Plastiki

Plastiki is a boat made out of twelve thousand five hundred recycled plastic bottles. Plastiki is also made of new technology that hasn't been tested at sea yet. Inside the cabin of Plastiki there is technology for modern sailing. There are also many other things that make Plastiki more complicated. The person who thought of the idea about plastiki is David de Rothschild. It took more than 3 years to finish making plastiki from a drawing board to the boat that it is now. The bottom part of Plastiki is very primitive but he upper part is modern.

David wants to show the world that this boat really works so he and his crew will sail across the Pacific Ocean. Starting from San Francisco, California to Sydney, Australia. He made Plastiki to show other people about plastic waste. David doesn't really care if they make it to Sydney or not because he has already shown awareness about plastic waste. There are 6 crew members including David. They will cross the Pacific Ocean hoping that Plastiki will keep them afloat.

Haiti Earthquake

On January 12, 2010 there was a 7.0 earthquake in Haiti. More than one hundred people died. During the earthquake a lot of people got injured. A lot of them got big cuts and bruises. Some people got squashed by buildings. There are some people that didn't get hurt that much. That is what happened on January 12, 2010.

Water Questions 2

1. List the main reasons for water scarity.

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?

3. How does land degration affect the supply of fresh water?

4.
(a) What is El Nino?
(b)Why does El Nino often cause drought in Australia?

5. Observe the map showing the global effects of El Nino in 1982-1983.
(a) What effects does El Nino have on availability of fresh water.
(b) Name the countries and describe the problems that arose from decreased rainfall caused by El Nino.

Answers

1. Variations in climate, land degration, population growth and water pollution.

2. A drought is a time where the precipitation is below average. I think it could cause the amount of food and water that is available.

3. Land degration affects the supply of fresh water by making fresh water spread into the earth and make the fresh water dirty and not safe to drink.

4.

(a) El Nino is a warming that happens every 3-5 years in the Pacific Ocean.

(b) Because El Nino makes the rainfall move to America and out of Australia.

5.

(a) Serious droughts in Australia, heavy rain along the coast of South America and bad flooding.

(b) Africa reduced corn in sub-Saharan region.

China's algiculture land under threat from drought in northern regions and flooding in southern regions.

Indonesia's high air pollution levels, following forests fires.

Philippines lower rice harvest following drought.

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 Whales. US

rainfall above normal in north western states.

Colombia fishing operators affected by lower catch ( down 20%)

Peru flooding and fishing opperators also affected. Fishes went to find warmer climates.

The Bintaro Lama Trip

It took so long to get to the Bintaro kampung. We passed many places and Ms. Whitley told us about the river we passed. We saw someone in the river, I think he was fishing. When we got there it was to stinky.

First we went to the water station. We were entered in a home where they teach the children about water and ways to use it. They showed us a poster of when to wash your hands. It was a really nice poster. There were some women in green shirts and they were the people who were helping in the water cleaning.

Then we went to the fourth station and in the fourth station they were cleaning the water by adding PUR to the water. After they added the PUR they put the water on top of this cloth and put the cloth on top of a pitcher. The water slowly went down into the pitcher and the water was so transparent it looked like you could drink it.

After that we went to the sixth station. In that station they showed us two ways to clean water, one way was to add a kind of tablet that was called aquataps. Aquataps was used to clean flood water. Another way was to add a few drops of a kind of liquid that cleaned the river water. We got a few brochures about the aquataps and the other cleaning liquid.

I think that I am so lucky to have a nice home and not having to worry about the amount of water I get. I think the song that they taught us was very good. When we were going back to school I was thinking about the kampung and what we did in it. I felt soooo tired after the field trip. I just wanted to go straight to bed!

Water Questions

Water Questions

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

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

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

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

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

(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.

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?

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

6. Observe the diagram of water use.

(a) What are the main uses of water?

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

The Answers

1. 2.5 %

2. 0.49% is from groundwater and soil, 0.01% is from the atmosphere, rivers and lakes.

3. Because water is limited on earth.

4.
(a) In the southern tip there isn't that much rainfall, but when you go up in the middle of Africa there is a lot of rainfall. When you go back up there is very little rainfall.

(b) In the west part of Australia there is very little rainfall but when you go to the eastern side of Australia there is more rainfall.

5.
(a) On top of Asia, North America and South America. On top and on the eastern side of Australia. Southeastern part of Africa and around Indonesia and the Philippines.

(b) On top of Africa, the middle and southern part of Europe, in the middle of Asia southern part of Australia and the southern part of South America and North America.

6.
(a) Resevoir losses from evaporation and seepage

(b) Resevoir losses from evaporation and seepage

The Water Treatment Plant

It took an hour to get there. It was very hot when we got there. We passed a river running through the water treatment plant. There was a nice lady that came to us and gave us a tour around the water treatment plant.

The first place we went to was this big gate that run along the river. It took out all of the big pieces of trash in the river. It was a gate with big holes in it. I had a question in my head about the gate, "How much trash does the gate gather each day?"

After that we went to a place where they add Minerals to to the water. They did that to clean the water. A question I had was, " How many minerals do they add to the water?"

In the next place we went to they were adding chlorine to the water. This step was called coagulation. They did this to get flocks of dirt that was in the water. A question I had in my head was, " How big can a flock get?"

Then we went to a place where they took out the particles of the flock out of the water and put it in the waste tower. This step was called sedimentation.

After that we went to a place where they killed all of the bacteria. This step was called filtration and disinfection.

Then we went to the control room where you could see what was happening in the whole water treatment plant. It was really cool and there were so many buttons in that room.

After that we went to the lab there and looked at the river water before it was cleaned and the river water after it was cleaned. There was such a big difference! The water was so much cleaner after it was cleaned!

They were very kind to us and they gave us some water to drink. Then we watched a movie that was a cartoon and it talked about all of the thing that the water has to go through to get clean. It wasn't a boring movie, some parts were kind of funny. They gave us some souvenirs for the school. It was a long, and tiring ride back to school!

The Water Cycle

The picture above shows that evaporation is the process where water changes from a liquid into a gas and turns into water vapour.

The picture on the right shows that condensation is the opposite of evaporation. It happens when water vapour changes from a gas into a liquid.







The picture on the left shows that precipitation is the condensation in the atmosphere that falls as rain, hail, snow or dew.









The picture on the right shows that infiltration is when water goes into the soil.

Earthquake

This is like the 2nd earthquake that I have experienced in Indonesia. The last earthquake I had, was really cool because I almost fell into a swimming pool.

The Natural Enviroment:
Indonesia are getting these earthquakes because we are in the Ring of Fire.

Animals give us signs about natural disasters like the one that we had. A snake came out of his hole because he might have felt the earthquake coming. It was wierd because there were like 650 kids outside and animals don' t usually come out of their hole with a lot of people outside of their hole.

Jakarta has no landslides because the land is very flat. In other places there are some lands that are not flat and could make landslides. Some places have many mountains.

People Interacting with the Enviroment:

People usually die because of things falling ong them. Maybe a building or just something above us falls. We are usually the ones that give possibilities for us to die and not the enviroment.

Typhoon Morakot-Taiwan

This picture shows a house falling of the road and into the water in Taiwan. Taiwan get these typhoons and we don't because we are near the equator and Taiwan isn't near the equator. We are lucky to be near the equator. The water is very powerful so when it hit the house the house just fell sooo easily because of the pressure of the water. This shows that people don't really effct the enviroment that much.