Plastiki

Plastiki! When you first hear the word, 'Plastiki', you might think that it is related to something made of plastics which is true. Plastiki is a boat made of plastic bottles but don't say WHAT?! because only the bottom part of the boat is made of plastic bottles. The main purpose of creating this boat is to show that we shouldn't waste but recycle lots of things to save our earth. The person who had this idea called 'David de Rothchild' and other five crews have to start from San Francisco and sail to California to Sydney, Australia. There are lots of interesting and important gears in Plastiki but I will only show three things I found really interesting.
The first purpose of Plastiki is to raise awareness about plastic waste. Plastiki is a boat made of about as many as 12000 PET soda bottles which are used keep it afloat. To make sure that the bottles are strong, mechanisms had a 'PET Stress Tests.' To get the right result, you have to do it two times. The Breaking Point in the first trial was 6 tons. The second breaking point was 4 tons. So the average breaking point was from 4 to 6 tons.
There is a thing called, 'Desalinator' in Plastiki. It has an ability to process 6 litres of water every half hour. The amount of sunlight, hand pump and some people's power are the only things needed to make drinkable water.
There was one gear that surprised me. It was an Energy Bike. At first I thought, 'Why is there a bike on the boat?' But then later, I realized that this one is a great thing to save earth. The catamarans navigation and communication systems all need electricity. However, electricity generation is a big issue so they created an Energy Bike and it has extra benefits. It can make 0.4 kilowatt with an hour pedalling!!!
I never thought Plastiki would do these things and I was really fascinated. It has all high technique and good-looking gears which makes to want to have my own 'Plastiki' boat.

Haiti History

1. Haiti was discovered by Spanish, Columbus in 1952, December 5.
2. At first Haiti was Spain's colony but then in 1600s France assailed Spain and won so Haiti became France's colony. Since the France conquered Haiti, Haitians learned how to speak French and nowadays, Haiti's one of official languages is French.
3. Once, Haiti was France's colony and French increased the production of crops such as coffee, cotton, sugarcanes, corn, sorghum and wood.
4. Through revolution under Toussaint L'ouventure led by half million slaves, they acquired independence and became the first black republic in Lation America in 1804.
5. Haiti was one of the wealthy countries in the Caribbean Sea because lands in Haiti were once very fertile and there were abundant resources.
6. However long dictatorship and continuous natural disasters brought a calamity which was that Haiti became the second poorest country at the Western Hemisphere.
7. Americans invaded Haiti and stayed there for 19 years and finally left Haiti in 1934.
8. From 1957 to 1986, Francois Duvalier and Jean Claude Duvalier who were father and son, carried out dictatorship which caused a great disaster to Haiti.
9. One of the terrible things they did was they became Papa and Baby docs and murdered Haitians for 29 years and more than ten thousand Haitians died.
10. In 1990, Aristide was elected as a president of Haiti. However one year later, a coup d'etat overthrew the President.

Haiti Update Post

There was a terrible earthquake in Haiti with a Richter Scale of 7.0 which destroyed lots of buildings. At first, Haitians were despaired, but now, things are getting better because of Temporary Protected Status (TPS). TPS helps countries that are destroyed badly because of arm conflict, environmental disaster or any other kinds. TPS is running by United States and United Nations supported foods, water and medical help to Haitian just in time. There were tons of people waiting for their food and injured people went to Miami for health care. Also, Venezuela's government sent a military plane with canned foods, medicine and drinking water and provided 50 rescue workers. For Haitians who worked in America and were supposed to go back to Haiti, Obama gave a permission to stay in America until Haiti recovers.

I never knew that America was helping Haitians this much and I wish Haiti recovers soon and no earthquake again.

Haiti Earthquake

What happened to a presidential building in Haiti? Why is there lots of cracks?

Unfortunately, it is because of a terrible earthquake. It was very unfortunate because Haiti is one of the poorest countries on earth and there was an earthquake. It was a massive earthquake with a Richter Scale of 7.0. The earthquake occurred for 1 minute which was long enough to damage shops, hospitals etc. So it was also able to damage the presidential building and other numerous government buildings. The witnesses saw that everyone was running along the street shouting 'Jesus, Jesus!' as the buildings were collapsing badly. After the earthquake struck the woman said that she walked on dead people' bodies. Everyone was feared dead and there were lots of dead people on a street. During the earthquake, the electricity went out so governments weren't able to contact each other which made a situation worse.

Geoactive Questions and Answers

Activities:
1. List the main reasons for water scarcity.
A: The main reasons for water scarcity is that many places such as deserts, have low rainfall, variations in climate, land degradation, population growth and water pollution.
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?
A: A drought is a period of below average precipitation. Dehydration, illnesses such as Cholera and death could be the hardships I would face when living in a village in a poor country such as Ethiopia.
3. How does land degradation affect the supply of fresh water?
A: When land has being used excessively for overgrazing and farming, the soil is not able to store water. When there are heavy rains, the water is lost into rivers and the sea.
4.(a) What is El Nino?
A: El Nino is a warming that happens every three to five years in the Pacific ocean off the coast of Peru. So this causes the air pressure to reverse and go over most of Australia. These prevent moist tropical air masses reaching Australia for a long periods and causes serious drought.
(b) Why does El Nino often cause drought in Australia?
A: Because of the warming the air pressure reverses and stops moist tropical air masses reaching Australia.
5. Observe the map showing the global effects of El Nino in 1982-83
(a) What effects does El Nino have on the availability of fresh water?
A: Due to El Nino, there can be period of heavy rain along the west coast of South America and this causes severe flooding. Water becomes heavily polluted and little clean water is available.
(b) Name the countries and describe the problems that arose from decreased rainfall caused by El Nino.
A: - Dry - Too much rainfall
Australia- Wheat exports threatened by drought conditions.
Philippines- Lower rice harvest due to drought.
China- Agricultural land under threat from drought in northern regions and flooding in southern regions.
Papua New Guinea- Due to drought, they are not able to grow crops. This causes famine conditions.
Indonesia- Dryness causes forest fires making air very polluted.
Africa- Less corn crops due to dryness.
United States- Too much rainfall.
Colombia- Fishing is affected.
Peru- Flooding and fishing is affected.

GeoActive Questions and Answers

Activities:
1. What percentage of the world's supply of water is fresh water?
A: Water covers 71 percent of the earth and 2.5 percent of all the water is fresh water which means there are only 1.775 percent of fresh water on earth.
2. Where is the world's supply of fresh water found?
A: Above 1.775 percent of fresh water, 1.42 percent is found in the form of ice on land, 0.3479 percent is found in groundwater and the soil and 0.0071 percent is found in the rivers and lakes.
3. Even though the supply of fresh water is abundant it is still a problem. Why?
A: Because the fresh water and people are not evenly given. What happens is that for example, in country 1, there are more fresh water than in country 2. But the problem is, country 2 demands more fresh water because of greater population. So this shows the fresh were unevenly distributed.
4. Observe the map of world average annual precipitation (opposite).
(a) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the southern to the northern tip of Africa.
A: As we move from the southern of Africa to the northern tip of Africa, we can find out that the rainfall is getting higher until the place between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer. From then on, the average annual rainfall goes under 250mm which is extremely low.
(b) Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the western to the eastern tip of Australia along the Topic of Capricorn.
A: As we move from the western to the eastern tip of Australia along the Tropic of Capricorn, we can find out that the rainfall is slightly getting higher and finally reaches over 2000mm, starting from under 250mm.
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?
A: South America seems to have a large amount of water available per person.
(b) Which parts of the world appear to have a small amount of water per person?
A: Europe seems to have a small amount of water per person.
6. Observe the diagram of water use.
(a) What are the main uses of water?
A: The main uses of water is agriculturing.
(b) Which uses have increased the most over the last century?
A: Reservoir losses from evaporation and seepage has increased the most over the last century.

Earthquake in Indonesia

On September 2nd, there was an earthquake. When the earthquake occured, I was at the school so I didn't feel the earthquake. Before the earthquake occured, my friend told me that there was a snake on a table which should stay underground as usual. I wondered why it happened and I just thought it was no big deal. A few hours later, there was an earthquake. I didn't feel it but I heard some students yelling that an earthquake occured. So I thought there was a connection between snake and earthquake.

Indonesia gets lots of earthquake since Indonesia is located in the Ring of Fire. A Richter Scale on September 2nd was 7.4 which was strong enough to damage a big place in such a short time which makes the fact that this earthquake was 40km of the coast of Jasikmalaya, reasonable. There was also a tsunami warning for Indonesia is surrounded by sea and the earthquake occured from the sea.

After the earthquake, me and my friend realized that animals are much more sensible than humans so they react quicker than humans when earthquake occurs. And we thought that was a reason why the snake appeared.

From this disaster, about 40 people died. But a reporter said that they could find more victims which means there are more than 40 victims. Eventhough buildings weren't damaged, there were some cracks inside the building and on the wall.

Typhoon Morokat

In Southern Taiwan, many roads and bridges were damaged by the torrential rain. We call this torrential rain 'Typhoon Morokat'. Warm air had collided with cold air then they spun clockwise counter and when the wind got very strong, Typhoon Morokat occured. Typhoon Morokat first occurred at the Pacific Ocean and then it came straight forward to Taiwan.

Mountains are made of rocks and if it rains too much, the water soaks through the mud which causes the separation between the rocks and the muds of the mountain. Then, the mountain slides down and we call this diaster mudslide. When mudslide occurs, it's means like tons of rocks are falling down. This terrible mudslide damaged lots of buildings and killed many people as well like Typhoon Morokat did.
Mostly, typhoon occurs at north and south of equator. Every country near the equator had seldomly damaged by typhoon. For an instance, Indonesia, Malaysia, Ecuador and Kenya had rarely destroyed by typhoons.