adaptations. Physical adaptations do not develop during an animal’s life but over many generations. The shape of a bird’s beak, the number of fingers, color of the fur, the thickness or thinness of the fur, the shape of the nose or ears are all examples of physical adaptations which help different animals to survive.

Climate Change

Two Topics in Climate Change Forests and Adaptation.

Forests:

The effects of climate change on forests in the U.S. and other parts of the world will depend not only on climatic factors but also on stresses from pollution like acid rain.

Climate change effects that influence tree growth will also alter rates of carbon storage or sequestration in trees and soils. Increased carbon sequestration would remove  CO2 from the atmosphere this is a negative feedback that lessens climate change, whereas carbon losses through forest disturbances would result in  CO2 entering the atmosphere which, is a positive feedback that strengthens climate change.

Changes in forest could bring such as fire or disease, could also affect the future of U.S. forests and the market for forest products, such as timber. Increased temperatures could increase fire risk in areas that become drier due to climate change.

Adaptation:

The Planet is changing rapidly and its kind of our fault. So to protect out selves from this we have to adapt. Which  is the cause for adaptation. Basically what this means is that once you have experienced something bad we have a way of stopping that thing so it wont happen again. This is what it means to adapt.

The extent of climate change impacts upon different ecosystems, regions and sectors of the economy will depend not only on the sensitivity of those systems to climate change, but also on the systems’ ability to adapt to climate change.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/adaptation.html

Greenhouse Gas

What does greenhouse gas do to affect our environment?

Greenhouse gas affects the environment because it creates droughts and takes away from the environment making it worse and eventually it not going to be usable anymore.

What is greenhouse gas?

Is it harmful to us and the environment?

Fears are that if people keep producing such gases at increasing rates, the results will be negative in nature, such as more severe floods and droughts, increasing prevalence of insects,  sea levels rising, and Earth’s precipitation may be redistributed. so it is  harmful to us and the environment.

What is the greenhouse effect?

The greenhouse effect is when infrared radiation is absorbed by “greenhouse gases” such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, ozone and methane, which slows its escape from the atmosphere.

Are we the cause of green house gas or has it always been here?

Yes we are the cause because The problems begin when human activities distort and accelerate the natural process by creating more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than are necessary to warm the planet to an ideal temperature.

Energy Project

A video we can do about the 1st law of thermodynamics can be about something that has energy and that energy can’t be destroyed. Like an hour glass. We can use an object that already has a set amount of energy in it. Like a can of unopened soda or a battle with liquid in it. For the 2nd law we can use something like a generator that uses more energy that it generates. The video can be about measurig how much electricity the generator makes compared to how much it uses.

Energy

1st example: of energy changing forms is potential energy. This is because when the object starts moving it becomes kinetic energy also when it stops it becomes potential energy. Entropy is involved because the potential energy is dropping so it is going from a low entropy to a high entropy.

2nd example: is the hand crank machine. It goes from mechanical energy to electrical energy and back to mechanical again. Entropy is here illustrated  because and you spin the crank faster and faster the entropy is moving from a low place to a high place.

3rd example: When solar energy is converted to electrical energy buy the solar panels. The solar energy hits the panels and the amount of solar energy that goes in is converted to electrical energy

Esj # 7

On the field trip to the Upper Blackstone Water Pollution Plant I learned a lot of things. The plant is for filtering and cleaning the drinking water that comes to them. It is connected to the Blackstone Watershed because water from the Blackstone and other reservoirs flow into the pollution plant. The EPA is connected to it because sometimes they fund the money for the plant, and other times they tell them what to do. Sometimes the Law tells then that the water they had just cleaned is too polluted for the reservoirs. The plant was activated in 1976 and it is able to take in 56 million gallons of water a day since then.  They have completed 80 million improvements in the plant. They have also done a 200 million dollar retrofit in the plant.

Light Energy V.s Heat Energy

Light energy is reneable and it comes from the sun. The bad thing about Light evergy is that you will need light o power you machines. When the sun goes down you will not be able to do anything until the day comes. Unless you capture and save that light energy.

Heat energy is when the molecules in an object move rapidly which creates heat. To use heat energy you will need a stove that generates heat which also needs gas. Also heat energy  takes up space. The faster the molecules move the more space it takes up

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/teachers/lessons/xray_spectra/background-atoms.html

Buffalo Farm

On the trip to the buffalo farm was really informatory. I learned a lot of new facts like symbiotic living and mutualism. I also learned a lot about the buffalo farm. I learned that they don’t use fertilizers that they let the buffalo grazing and they don’t feed them growth things that make them grow faster. So their meat is really clean with no harmful material to humans.

Apple Facts

• The crabapple is the only apple native to North America
• Apples come in all shades of reds, greens, yellows.
• Two pounds of apples make one 9-inch pie.
• Apple blossom is the state flower of Michigan.
• 2500 varieties of apples are grown in the United States.
• 7500 varieties of apples are grown throughout the world.
• 100 varieties of apples are grown commercially in the United States.
• Apples are grown commercially in 36 states.
• Apples are grown in all 50 states.
• Apples are fat, sodium, and cholesterol free.
• A medium apples is about 80 calories.
• Apples are a great source of the fiber pectin. One apple has five grams of fiber.
• The pilgrims planted the first United States apple trees in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
• The science of apple growing is called pomology.
• Apple trees take four to five years to produce their first fruit.
• Most apples are still picked by hand in the fall.
• Apple varieties range in size from a little larger than a cherry to as large as a grapefruit.
• Apples are propagated by two methods: grafting or budding.
• The apple tree originated in an area between the Caspian and the Black Sea.
• Apples were the favorite fruit of ancient Greeks and Romans.
• Apples are a member of the rose family.
• Apples harvested from an average tree can fill 20 boxes that weigh 42 pounds each.
• 25 percent of an apple’s volume is air. That is why they float.
• The largest apple picked weighed three pounds.
• Europeans eat about 46 pounds of apples annually.
• The average size of a United States orchard is 50 acres.
• Many growers use dwarf apple trees.
• Charred apples have been found in prehistoric dwellings in Switzerland.
• Most apple blossoms are pink when they open but gradually fade to white.
• Some apple trees will grown over forty feet high and live over a hundred years.
• Most apples can be grown farther north than most other fruits because they blossom late in spring, minimizing frost damage.
• It takes the energy from 50 leaves to produce one apple.
• Apples are the second most valuable fruit grown in the United States. Oranges are first.
• In colonial time apples were called winter banana or melt-in-the-mouth.
• The largest U. S. apple crop was 277.3 million cartons in 1998.
• Apples have five seed pockets or carpels. Each pocket contains seeds. The number of seeds per carpel is determined by the vigor and health of the plant. Different varieties of apples will have different number of seeds.
• World’s top apple producers are China, United States, Turkey, Poland and Italy.
• The Lady or Api apple is one of the oldest varieties in existence.
• Newton Pippin apples were the first apples exported from America in 1768, some were sent to Benjamin Franklin in London.
• In 1730 the first apple nursery was opened in Flushing, New York.
• One of George Washington’s hobbies was pruning his apple trees.
• America’s longest-lived apple tree was reportedly planted in 1647 by Peter Stuyvesant in his Manhattan orchard and was still bearing fruit when a derailed train struck it in 1866.
• Apples ripen six to ten times faster at room temperature than if they were refrigerated.
• A peck of apples weight 10.5 pounds.
• A bushel of apples weights about 42 pounds and will yield 20-24 quarts of applesauce.
• Archeologists have found evidence that humans have been enjoying apples since at least 6500 B.C.
• The world’s largest apple peel was created by Kathy Wafler Madison on October 16, 1976, in Rochester, NY. It was 172 feet, 4 inches long. (She was 16 years old at the time and grew up to be a sales manager for an apple tree nursery.)
• It takes about 36 apples to create one gallon of apple cider.
• Apples account for 50% of the world’s deciduous fruit tree production
• The old saying, “ an apple a day, keeps the doctor away ”. This saying comes from am old English adage, “ To eat an apple before going to bed, will make the doctor beg his bread.”
• Don’t peel your apple. Two-thirds of the fiber and lots of antioxidants are found in the peel Antioxidants help to reduce damage to cells, which can trigger some diseases.
• In 2005 United States consumers ate an average of 46.1 pounds of fresh apples and processed apple products. That’s a lot of applesauce!
• Sixty-three percent of the 2005 U.S. apple crop was eaten as fresh fruit.
• In 2005, 36 percent of apples were processed into apple products; 18.6 percent of this is for juice and cider, 2 percent was dried, 2.5 percent was frozen, 12.2 percent was canned and 0.7 percent was fresh slices. Other uses were the making of baby food, apple butter or jelly and vinegar.
• The top apple producing states are Washington, New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, California and Virginia.
• In 2006, 58% of apples produced in the United States were produced in Washington, 11% in New York, 8% in Michigan, 5% in Pennsylvania, 4% in California and 2% in Virginia.
• In 2005 there were 7,500 apple growers with orchards covering 379,000 acres.
• In 2005, the average United States consumer ate an estimated 16.9 pounds of fresh market apples
• Total apple production in the United States in 2005 was 234.9 million cartons valued at $1.9 billion.
• In 2006/2007 the People’s Republic of China led the world in commercial apple production with 24,480,000 metric tons followed by the United States with 4,460,544 metric tons.
• In 2006/2007 commercial world production of apples was at 44,119,244 metric tons.
• Almost one out of every four apples harvested in the United States is exported.
• 35.7 million bushels of fresh market apples in 2005 were exported. That was 24% of the total U.S. fresh-market crop.
• The apple variety ‘Red Delicious’ is the most widely grown in the United States with 62 million bushels harvested in 2005.
• October is National Apple Month.

http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/apples/facts.html

http://www.fowlerfarms.com/apple_facts.htm

http://www.zarpentinefarms.com/Apple_Facts/apple_facts.html

Compost Worms

The worms help comost the food and the leaves by eating it and turning it into soil this helps us beucase the soild that they make is very fertile and it can be used to grow what we need that is why we have the compost bin out there so the worms can make good use of teh food and make us some good soil.

Worm composting is a method for recycling food waste into a rich, dark, earth-smelling soil conditioner. The great advantage of worm composting is that this can be done indoors and outdoors, thus allowing year round composting

http://www.cityfarmer.org/wormcomp61.html

http://www.savvygardener.com/Features/worm_composting.html

http://www.css.cornell.edu/compost/worms/basics.html