I can not say I am sad to have this be my last blog post but when I begin to really sit down and write my paper, I may be thanking Mr. Coffee for making this a required thing. My book is still going well but I have not yet finished. My blogs so far have just been random topics that I have thought about and then researched or heard about in environmental science class and my last blog will be another one of those. When I write my paper I am hoping to find a link between all of these and weave them into a wonderful presentation.

Today I thought about all the harmful effects of farming in terms of fertilizers but also in how much water farms use. After researching this topic, I was amazed at how much it truly is. Only 3 percent of water on earth is fresh water. Of that 3 percent, only around 23 percent of it can be used by humans. 22 percent is under ground and .5 percent is in bodies of waters such as lakes, rivers and streams. I then looked at how that usable water is divided. I found 70 percent goes to agriculture and the remaining 30 percent is used in homes.

So how is this water used? There are four main types of irrigation: furrow, flood, spray, and drip. Furrow is where trenches are dug and constantly filled with water. This is only 65 percent efficient. So much water is lost due to runoff and evaporation. It just seems irresponsible to me that this practice is still used even though it is proven to have a large amount of loss. The most water efficient irrigation is drip method. Water slowly drips from hoses on to the ground and is 95 percent efficient. So much water could be saved if farmers changed to the more expensive but also more environmentally friendly alternative.

Going through all this research has just showed me how much more could be done to help the environment but it is not done because you can earn a few extra bucks doing it a different way. I want my project to have meaning and send a message. I am actually excited to start my paper.

Good times blogging.

I continue to read Grapes of Wrath and I am beginning to think that my connection is becoming a stretch. The main point is of course farming but the book has nothing to do with the ocean. The connection however still lives on in my mind.

Mr. Coffee pointed out to me the effects of farming on a local level so I researched into the water quality here in Granger. It is considered an agricultural area. Before the subdivisions of Knollwood, Granger was farmland. The pesticides used are still present in the ground water due to percolation.

The most harmful chemical found in our drinking water is Atrezine. This chemical is banned in all European nations but made by the Swiss. This chemical is said to be only harmful in small amounts. This is exactly what is found in the Granger water.

Tests of Atrezine were done in Europe on frogs. The chemical changed the frogs into hermaphrodites when they lived in water with small amounts. However, if the frogs were in water with a larger quantity of Atrezine they were unharmed. The chemical in small amounts did not alert the body to defend itself, while in large quantities defenses were made in the frogs to protect its self.

This raises the question of how is this product allowed in the US still when it is banned in the country that produces it. How can our government allow this product to be used when tests show how harmful it can be? I always think that the water I drink is one hundred percent safe but I now question it.

This is only one chemical and its effect. There are many more that I plan on researching and then pulling this all together.

This post has so far caused me a lot of trouble. I sat down and took some time to think about where I was trying to take my exit project and I am still pulled in a few directions. So many things interest me and so the trouble is picking one and having it be the right decision.

I am still thinking about topics in my last blog post and wondered how prevalent dead zones are. The dead zones created from fertilizer runoff can be seen world-wide. Areas such as the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, off the coast of Oregon, and in the Chesapeake Bay are all zones created due to the increase of nitrogen in the water. Dead zones may also be found in lakes, such as Lake Erie.

After seeing how common dead zones are close to shores, I thought it must be so difficult to prevent them. I was wrong. The solution can actually be quite simple in most places but things are just not done or cared about. Things such as using fewer fertilizers and adjusting the timing of fertilizer applications to limit runoff of excess nutrients from farmland, control of animal wastes so that they are not allowed to enter into waterways, monitoring of septic systems and sewage treatment facilities to reduce discharge of nutrients to surface water and groundwater, and careful industrial practices such as limiting the discharge of nutrients, organic matter, and chemicals from manufacturing facilities are all things that can be done.

I am hoping to discuss my ideas further with Mr.Coffee to set me in the right direction. Another post could be coming very soon.

Today in my environmental science class we watched a movie on how toxic our water ways are becoming due to fertilizer run off. The fertilizers used today are mostly nitrogen based. When these fertilizers travel into streams and rivers after a strong storm for example, they eventually make their way into the ocean and create dead zones. This is hurting one of the most productive and important ecosystems in our word, the Great Barrier Reef. These fertilizers  are so harmful to this biome because it allows animals that thrive on nitrogen to grow exponentially. One example of this is the crown of thorns starfish. This animal in normal quantities an important and active role in maintaining coral reef biodiversity, driving ecological succession. Before the overpopulation, crown of thorns starfish prevented fast-growing coral from overpowering the slower growing coral varieties. Now with nitrogen added to the ecosystem, these animals are destroying hundreds of acres of coral.

All of this could have been prevented through more sustainable farming practices. Researchers interviewed one farmer in Australia that owned a farm the backed up to a river the fed into the ocean. The researchers noticed that the sugar cane this farmer grew was separated from the river by a scarce number of trees. Wetlands and trees serve as a natural buffer around rivers. The wetlands filter out some nutrients that would contaminate a river and eventually the ocean and trees absorb these nutrients and use them to grow. The farmer interviewed realized his impact he was having on the  Great Barrier Reef and decided to change it. He planted more trees between his farm land and the river, which costed him a thousand dollars a year.

As I continue to go deeper into my reasearch about farming and what has changed, I am realizing I may want to take it in a different direction and some how try to include the effects of farming on water ways and the ocean. I am not sure how to work it out yet but my hope is that awesome Mr.Coffee will give me some feedback or somehow help me into the right direction. Or tell me it is not possible at all and to stop completely.

Starting out this post has proven to be difficult. I search the internet a little, stopped to look at potential roommates for next year, watched Anna Burden on youtube, and then finally went back to researching. I first wanted to understand more about what the dust bowl actually was, other than a giant dust storm.  I learned that the dust bowl began in 1930 and continued till around 1936. It only lasted a few years, but did a lot of damage. It was caused by a sever drought and then the over use of farmland. In the 1930s, much about the environmental impacts of farming was unknown. Today we cycle different crops on a patch of land while back then they planted the same crop many times over. Another point I found was the constant tilling was done by the farmers. This is where the soil is deeply plowed to mix the soil, but it also disrupts the natural state of the soil and causes it to lose moisture. In 1933, there were 38 dust storms the swept across the plains and, by 1934, it was estimated that 100 million acres of farmland had lost all or most of the topsoil to the winds. Topsoil is extremely important because it is the only type of soil that crops can grow in.

I plan to investigate further into how farming has changed due to World War II and many decades leading up to now. In my AP environmental science class I heard of a book that discussed what subsidizing corn has done to the farming industry. This is another novel that I will have to look into. Topics in my environmental science class are providing much information since we just covered a chapter on soil.

I hope that my next blog post will be much more informational and packed with revealing details. For now this blog post shows that I am just getting my feet wet in SEP research.

When I began reading Grapes of Wrath, I was not sure if I had made the right choice. The book is long and the words are small.  Now that I am on page 51, chapter 6, I know that I have made the right choice.

Tom Joad has been walking on the dust roads for many pages now and has joined a preacher named Casey. (Joad also picked up a turtle that was walking along the road and wrapped it in his coat. I did not like that he took the turtle, it was mean). Casey and Joad traveled together to Joad’s family home. The entire place had been deserted and the fields of cotton had been changed. Bank owners had kicked Joad’s family off their land. There was a quote that stood out to me. The quote said, “The tenant system won’t work any more. One man on a tractor can take the place of twelve or fourteen families. Pay him a wage and take all the crop”. (pg.32) This marked the first shift in farming. Crop yields were much lower due to the dust and many people were being let go and replaced by machines to save money.

Another character was also introduced in the fifth chapter, Muley Graves. He was a tenant on the neighboring farm to Joad’s and refused to leave. He informed Joad that his family had moved 8 miles up the road to their Uncle John’s house. They plan to walk to Uncle John’s house in the morning. This is as far as I have gotten but I am hoping by the end of tonight I will be on page 90, chapter ten. This is a stretch, I know.

My biggest hope for this project is to not get behind. I have procrastinated on every big project I have ever been assigned. So far I believe I will be on the right track if I continue to read daily.

In the final weeks of first semester, Coffee began discussing SEP more frequently. This worried me more and more every class. I never thought I was going to pick a topic or book that would interest me enough to spend weeks writing and researching about. After a pleasant chat with Mr. Coffee and a trip to Barnes and Nobel, I narrowed my search down to two books: Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck and The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Steinbeck and Hemingway are both great authors and their books are about completely different subjects. The Old Man and the Sea was almost my choice because it is only 127 pages in length and the font is reminiscent of that in most 5th grade books. After much thought, I finally decided on Grapes of Wrath. I have heard of this book before and of how remarkable it is, but I never took the time to sit down and read it. After reading the first three chapters, I have learned little about the book as a whole. I do know however, that the main character is Tom Joad and that he has just been released from prison after serving time for homicide. So far, the setting is describing how the dust is completely mixed with the air and takes days to completely settle after a storm. Crops all around the character are being destroyed by the drought and strong winds are uprooting the plants from the soil.
My main interest for my future is to work in the field of marine biology, but if I am confined to going to IU, I would possibly think about settling on studying environmental science. Sue to this Grapes of Wrath seemed like a good book for me to look into farming and how it has changed since the Dust Bowl. I will be doing Topic A for my project and am hoping that my SEP will allow me to research things that actually interest me. This would make this daunting assignment bearable.

 

 

I have put this blog post off for far too long now but after sitting on my computer for well over an hour, mostly on Facebook, Twitter and online shopping sites, a question finally came to me, better late than never. While looking at earrings and necklaces for Christmas, I thought of all the jewelry and treasure described in Beowulf. Almost every chapter mentioned treasure in great detail. Everyone in this poem was obsessed with treasure. Did they have nothing else to care about? Even a dragon lived its life alone in a tower guarding gold and jewels and when just one item from the mass pile was stolen, he freaked out and attacked the entire country killing people, all because of a cup. Why did these people care so much about treasure? What was this treasure truly symbolizing?  Treasure was one of the most important elements of the characters’ lives. Gold in this poem was less important for it’s economic value than it’s social value. When Beowulf defeated Grendel, Hthrogar rewarded him with gold and jewels. After defeating Grendel’s mother, Beowulf sailed back to his homeland with a boat filled with treasure from Hthrogar. Treasure was used in this case as thanks for work that had been done. Beowulf had freed Hthrogar’s people from the terror inflicted by the monsters and was greatly rewarded for it. Another idea behind the focus on treasure in this poem is that treasure is the mark of success for a battle. Shining armor, silver mail and gold swords represent it. The more distinctive their weapons were thought to be, the more honorable and noble the warriors were. The narrator explains that “their mail-shirts glinted, had and hand-linked; the high-gloss iron of their armor rang.” This is what the people had seen and based their opinions of the warriors from. Beowulf was a great warrior and Unferth gave him his sword after defeating Grendel’s mother. Another example where treasure was used as a symbol was that the collar or necklace that Wealhtheow, Hrothgar’s wife and queen of the Danes, gave Beowulf was a symbol of the bond of loyalty between her people and Beowulf. Its status as a symbolic object is renewed when we learn that Hygelac, Beowulf’s uncle and king of the Geats, died in battle wearing it, furthering the ideas of kinship and continuity. Treasure was so important in Beowulf because it symbolized loyalty between people, thanks for tasks being done, and how great of a warrior Beowulf truly was.

It has also come to my attention that there is a Beowulf movie. I strongly suggest we watch this movie to make up for the fact that we never watched that terrible movie titled Up. It truly would blow Up out of the water. However, that would not be very hard. The producer of the movie Beowulf could have added scenes to emphasize certain events more than the poem did. We need a movie day. If this idea is totally shot down we could always watch Youtube videos of Anna Burden. What a great gel.

 

I am about to change the world of blogging with each post I make so strap in and prepare to get your blogging mind rocked. Everyday I sit in AP Lit and ponder about my senior exit project. I ponder it all times of the day. It now consumes my every waking thought. #nerdygirlprobz   but although it is now the only thing I think about, I have no idea what I am going to do much like everyone else. In conclusion to this mind blowing post, you should youtube Anna Burden and  watch her videos. youtube.com/tay9andahalf

 

 

SEEEEE YUHHHHH     😉