Unit 8 Blog

Unit 8 Blog

To continue in the format our our second semester blog posts, I will provide suggested vocabulary for the unit and continue the emphasis on our discussion portion of your post.  You do not have to include the vocab as part of your blog, but you are welcome to!  You are required to answer each discussion portion of you blog thoroughly and thoughtfully.  Happy blogging!

Suggested Vocabulary:

groundwater recharge

floodplainLevee

Dike

Desalinization

Distillation

Reverse Osmosis

Point Source of Pollution

Non-point Source of Pollution

MCL

Clean Water Act

Safe Water Drinking Act

Types of water pollution- You should know the source and the potential human/ecological health effects of each:

Lead

Mercury

Arsenic

Acid deposition/Mine drainage

Pesticides

Pharmaceuticals

Hormones

PCBs

PBDEs

Oil

Solid Waste

Thermal 

Freshwater Resource Discussion

Underground aquifers, lakes, rivers and wetlands provide many ecological and economic benefits to their surrounding ecosystems.  Discuss both the ecological and economic benefits of each freshwater-ish source (I get that wetlands are not always freshwater... but they are super important!) giving at least two example for each.  Also give at least one example of how human activity can be harmful to each of these resources.

Water Diversion Discussion

Water is not always where we need it to be.  For thousands of years, humans have diverted water for their own needs via dams, dikes, and aqueducts.  Discuss 3 water diversion projects by first explaining the location of the source and then where the water ended up.  Next, for each example, discuss the ecological benefits and costs as well as the economic benefits and costs for each project (feel free to reference the work you did on your dam project if you would like or find some new examples that we haven't discussed!).

Water Quality Discussion

When we were at Parr park, we did several water quality tests to access the health of the ecosystem.  Discuss each test and what the test indicates about the quality of the water we tested including potential sources of the pollutant associated with the test.  In addition to tests humans can run on the water itself, there are many species that can be studied that give an indication of the health of an ecosystem.  These species are known as indicator species.  Give an example of a biological indicator species and explain how changes in its morphology or population numbers gave scientists an indication that something just wasn't right in the area.  Make sure to discuss what scientists believe to be the cause of this species change.   

Water Conservation Discussion

Only 3% of the world's water is freshwater, of that 3%, less and 1% is available for human use.  The 3 largest consumers of freshwater are agriculture, industry and household use, in that order.  Give at least two suggestions for how each consumer listed above could make changes to better conserve this valuable resource.     

BIG Picture Discussion

This is where you will make the four BIG PICTURE connections to the ENTIRE UNIT. Please tie in information you learned in your reading (chapters 9 and 14), from completing your assignments, the documentaries we watched and from your labs.  There is not an exact length that I am expecting other than it should definitely be at least a paragraph for each section, should be thorough and show understanding of the topic.  Remember to be specific in your examples.  Do not just say "there are laws that govern this" or "people destroy the Earth."  Give me the names of the laws, what they regulate and who enforces them.  Tell me what humans are doing to destroy the earth.      

Blogs are due February 24th. Don't forget to PUBLISH your blog... saving and publish are two different things in the eyes of Google Blogger!  Happy Blogging!