PDS AP Environmental Science 8th Period 2010-11

Since it was such a busy week with prom and since most of you met your scribe post obligations during the energy project, I did not assign scribes over the last few days. So, here is a collection of links from last year’s class on Global Climate Change for those that missed class: Intro to [...]

*Since did not have a scribe for ozone day, I pulled this post by alum Kelly Cox ’10 out of the archives. Today during the second half of class, we discussed ozone, or O3. The first thing to recognize when discussing ozone is that there is good ozone, and there is bad ozone. You MUST [...]

First, we talked about smog. Term coined by combining smoke + fog to get smog. Here are the two types we learned: Sulfur-based Smog: “industrial smog” Nitrogen-based Smog: “photochemical smog” Sulfur-based Smog takes on a gray color. When coal is burned compounds within the coal interact with atmospheric oxygen which then causes iron oxide and [...]

We had a few folks out visiting schools Friday, so here is the scoop.  After reviewing the energy unit tests, I briefly reviewed the structure and composition of the atmosphere.  Then, I did a brief into to tropospheric air pollution.  The Clean Air Act (originally enacted in 1970) has been one of our most successful [...]

This last chapter, we really started to get an idea of how biogeochemical cycles work and can “malfunction.” Here are a few interesting current events on the topic if you want to learn more: Nitrogen Cycle: Whales Help Fertilize Ocean With Floating Dung http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130437080 Phosphorus Cycle: Manure, Fertilizer Part Of Chesapeake’s Problem http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121565792 Carbon Cycle: [...]

Climate is a very different concept then what we would call weather. While weather is a very local phenomenon, Climate is studied on a larger regional scale. Weather also changes and is studied on a hourly to weekly basis. Climate, on the other hand, needs to be studied on a much more long term scale [...]

Today in class we began our discussion on Earth’s atmosphere. Earth’s atmosphere is mainly comprised of nitrogen gas at 78%. N2 is an inert gas (a gas that is non-reactive under normal situations) that does not natural affect humans. Decomposers put nitrogen gas into a useable form through the 3 reactions in the nitrogen cycle: [...]