GeoActive Questions (2)

Activities:

1. List the main reasons for water scarcity.
The main reasons for water scarcity is that many hot places such as deserts have very low
rainfall, variations in climate, land degradation, population growth and water pollution.
2. What is a drought? What type of hardships do you think that a drought could cause if you were living in a village in a poor country such as Ethiopia?
A drought is a period of below average precipitation. If I was living in a poor country such as
Ethiopia, the hardships I would face is fatal diseases such as cholera.
3. How does land degradation affect the supply of fresh water?
Land degradation can be caused by the excessive destruction of natural vegetation through
deforestation, overgrazing and farming. Then the soil would be not able to store water.
4. (a) What is El Nino?
El Nino is a warming that develops every three to five years in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of
Peru. During El Nino, the moist easterly trade winds that normally blow across the Pacific Ocean
reverse their direction.
(b) Why does El Nino often cause drought in Australia?
El Nino often cause drought in Australia because of the reversal of air pressure across the Pacific, resulting in high pressure systems building up over most of Australia.
5. Observe the map showing the global effects of El Nino in 1982-83.
(a) What effects does El Nino have on the availability of fresh water?
There can be period of heavy rain through the west coast of South America which would cause severe flooding. Water will be polluted and only a little bit of clean water is available.
(b) Name the countries and describe the problems that arose from decreased rainfall caused by El Nino.
Africa: Reduced corn crop in sub-Saharan region
China: Agricultural land under threat from drought in northern regions and flooding in southern regions
United States: Rainfall above normal in north-western states (double the historical averages)
Indonesia: High air pollution levels, following forest fires
Philippines: Lower rice harvest following drought
Colombia: Fishing operators affected by lower catch (down 20%)
Papua New Guinea: Drought-related failure of food crops, leading to famine conditions requiring food aid
Australia: Wheat exports threatened by drought conditions across grain-growing areas, particularly New South Wales
Peru: 1. Flooding (also in Chile) 2. Fishing operators affefcted by lower catch as anchovy and Pacific sardine move offshore to escape warm currents (5 degrees C above normal temperatures)

Bintaro Lama Field Trip

On November 12th, my homeroom classmates went to the Bintaro Lama field trip, where we learned some ways to clean water and some things about water. We went there because right now in school, we are learning about water. After 40 minutes of the bus ride, we went to our groups and headed inside the kampung. My group (Me, Yong Hee, Brandon) had to go to stations 6, 2 and 4. In this post, I will write about the three stations I went to.

The first station we went to was station 6, where we learned about disinfection. The kind guide there taught and explained to us two ways of cleaning water. The first way she showed us was using a thing called Aquatabs. If we just put 1 or 2 drops of Aquatab in the water, it could clean 30L of water. I think that was very cool, because just a few drops can clean a really big amount of water. They let the Aquatab dissolve, and it doesn't take long to finish this process. Aquatabs are a really efficient way of cleaning water. The seecond way of cleaning water was using a liquid called Air Ramat. You just put about 5ML of liquid inside the water, then you could clean one gallon of water! After putting Air Ramat, you have to shake it for 30 seconds to clean the water.

The next station we went was station 2, where we learned about hygiene. The guide there showed two posters. The first one they showed us was a poster showing how food gets contaminated. They told us that some people in the kampung don't wash their hands after pooing. The bacteria in the feces get on their hands and when they touch food and eat it afterwards, it is likely for them to get a stomachache. The second poster showed 5 ways of how to prevent them. One was washing your hands before touching babies, and one of the ways were also to make a toilet for them.

The last station we went was station 4, where we learned about flocculation, sedimentation, and filtration. First, they put a liquid called PUR in the water which cost RP 1,000. PUR makes the dirt particles stick together and form a floc. The dirt clump settle down to the bottom of the container which is a process called sedimentation. After that, they filter the water by putting in the claypot in the bucket. They cover the claypot's hole by laying a filter cloth. Then they pour the dirty water but the dirty garbage and things don't go past the cloth and stay there. I thought this whole process was very similar to the water treatment plant, but you put alum instead of PUR.

After visiting the Bintaro Lama field trip, I learned some new things about cleaning water. Before, when we visited the water treatment plant, I also learned cool things there but the Bintaro Kampung people taught and explained to us in a very kind way and a very understandable way. I thought the Kampung people were extremely kind to us... and there were some cute boys on the kampung!!!

Who Dun It?

Philip Pullman

***

Recently, I've finished a book called 'Who Dun It?'. This book is a detective and mystery story by the author Philip Pullman. I don't really like detective stories and I'm not used to reading these kinds of books but I decided to have a go on this book. This book was in the recommended book reading list and I actually think these recommended books are fun or interesting.

This book is a short story book, where there are lots of different stories in one book. In this book, there were 14 detective stories and I really liked 2 of them. Of course, the other 12 are still fun to read. This book also contains a 1 page mystery question page where we could solve them.

This is my favourite story in this book and it's called 'The One-handed Murderer'. There was a princess living in a castle. When nobody was in the princess's room except for herself, a murderer opened the castle window and tried to come in and kill her. When the princess shouted, the murderer ran away from the castle. Next day, the same thing happened to her. Once again, the murderer ran away when the princess shouted. However, the next day was different. The princess hid next to the window. When the murderer opened the window and put his hand forward, the princess put down the window so the murderer's hand got cut. One day, a young man wearing gloves wanted to meet the king of the castle. The king liked the young man so the princess and the young man had a marriage. When the princess and the man were on the carriage, the young man turned out to be the murderer and he threatened the princess. The princess escaped from the murderer and re-married a sailors son. After a long time, she got caught by the murderer again so he went to the princess's house so that he could kill the princess. When the murderer asked the princess to give him a towel before he killed the princess, she got her husbands pistol and wrapped it in the towel. The princess approached the man and shot him with the wrapped pistol.

I would give this book 3 stars out of 5 stars.

The cat ate my gymsuit

Paula Danziger
*****

During the weekends, I read a nice book called 'The cat ate my gymsuit' by Paula Danziger. It's not really a long book, so I just finished it in about 2 days. My friend Young Woo recommended it and this book was also in the recommended book list. It actually turned out to be a good book.

This book is about a High School girl called Marcy in a school life. She has some school friends like Nancy and others. She hated her father because he was always shouting at his little brother Stuart and her with no reason. He hated her school life because of the principal. However, this event changed her life. Marcy's class had a new teacher named Ms. Finney who was the nicest teacher she'd ever had. Everybody liked her but Mr. Stone, the principal hated her and also other teachers. Mr. Stone planned to fire Mrs. Finney because she didn't do the Pledge of Allegiance, she wore clothes differently, she taught students in a different way; not a traditional way. Because of that, Ms. Finney got suspended so Marcy spoke up in front of Mr. Stone and told him nothing was wrong with Ms. Finney. Marcy also got suspended because of this.

My favourite part of this book was when Marcy and his boyfriend, Joel went to Nancy's party and had a nice time there. Joel asked Marcy if she wanted beer so she said that she wanted to. After the party, Marcy admitted to Joel that she actually didn't like beer but she only drank because everybody else was drinking. She wanted to be like others, not special. What surprised me in this book was when Joel and Marcy went to the party, and I thought they would dance together but Joel said that he was a lousy dancer.

I really liked this book so I would give this book 5/5 stars.

Personal Narrative (The Fearful Elevator)

‘Buzz… Buzz…’ The elevator lights from above twinkled and went dead. It was all　dark and very freaky. It felt like the darkest haunted house ever. I could hear wind sounds since it was absolutely silent. I could even hear my breath sounds! It felt like wind coming out from my mouth. At first I thought nothing was going on but as 2 minutes passed, I started getting horrified. I realized it was 8^th floor because they still had an orange light on the number 8 key. I almost arrived at 10^th floor where my house was. I sat at the edge of the elevator and was scared to death. No… No…

This is how it all happened. ‘Bye!’ I said to my piano teacher. She lived at the same apartment but at 1^st floor so I had to go up 9 floors to reach my house at the 10^th. ‘Oops…’ I forgot to check my mailbox so I went down to ground floor and checked it. I got the envelope and went in the elevator. I was really exhausted so I decided to sleep at home as soon as I got there. There was nobody else inside the elevator which was good because I could just sit down at the elevator and rest for about 10 seconds until I reach 10^th floor. When I was going up, I didn’t know which floor it was and it was just peaceful until… ‘Wham!’ the elevator jittered. I was sure it wasn’t an earthquake because it wouldn’t jitter like this. Suddenly the elevator door opened and I looked down. The space below was vast and blank and I thought I was almost going to die. I went back and had no hope. Then, the light started twinkling.

I waited for 15 minutes. The light twinkled again and it was on! ‘Thank god!’ It was all OK and I was very pleased. The elevator door suddenly opened and I saw the front door of my house straight ahead. I was so exhausted so I slept in my house all day.

GeoActive Questions

Activities:

1) What percentage of the world's supply of water is fresh water?

Answer: 2.5% of waters surface is fresh water.

2) Where is the world's supply of fresh water found?

Answer: 2% is in the form of ice on land, 0.49% is found in groundwater and the soil, and 0.01% is found in the atmosphere, rivers and lakes.

3) Even though the supply of fresh water is abundant it is still a problem. Why?

Answer: It is a problem because water and people are unevenly distributed. Because of this uneven distribution, some places and people have available and consume far more water than others.

4) Observe the map of world average annual precipitation (opposite).

(a) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the southern to the northern tip of Africa.

Answer: From the southern tip to the northern tip, the rainfall raises until the Tropic of Cancer.

(b) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the western to the eastern tip of Australia along the Tropic of Capricorn.

Answer: From the western tip of Australia to the eastern tip of Australia, the rainfall started out with 250mm and at the tip of Australia, it raised again until 2000mm.

5) Observe the map above of water availability per person.

(a) Which parts of the world appear to have a large amount of water available per person?

Answer: South America seems to have a high water availability per person.

(b) Which parts of the world appear to have a small amount of water per person?

Answer: Europe seems to have a low water availability per person.

6) Observe the diagram of water use.

(a) What are the main uses of water?

Answer: The main uses of water is for agriculturing.

(b) Which uses have increased the most over the last century?

Answer: Reservoir uses from evaporation and seepage has increased the most over the last century.

Water Treatment Plant

When we went to the water treatment plant last Thursday, we saw the 5 steps of making dirty water into clean water. You can see the difference of the dirty water and clean water clearly. Dirty water is kind of yellowish and smells disgusting, and the clean water is the color like just normal drinking water. Here are the steps of the water treatment.

As we walked up the road, my classmates and I saw a river which had the color, yellow. It looked disgusting because it had all these cans, bottles, and chip rappers and all the other used stuff. However, we have a solution to this. There are huge metal bars which stop the garbages to go in the water that would become cleaner. But these huge bars are for the big chunks of garbage. This is Step 1 - Where you take the garbage out of the water.

To see the next step, the lady who helped us led us down the stairs, where we saw a room. The information below is Step 2 - Aeration. We oxigenated and added minerals to the dirty water because we wanted to make the water a bit cleaner and to get oxygen aeration.

The 3rd step was coagulation - which was pretty interesting to me, since we saw the water already put in chemicals called alum which forms floc, where the dirt comes together and gets bigger. The floc was gross-looking because it looked like diarrhea and some classmates giggled. I think this step was really cool and important. If this step wasn't there, this water treatment thing would be no use.

The 4th step was called sedimentation - which is one of the most important steps. The big flocks change to small flocs because the surface is too heavy. These flocs get out of the water and go in the storage room. The water now is saturated.

The last step is a very important step and it is called filtration, and disinfection. The disinfectant kills the germs or bacterias so the water now is safe to drink. We go in the AC room (finally) and we test the water now. The yellow water is now turned into pure transparent water. The lady shows us how it changed from dirty water to clean water.

The water now that we use in our houses is the water where we got from this water treatment plant right here! And, maybe you are using the water from the water treatment plant right now! I think I learned a whole bunch of new stuff because of this field trip and it was a really useful experience and it was a nice field trip. I know, everybody was sweating (like Ms. Marello said) but it was totally worth it of going in this field trip. We watched the movie after this field trip and they gave us some posters. Changing from a dirty water into a clean water right in the water treatment plant... Isn't it cool?

Disc Drop

The Wind

If you watch this movie, you will see me reading a poem called The Wind.

This is a nice poem because it has rhymes. Hope you enjoy it!!!