ces, week 24: Agriculture, continued

Nuts, bolts, pros, cons. What does it all mean? It means we’re all part of a food system. That’s the reality of the 21st century. You could take an entire class in any one topic that comes up in this unit. You could spend your life researching one aspect of agricultural science. Ever hear of a “cow college”? It’s a slang term for places like Auburn, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech. These are state “ag” schools, and the students who go to these schools may spend their lives wrestling with these issues.

We’re going to pick and choose our topics. Monday it’s all about local produce. Then we’ll look at global malnutrition, and finally at geneticially modified foods. There’s no “one way” to teach agriculture and food. This is our way.

Monday (2/8/10): Tour of ASAP gardens

Tuesday (2/9/10): Finish pros and cons of agricultural practices

Wednesday (2/10/10): Finish global malnutrition and introduce GM foods

Thursday (2/11/10): GM Food DNA extraction

Friday (2/12/10): Introduction to PCR: Polymerase Chain Reaction

CES/APES: The world is connected

Energy Experts Say Water Use and Energy Consumption Linked, Urge Conservation

Do you know how much water it takes to light your house? How about the electricity involved in watering your prize-winning tulips? As it turns out, it’s a lot more than you’d think.

Due to expected population growth and urbanization in the United States—especially in drought-prone Western States like Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Nevada—two top energy experts at a AAAS discussion urged the federal and local governments to explore new strategies to meet nation’s burgeoning water and electricity needs.

Water and energy resources are inextricably intertwined, the experts said. Electricity generation requires a massive amount of water usage and water delivery requires energy to move into your home, and therefore conservation efforts cannot focus on a single resource.

“Without efforts exploring how we can better use water and electricity . . . business as usual will put us on a collision course with these two natural resources,” said Michael Hightower, Water for Energy project lead at Sandia National Laboratories.

For more information, read the full story.

CES, Week 23: Food, Fuel and Water 1: Agriculture

So, when we were winding down last Friday, some of you guys were getting depressed about all these people. I think it’s wise to be a bit depressed, but I also think we should be hopeful. Our species is remarkably resilient. As the next two to three decades unfold we will have to deal with remarkable challenges, but we’ll get through it. If leaders make good decisions, and people make intentional, intelligent choices we can potentially have a healthier planet than we have right now.
This week we’ll begin looking at three of our species’ biggest challenges. How can we feed 6.3 billion people?

Monday (2/1/10): Exploring The Demographic Transition/Introduction to Global Agriculture
Tuesday (2/2/10): Introduction to Global Agriculture (cont)
Wednesday (2/3/10): Pros and Cons of Hi throughput agriculture and agrodiversity
Thursday (2/4/10): Field trip to the gardens (weather permitting)
Friday (2/5/10): What if there isn’t enough food? And one solution…GMOs
Monday (2/8/10): The science behind Genetically Modified Food

CES: Demographic Data is on sharepoint

I uploaded 3 jpeg (image) files to sharepoint. Go to the CES Lab data folder in my shared documents folder, and you will see three files each entitled “snapshot” with some ridiculous number attached to the word “snapshot”. Those are the files they want.

Have a nice weekend.

CES, Week 22: Human Demographics Continued

We will finish our investigation of developed and developing countries. Remember the driving question: Is there a distinct boundary between developed and developing countries? The bell interrupted our investigation last week, but we’ll pick right up where we left off. Interesting to note the near complete inversion of TFR and IMR for Somalia, Nigeria, and Ethiopia. The numbers are beginning to tell us the story of development. One thing I will push you on this week: what are barriers to development? As the class unfolds, we’ll be looking at how all these people get their food, their fuel, and their water.

Monday (1/25/10): Compare Economic Data across nations
Tuesday (1/26/10): Compare economic engines across nations (compare exports, imports, and connections)
Wednesday (1/27/10): In-class writing assignment: working on follow up questions
Thursday (1/28/10): Exploring The Demographic Transition
Friday (1/29/10): Campus Recycling, finish in-class writing assignment

CES, Week 21: Human Demographics continued

We will continue our data mining on Wednesday and we will spend the rest of the week trying to answer the Big Question for this unit: What is the point at which a country becomes “developed”? On Thursday we’ll figure out how to organize all your data, and we’ll start out trans-national analysis. On Friday, the work will continue.

Wednesday (1/20/10): “Data Mining”. Last day of in-class research

Thursday (1/21/10): Whole-class activity: what metrics matter, and how shall we compare these countries?

Friday (1/22/10): Continue  trans-national  comparison (short day, focus Friday.)

CES, Week 20: Human Population Growth

Last week might have been the shortest school week in history. 1.5 days. It makes finding continuity withinthe curriculum difficult (espeically with me at the helm). Never the less, we’ll continue focusing on the impacts humans have had on the natural capital that sustains us. We will spend at least two days looking at the factors driving exponential human populaiton growth, and you will begin individual investigations of  devloped and developing nations.

Monday (1/11/10): Finish discussion on Human impacts on Biosphere. Assignment: Specific examples of human impacts on biosphere.

Tuesday (1/12/10): Human Population Growth I

Wednesday (1/13/10): Human Population Growth II

Thursday (1/14/10): Human Demographics Assignment. Each student will pull two countries (one developed and one developing) out of a hat. Batering may insue. Expectations for assignment will be discussed.

Friday (1/15/10): Begin brainstorming Human Demographics Assignment/Determine timeline for completion/Campus recycling

CES, week 19: Human Population Growth

Welcome back, kids. I hope you had a restful break, and I hope you retained some of that good knowledge on the ecology of biomes, ecosystems, communities, and populations. ’Cause let me tell you something…it is completely neccessary for understanding human population growth, and for understanding how humans use the natural capital available on Earth.

This week will be a quick introduction of the fundamental principles of human population growth, and the basic idea of developed and developing countries. Maybe we’ll get into the sticky topic of “transitional countries”. I know you all will enjoy this unit, and I’m sure it we will have some rich discussions.

Next week you will dive in deeper to human demographics by investigating a developing and developed nation in the same region. This project is similar to your boime project, but it focuses more on how humans use the natural capital, not so much on the natural capital itself. I will tell you more about that project next week.

So, without further ado…welcome to the spring semester

Wednesday (1/6/09): An overview of human uses of natural resources

Thursday (1/7/09): An overview of human population growth (warning…this is a data-heavy presentation).

Friday (1/8/09): Wrap up human population growth and campus recycling

apes: ripped from the headlines

…or should I say, headlines ripped from apes? I was at the local Chevron station on Sunday morning, buying a Diet Coke, and I looked down at the Birmingham News and guess what I saw. The front page article, just belwo the fold was about Birmingham’s current mayoral race and focused on regional cooperatoin and economic development. Sound familiar? It gets better. The first paragraph of the article compared Birmingham’s failures at reginal development to successes in Chattanooga and Denver. We talked about and wrote about these very things in our final project.

Remember what I said at the end of the year. The work we did was meaningful. The ideas and solutions you guys generated are meaningful. Use them as you move on to your next phase of learning.

BTW…the entire article is available in the followig link. http://blog.al.com/birmingham-elections/2010/01/birmingham_mayors_race_1.html

APES: The Semester In Review

I wanted to follow up on one of the conversations we had earlier today in APES. If someone asks you what you did in school today, or for the semester, don’t tell them, “Nuthin.” Pick any (or all) of these things…

• Collected Particulate Air Pollution in downtown Birmingham and at home.
• Learned the basics of Climatology
• Compared microclimate variations in Birmingham and Summit County, Colorado.
• Remembered how water (humidity) moderates temperatures. Damn, that high specific heat and high heat of vaporization, it never goes away.
• Investigated the natural capital of Earth’s major biomes and looked at how natural capital influenced human culture within each biome.
• Applied simple ecosystem models to the Cahaba River and Little Cahaba Rivers.
• Caught six species of fishes in the Little Cahaba River.
• Caught over 20 families of aquatic macro invertebrates in the Little Cahaba River.
• Calculated the species diversity of leaf litter invertebrates. Remember, “The  Fall of the Kryptozoa.”
• Generated visual models of botched management strategies for major aquatic ecosystems.
• Investigated human demographics and economic realities of developed and developing countries.
• Uncovered the ugly truth about your family’s water consumption.
• Mined for coal and learned about profit margins and spot prices for non-renewable energy.
• Researched feasible , progressive regional energy policies for the US.
• Wrote policy to improve Birmingham’s Air Quality, decrease congestion on our highways and pave the way for sustainable economic development in the City Center.
(And you thought that first lab was just an excuse to get outside in August.)

I enjoyed having each of you in APES this year. I trust you learned something. Remember to apply what you learned to your daily behavior. Those little things do add up.
I know that some days in APES can be pretty depressing. Our resources are limited, the planet is crowded, and the environmental problems we face are tangled and thorny. Despite the reality of this moment, I believe that now is the most exciting time in human history to be alive. The opportunities for real progress, and the chance to change the world for the better, are palpably close.