Minecraft Pollinator Garden

6th Grade Tour of a Minecraft Pollinator Garden

Minecraft Education Edition has created a great activity for students to learn about the importance of pollinators in our world by having kids build an amazing pollinator garden! Sixth grade Science students were able to download the Pollinator Garden world from Google Classroom to use at home with their school Minecraft Education Edition accounts!



Here's what kids see when they first enter the Pollinator Garden world:

Here's what their empty plot looks like before they start building:

And here's a tour from one of our 6th graders who completed his gardens and recorded a tour on the assignment Flipgrid:

Ocean Acidification

What is Ocean Acidification?

    Acidification is the process where a substance yields a hydrogen ion when dissolved into water. This means that it gives up the positive hydrogen in its molecular structure and binds with the water. So when CO2 dissolves into the H2O, it forms carbonic acid. And when the hydrogen in the water is yielded, it becomes a bicarbonate ion. But where does the hydrogen ion go? Well, there are lots of particles and other things in water. But the one that shellfish like oysters, muscles, and clams all use to build their shell is called calcium carbonate or CaCO3 which is one calcium, one carbon, and three oxygens. But the hydrogen ion likes the calcium as well and will fight the shellfish and coral for the calcium carbonate. This results in the shellfish trying to find carbonate to build their shells rather than finding places to eat or hide from predators. Anyway, the hydrogen ions are what make the oceanic pH drop and the reason that they’re even in the ocean is because of all of the carbon dioxide that is created when we burn fossil fuels to generate the energy we use to power our lives.

How does it Affect us?

    The United States of America has been one of the first countries to be affected by Ocean Acidification. The Puget Sound has The most corrosive waters in the world. The water that the oysters grow up in is so low pH that they are dying within two days after being raised in it. If that isn't saying we've been hit, I don't know what is. Maybe if our rain was dissolving trees or something, but the water is corrosive enough to dissolve the baby oysters in hatcheries. That's right, the oysters are actually dissolving in the water that they're being raised in. The waters of the Kitsap Puget Sound have made a huge leap in acidification ever since the Industrial Revolution. Upwelling is how most of this acidification happens. One of the processes of this kind of upwelling, is when the ocean plankton absorb the carbon from the air in the water is then getting eaten by fish that live deeper and they’re taking that carbon dioxide even deeper and then upwelling brings all of that extra CO2 and making the surface more corrosive. Upwelling is natural, but when it upwells so much CO2 that it is increasing the oceanic acidity, it's a minor problem.

What can we do About it?

    There are so many things that we could be doing to help stop the climate crisis, but we aren't. The answer to the question, “Who will win, climate change or us?” is determined by two other questions. “Can we power our lives with much less CO2,” and if the answer to that question is yes, then the second question is, “Will we do it?” The answer to the first question is pretty straight forward, of course, we can use less CO2. But the second, the answer depends on a few things. Scientists say that in order to protect the worst effects of climate change, we cannot let our planet warm by over 2 degrees Celsius, and we’ve already almost reached 1 degree. 

And a quick piece of information, the amount of energy you need to warm the entire planet even 1 degree Celsius, or 34 degrees Fahrenheit, is so tremendous compared to how it happens naturally. For the planet to warm naturally like this would require hundreds of thousands to millions of years. And now some things about how energy is generated in the US. In a fuel plant, they have many turbines that are turned by burning fossil fuels that heat up water, and then the water turns to steam, then the steam turns the turbine which generates energy. But there are many other efficient, and Earth-friendly. Like using water and wind to turn the turbine instead. Or, you could pull energy directly from the sun with solar panels. And even some places use the geothermal vents in the earth to power plants and generate electrical energy. These resources are renewable energy sources, unlike fossil fuels which are nonrenewable sources which means that there are a lot of them, but eventually, they will run out.

by Ethan

My DOT for Climate Change

What have I learned about Climate Change?

    I have learned much about climate change in this learning course. Some key details I think that I should state are that the average American takes up about 16 football fields of square feet. Almost 80% of the energy we almost 80% of the energy we use right now comes from burning fossil fuels. There has never been more than 300ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for over 800,00 years until just a couple decades ago. Which is over 100 times faster than the previous 800,000 years.

Freeways are HUGE sources of air pollutants. Natural disasters like hurricanes are also getting more and more destructive as the years go on. This is very stressful for people who live on eastern coasts because some of them are left without power, food, water, and sometimes shelter.

The planet is actually really beautiful and humans are very smart. The CO2 emissions are what keep the planet warm, but too much can lead to great heat spikes that have never been reached before. In being able to create a big change in the world, they have to see the truth and what is really happening. Many people have taken action and speak up about our global crisis. There are thousands of young people speaking out in front of other nations, politicians, and protesting and pointing the finger at our US government about how crooked we really are and how little we’re doing about the problem. If our generation of people keeps doing this for the next few years and the government decides to do something about it, our movement can move the world.

I have a choice: To do something or nothing. I am going to DOT or Do One Thing to help the world in this crisis. I am only one out of 7.8 billion people, but that can eventually turn into thousands and even millions. We can’t just sit around and let the future happen for ourselves. If everyone thought that all of their problems would get solved, there might have already been over thousands of countries that have risen over 33 degrees celsius. As the next generation, we have to make the future. And we can start that off by DOT or Doing One Thing for Climate Change.

What is my DOT?

    DOT is Doing One Thing for climate change. There are so many things that you can do to help put a stop to the growing global atmospheric temperatures. 

What have I decided to do?

    Well, I have decided to do multiple different things. A lot of these things I just do casually like turning the lights off, reducing my waste, recycling, and riding my bike places. But what I've changed? I decided to not eat so much meat, use cleaner energy (Haven't got to the solar panels yet), I have never let the water run while I've brushed my teeth, and I also have washed my hands not in cold water, but in cooler water. I know, not much right? But sometimes, in a whole year, those things add up to be a lot. If that wasn't true then everyone would leave their water running, throw everything in the trash. Did you know that if no one ran the water while they brushed their teeth that we could save nearly 2400 gallons of water in a year

by Ethan

Oil Spills

What we need to survive is what aquatic animals need as well. But with the amount of garbage (14 MILLION pounds a year), oil (1.3 MILLION gallons a year), extinction, habitat loss, and much more, soon our waters won't be drinkable. Although businesses are helping it still isn't enough. This is happening why? US.

Major Causes of Oil Spills Infographic from NOAA

The leading cause is most likely garbage but following shortly behind garbage is oil. The biggest causes are ships and oil rigs. But there is so much more such as transportation, seeps, etc. Focusing deeper into transportation I found that vents are a huge impact on the ocean, simply freeing all the oils that come from the streets into the ocean. How could this be stopped? Well... with a lot of thinking, investigation, and researching the perfect solution was made.


With the yearly amount of oil that our oceans are exposed to, twelve percent may seem small but this solution would stop around one hundred fifty-six thousand galloons of oil from entering the ocean yearly. Now that you're eager to find out what this may be, I will begin. Imagine you're in a car parked on the side of the road, then the car starts to leak oil, draining into the vent and then into the ocean, all by mistake. Well, with the vent idea below, mistakes like this won't happen again. Once the oil has arrived at the vent it will be caught by a platform where a color sensor will be waiting to sense the color (knowing oil is iridescent/black and water is transparent/blue) then soaking the oil up and disposing of it while freeing the water into the ocean. With just a few inventions like this soon barely any oil will be in our oceans.

                                                                                                   
                                                                                            PROTOTYPE             

                                                                                                 UNDER THE VENT  

                                                       
                                                          TYPICAL VENT ABOVE


                                                                                  SITES
https://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/how-does-oil-get-ocean.html
                               
https://www.livescience.com/9885-faq-science-history-oil-spills.html

by Olivia

Stanky Fishy Stanky Fishy

Stanky Fishy Stanky Fishy

 This is a picture of what our waters should look like!
👈🏻 Now take a look at this
                         👇🏻



         

The topic that I chose for my project is the ocean plastic problem. The problem we are facing is that all the plastic that is washing up in our rivers, streams, lakes, and oceans. It's a very big problem because not only is it threatening all of our sea creatures, but it's also killing our wildlife in and around those waters.

The Three R's 

Ok, now let's talk about the three R's. If you don't already know what the three R's are, or what they stand for, here you go:

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle 

To sum it up a little, we are just trying to use something as much as it can be used, and then turning it into something good. That's our problem right now! Not everyone is taking this into consideration, or being RESPONSIBLE when it comes to making the most out of something, and then discarding it properly. Ok, so picture this example - for every time that you do something wrong, let's say...forget to pick up your trash, and the result of this is one tree gets taken down. Let's talk about what the trees do to help us? Right...they help us breathe! But, if you compare that to all the garbage that is being washed up on what used to be a family-friendly beach or river, we would have no tree's left. We'd all die, and then look at all our wildlife that we are eliminating because of what humankind has done, and not only that but our own people too!

Pollution is everywhere and you can help! Be responsible and pick up after yourself. If you have any plastic, glass, paper, cardboard, or jugs you NEED to recycle them! It doesn't only save our planet but it saves you. It saves our planet because we aren't letting all the bad toxins used to make our garbage out where animals can reach, or decongest it. "Plastic accumulating in our oceans and on our beaches has become a global crisis" Global! It's all over the world, I believe that anyone can help this problem. "We’ve sued companies that turn plastic into consumer goods to better control their runoff."  

This is a picture of my prototype: 

My solution to solve the Ocean plastic problem is, to make a water-based floating dump truck. It will be designed just like a normal dump truck except with some upgrades. It will run off of the water that it's picking trash up from so that it won't leak oil. There will be a large net at the back that will push all the trash onto a large conveyor belt that will slowly bring it up into a grinder that will turn into microplastic that will soon be disposed when collected. 

Bibliography:

My evidence: https: //www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/


First picture: Taken by me, Rylee.


Ocean pollution picture: https://time.com/4133379/rio-water-pollution-olympics/


Ocean pollution meme: https://deathbytoxicwaste.wordpress.com/2018/05/30/hysterical-memes-hehehe/

by Rylee