Oil Spills Are NOT Acceptable

Petroleum became a major industry following the oil discovery at Oil Creek Pennsylvania in 1859. Most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the US was the largest oil producing country in the world. The domestic petroleum industry that began in 1859 with a well drilled just 69.5 feet deep forever changed America’s economy, the standard of living, and culture. The earliest exploration companies began seeking oil for refining into a newly invented lamp fuel called kerosene. This “rock oil” fuel was cheaper than whale oil and far safer than the more popular but explosive fuel, camphene.

    Even though this discovery changed the way we did things back in the 19th and 20th century, an oil spill is extremely dangerous. And one in the Ocean is even worse. Elastec is an organization that designs solutions to clean massive oil spills like in this picture. This picture is of a crashed ship that spilled just over 400,000 gallons of Heavy Fuel Oil. As you can tell, that's a lot of oil and a lot of fire. But do you see how they are containing it? They are using a very large boom to contain the oil and bring it back to a containment center or to a ship that carries it to where it needs to be. 

 My team's solution is like this. The Interceptor 004 is an autonomous robot that collects plastic out of rivers with a boom like a guide to collect the plastic and put it in a bin. Our design is like this, but with a boom with foam blocks on the end instead of a plastic guide.

    The boom is made from hydrophobic oleophilic molecules attached to their rim which recover the surfaced oil and any oil that was missed. Oleophilic means that the molecules like to cling to the hydrocarbons in petroleum. And the hydrocarbons in petroleum are hydrophobic as well as the sponge, so you don’t have to worry about the water taking up any space in your foam boom. Then it returns the oil either to somewhere it can be resold or be contained for later use.

The black legos represent the oil, the long lego pieces represent the Booms, and the two tower looking pieces represent the large oil containers. I published this blog post during a school closure during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and didn't have the resources at home to create something robotic, but in my opinion, it came out pretty good for having only a couple of legos.

There are many things that you can do to help. There really isn't a way to prevent oil spills, most of them are accidents I hope, but the plastic waste problem is pretty big as well. One of my favorite and easiest to remember is the three R's. That's Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. Now, do you notice that Reduce and Reuse are both before Recycle? That means Reduce the non-reusable plastic and recycle when we can't reuse it. We really shouldn't be using that much non-reusable plastic. Most of the plastic in our houses are or should be containers of some kind.

Bibliography

Elastec.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_petroleum_industry_in_the_United_States

Written by Ethan

Have Dirty Water?

Hydro Dynamic Challenge

Intro

My class is working on cleaning the oceans, creeks, and rivers of plastic and garbage. Thanks to COVID 19 we have to stay at home so we do all our work while at home! By staying home I was able to find more research links for you to look at.

Idea

I thought of making an invention that can filter water and clean it up but you can't drink out of it. I got the idea from the invention of the LifeStraw because it has a filter that removes about 99.9999% bacteria and it also removes the chance of getting Guinea worm and Giardia. Here is a list of things that LifeStraw can filter: Poop water, toilet water, mud puddle, pond water, clear water, and spit water, things that Life Straw can't filter: Pee, Saltwater, Sprite, Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Lemonade, Chocolate milk, and probably Slurpy juice. Sorry if I weird you out!

What I Will Make My Filter\Straw Out Of

I will use a lot of fuzzy pipe cleaners for a filter and a sheet of plastic to wrap around the filter. I will need to cut the pipe cleaners in half to make the filter bigger. In my estimate, I think it will filter at least 80.6% of the water.

This is a photo of my invention.

This is the FilterTube Version 0.1 This is a prototypeHere are the URL sources on where I found my information. I hope you enjoyed the blog!

https://youtu.be/Nk7J-lsZ2f0
https://youtu.be/_mkUTSGCF3I
https://youtu.be/A6bVCXdBuD0
https://youtu.be/NqZlq7m56yI
https://youtu.be/i82YD7uvi2s
https://youtu.be/0pnGCN1GP_U

Written by Anya

World Issues

 I found this picture at Flickr

When you look at this world what do you see?  Do you see a beautiful planet? Or an unfinished planet that still needs improvement?. Well whatever you see I most likely see something completely different, what I see is a dying planet. We don’t take care of our planet we are basically using it. The water cycle of a human can be explained in four basic words, Find, Use, Throw away. This has happened for many generations.     

    Take the great pacific garbage patch, for example, It’s a humongous mountain that takes up 1.6 million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean which is about 2 times the size of Texas.     

   When someone burns coal and oil it turns into Co2 otherwise known as Carbon Dioxide. When this gets burned it goes up to the Atmosphere and it can get stuck up there for more than 100 years. Americans burn up to 7.5 billion gallons of oil and coal per day, so to get rid of air pollution we would have to stop burning and using coal and oil for centuries.

    The world is kept warm by our greenhouse gases, CO2 , H2o, and CH4. These gases are a thin layer in our Atmosphere that when heat tries to escape it captures it and returns it back to earth to keep our planet livable. But the increase in burning oil and coal has made those greenhouse gasses work extra hard, and it results in an alarming increase in temperature. Which has resulted in droughts and floods. This has been hard on farmers, the droughts harden the soil and dry out the plants, whereas floods have drowned the plants and washed away mushy soil.
In Alaska, they have homes built to last in blizzards and snow storms, but with the increase in temperature, the snow is melting faster to where the snow can’t keep up. And houses are literally falling from the ground, and snow slides have become more often.

     Scientists have listed these three problems that I have talked about from most urgent to least of our concern. Scientists say that Permafrost is the #3 problem in the world. The second most urgent problem is oceans are rising rapidly and completely devouring islands. And last but not least the problem that has caught everyone's attention, the problem that has caused ocean rising and permafrost the #1 problem is Flash Heat Waves. These three words might seem small, but the problem is bigger than all of us. It needs to stop, So what are you gonna do to stop this?
Most people would leave it up to the bigger people. Such as Scientists, the president, Secretary's, etc. But what if I told you that you can make a bigger impacted than all those people. You're probably questioning why I'm saying this, and probably saying to yourself that the president can make a bigger impacted. But you're parents would want to probably hear this from you, you're family will listen to you, you're friends will listen to you. You can make a bigger impacted than you think. Have you ever been in you're living room and you're parents are watching the news and they all of a sudden turn down the volume? Well, that's because they don't want to hear what the news people are saying.

My team that makes up of two people, came up with a small solution that can make a big impact. We used an EV3 Robot to build a prototype to help us get a visual understanding of what our robot would do. Our robot collects trash in a scooping motion that will hold all the trash that gets trapped in its arms. Once all the trash is collected it will be disposed of, or it would get recycled and reused into something more of use.

I found my information, Pictures, and help from:

Bibliography

   “Photo Editor | PiZap: Free Online Photo Editor and Collage Maker.” PiZap Photo Editor & Collage Maker, www.pizap.com/.

Clever Prototypes, LLC. “The Quick and Safe Way to Find and Cite Images for Class!” Photos For Class, photosforclass.com/.

projects, Contributors to Wikimedia. “Main Page of a Wikimedia Project (Common for Wikipedia, Wiktionary and Other Projects).” Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 18 Mar. 2019, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page.

“A Climate Education Video Experience.” Our Climate Our Future, ourclimateourfuture.org/.

by Makayla

Polluted Beaches

Beach Pollution (And How We Can Fix it)

by Kaylee

       This beach pollution is more serious than you may think. A major problem when it comes to plastic is that plastic doesn't degrade. Fish or other sea life could eat plastic and die. Plastic has chemicals on it, which means every piece of plastic that goes into the water releases chemicals and humans ingest them. The chemicals will impact human systems.  

        Microplastics are also a huge problem! Microplastics will go into watersheds, then they drift through water drains, then the microplastics will go through rivers and end up in our oceans, where it will be broken down by waves. The main problem with microplastics is that they attract toxins. Those microplastics will eventually get eaten by fish, birds or humans. If we don't recycle plastic and other garbage, they will find a way to end up in our oceans. 

    If everyone on the earth lived like Americans, we would need five Earths of resources.  Also, did you know that every time you burn fossil fuels it creates this atom called CO2? CO2 traps heat in the earth, and we are creating too much CO2, so the earth is getting too hot. Did you know that the average American uses over 16 football fields of Earth's resources?

      What I did about this problem was I made an EV3 robot, which was made to pick up garbage on beaches. On the robot there was a claw that me and my partner made, to pick up the garbage. 

My robot was also made to ride along the beach and pick up trash and plastic on the way.  

        You may now realize how much of a problem this is. But what you may not realize is that you can fix this! Basically, all you need to do is stop adding to the problem. Just recycle plastic and stop littering. You should also stop using products with microplastics in them. You should especially not litter cigarettes because they play a major part in plastic pollution. So now that you know what to do to help beach pollution and what's so bad about it... go help!

Here is where I got my information, pictures and made my meme:

“Six Types of Beach Pollution You Need to Know About.” Swim Guide, 17 Aug. 2016, www.theswimguide.org/2016/07/18/six-types-beach-pollution/.

www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/ttw2014_Impacts_of_Beach_Pollution.pdf.

“Photo Editor | PiZap: Free Online Photo Editor and Collage Maker.” PiZap Photo Editor & Collage   Maker, www.pizap.com/pizap.

Cappronnier, Dominique. “Pollution.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 10 May 2012, www.flickr.com/photos/.

Dealing with Dangerous Algae

As you might be able to see in this picture, the water is green. This green water could indicate that this lake/river has a very dangerous type of algae, Blue-Green Algae. Some of the Blue-Green algae, such as the algae in Anderson lake contains anatoxin-a and microcystin. Anatoxin-a causes potent nerve damage and chronic exposure to microcystin causes liver damage. This kind of algae eats phosphorus.         People first found out about this alga being in Anderson lake when two pet dogs drunk the water and died. The problem of Blue-Green algae and why it is there in Anderson lake is a mystery that has stumped scientists for many years.
    Algal blooms happen when plants that live in seawater and groups of algae grow out of control and will cause a "red tide." A red tide is when all these groups grow out of control and make an algal bloom that will turn the water red, kills fish, sickens shellfish, and make the air harder to breathe. An algal bloom is not always bad, they aren't always dangerous, in fact, they will provide food for the animals and it is a major energy source for the ocean food web.
     We can't really fix the problem of Anderson lake until we know what caused the Blue-Green algae to be there and to keep coming back. But we can try to remove the worst of it every year using robots or very fine nets. Scientists are still trying to find the cause to the problem and they feel that their close.
    Here are some things that you can do to help prevent Blue-Green algae in all lakes, rivers, and streams. You can clean up after your self or animal, not put pollution in the lake, use a net or something else to take it out of the lakes, and you can help invent something or help the scientists to find the problem.

By Layla F

Bibliography

      Lake Bluegreen Algae | Jefferson County, WA, Jefferson County Public Health, www.co.jefferson.wa.us/724/Lake-Water-Quality.

US  Department of Commerce, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “What Is a Red Tide?” NOAA's National Ocean Service, 1 June 2013, oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/redtide.html.

New continent to be named: The great pacific garbage patch!

Our oceans are facing a big problem, standing waste is one of the biggest problems in our oceans, literally, there is a garbage patch the size of Texas. If you don’t think that that is a problem you're a nincompoop. If you wonder how the garbage got there, ask yourself because humans were careless and just tossed the garbage into the ocean and the way that the currents travel the garbage goes to the ocean gyres and creates a land like mass of stinking rotten garbage.

          Because of humans, our oceans are flooded with trash, but some of it wasn't put directly there, it went into rivers and streams from sewage treatment plants and storm sewers and then it goes into the oceans creating very hazardous habitat for marine life and giving humans a bad reputation.

        If you simply recycle, you will help fix this problem and restore our oceans to there former glory, our beaches will be filled with sand instead of trash, and sea animals will flourish and live an unrestricted natural life

          Water pollution is when something gets in the water that is not natural, whether it's plastic in our oceans or an oil spill, it's not good if it's not natural. If we can find teddybears in tires along with other stuff, we know we have a problem.

       You may have heard of the three R's, reduce, reuse and recycle, but have you ever heard of the five R's? According to "The Greening of Westford," Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose and Recycle are the things we need to do to make a cleaner, fresher, easier to live in earth. If humans just did those R's the world would be a much better place for everyone.

      The water cycle is a very delicate part of nature, it depends on everything going according to plan. However, humans have built power plants and factories that destroy that delicate balance by throwing cafeteria waste and oil into streams and then that turns into acid rain which causes the nutrients in the soil to dissolve before plants can get to them.

           I have chosen to study suspended matter in our oceans. Suspended matter is little bits of floating plastic or trash that gets into creeks and rivers and streams and then works its way into the ocean where it floats into the ocean and collects into little islands or a marine creature tries to eat it and chokes to death

If we eventually destroy the oceans, that means that we destroy the creeks and rivers and the whole water cycle. Then where do we get our water?

Here is where I got my information.

Rowland, Geraint. “Beauty in the Pollution.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 2 July 2012, www.flickr.com/photos/33909206@N04/7488578958/.

“The 5 R's - Refuse Reduce Reuse Repurpose Recycle.” The Greening of Westford, 5 Apr. 2014, thegreeningofwestford.com/2014/04/5-rs-refuse-reduce-reuse-repurpose-recycle.html.

“National Science Foundation - Where Discoveries Begin.” Human Water Cycle | NSF - National Science Foundation, National Science Foundation, www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/human_water_cycle/index.jsp

Written by Reid

Your Air is Bad, Fix It

This video shows our robot testing air quality it does not actually have the sensors we need but it represents what the robot will be like. Our robot will test sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide levels which both contribute to acid rain and algae growths. By detecting the high levels early are robot can alert people to fix and take care of the leak or problem.

 In this picture, you can see pollutants and other stuff come out of a production plant as you can see pollutants are a very big problem if a lot comes out it can contribute to poisonous algae blooms and acid rain. Acid rain hurts the forests and helps deforestation. Nitrogen dioxide also hurts people. When these pollutants mix with rivers and lakes they not only harm the water but also the animals that live in them and need it to survive.

As you can see below algae covers a lot of this lake. When algae cover lakes and ponds it is gross and can sometimes be dangerous to swim in. Some lake generates antitoxin algae the algae can make you sick and can even kill animals and humans. Nitrogen dioxide and sulfur oxide contribute to the growth of algae and can even make it so there is a algae bloom. Algae bloom is where there is a huge amount of algae the number of algae can go anywhere from a thin coating to an almost mattress of algae.

The way that we can stop this is to make sure that power plants are clean and re regularly checked for leaks. Nitrogen dioxide comes from car exhaust if we use clean fuels and try to use electric cars or not drive so often we can cut down on the rate of nitrogen dioxide in the air.

Basic Information about NO2.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 8 Sept. 2016,
 www.epa.gov/no2-pollution/basic-information-about-no2#What%20is%20NO2.

Sulfur Oxides. July 1998, www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/5cb16d8048855c248b24db6a6515bb18/HandbookSulfurOxides.pdf?MOD=AJPERES.

Essick, Peter. “Air Pollution Causes, Effects, and Solutions.” Causes, Effects, and Solutions, 17 Oct. 2017,www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/pollution/

     Toxtown national library of medicine.
https://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/text_version/chemicals.php?id=29

By Garrett