Special Animals All Around the World

Sign that has endangered
animal (1). 

Imagine yourself with your parents walking through a zoo and seeing all different kinds of animals. On the right you see these pretty looking birds and on the left you see all sorts of gorillas and apes. As you keep walking, you past one animal, the Amur Tiger, and see a sign. It reads, “Endangered Animal”. You think to yourself, “What is that?!” and stand there wondering about this strange creature. 

There are many animals like the Amur Tiger that are endangered. Endangered animals are a group of organisms that have a risk of becoming extinct (2). This means that these certain types of animals are close to being gone FOREVER. Endangered animals live in many different places and live differently than other animals. They are in great danger and are threatened by things in the world that are trying to get rid of them. These are special creatures and there are not a lot of them in the world like others.

Endangered animals become endangered in three different ways. One reason is because the place that they are living at is getting destroyed and is running out. There are also bigger and stronger animals that eat up small animals which cause endangerment. Or, there is not enough animals left in the world to make baby animals and have them grow up (2). 

The Amur Tiger living in the zoo, is not actually from there. It is found in another country way across the ocean. The Amur Tigers are found In Russia, China and Korea. The tigers live in forests and get their food from there. The   house that you live

Amur Tiger walking in the forest (3). 

in is your safe place where you can relax and have fun in. The forest is the tigers' safe place for them. The place is full of plants and trees and gives the tigers a place to eat and have fun. 

The reasons why the Amur Tiger is endangered is because their habitat, or home, is being destroyed and people are breaking the law and hurting them. People today are trying to find places to put

Trees that are chopped down in the tigers' home (3).

homes and other buildings so they chop down trees in the forests where the tigers live (3). They destroy everything and leave the tigers with barely anything. Think about how you would feel if your safe place got taken away from you. This is how the tigers are and do not know where to turn to. People are also hurting these Amur Tigers and poaching them. Poaching means that they killing and selling these special tigers' bones, skin and fur for money. How scary! This is against the law but many people still do it (3). 

However, there are good people out there who are trying to save the tigers. Humans are finding new places for the tigers to live at like the zoo or an area only for that animal. Also, they are watching how many tigers there are left and helping them make more. Giving these animals more food and water is something else that is helping the tigers more and more each day (3). 

Not only do people help out with endangered tigers, but they also try to save other endangered animals too, everywhere on earth. Saving these special animals is very important to everyone, even you. These animals help with giving the earth different kinds of cool and special animals. Just seeing them and knowing they are out there is pretty awesome. Animals help us farm and give us food so that we can eat every day (4). 

 

Next time you go to a zoo or any place that has animals and learn that they are endangered, you will know what they are talking about. You can feel like a grown up and let your parents know what you know!  

3. Amur Tiger. (n.d.). Retrieved November 26, 2014, from https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/amur-tiger
2. Evans, M. (2011, May 29th). Endangered Species. Retrieved November 28th, 014, from http://www.earthtimes.org/encyclopaedia/environmental-issues/endangered-species/

1. New Endangered Species App. [photograph]. (2012, May 2). Retrieved November 28, 2014, from http://www.wdcs.org/wdcskids/en/news.php?select=1222
4. Why Save Species? (n.d.). Retrieved November 29, 2014, from http://www.fws.gov/endangered/species/why-save-species.html

A World Without Trees

Now just imagine the world without trees. Picture barren land and deserts replacing our most beautiful forests we have in this world today. This might make you upset, but we as humans are responsible for this happening in the future. People like you and I use products that come from trees just about every single day! In fact, wood from trees has been one of the most often used for building materials for household objects (1). For example, think about household wooden objects you and your family use on a daily basis. Here is a list of some you might think of.

A dresser is an example of a commonly
 used item by a household.

     Household Wooden Objects
          - Dinner table    - Picture frames
          - Coffee table     - Night Stands
          - Cabinets          - Bookshelves
          - Dressers          - Chairs  
          - Beds                - Stools
          - Railings           - Chests

Agriculture

Those are examples of wooden objects that all come from the resource of trees. Another cause for trees being cut down is agriculture. Farmers need to expand their fields for crops or for grazing cattle. So in order to expand, farmers cut down trees to make more space. This only adds to the sum of the number of trees being cut down. 

Paper Production

       - Logging operations which help provide the world's paper products, also cut countless trees.

       - 25 % of the world's lumbar harvest goes toward paper production (2).



Cities Expanding

Along with farming and the need to produce paper, cities growing are yet another reason for cutting down lots of trees. As more and more people move to a city, that city needs to expand in order to deal with all those people. Therefore, to expand cities we must cut down trees in order to make that space available for construction. 

                                                                                              

        Summary

This problem of cutting down trees is fueled by all of these reasons. I hope you now know that trees were cut down in order to make a lot of your household objects. Also of how farming, the need for paper, and cities expanding help contribute to the massacre of trees. With all these factors contributing, our world might suffer from much barren land and deserts very, very soon. 

References

(1) Bragaw, D. (2012). Issues in global education. Retrieved from http://www.globaled.org/

(2) Bryant, P.J. (n.d). Biodiversity and conservation: A hyper text book. Retrieved from http://darwin.bio.uci.edu

Rescuing Whales of the World

                        RESCUING WHALES OF THE WORLD

Splash! Imagine sitting in the stands at Sea World in Disney World watching the enormous killer whales put on an amazing show. But, what if you or anybody else could no longer watch these wonderful performances because the whales no longer existed. Killer whales, along with many other types of whales suffer from being hunted for various different reasons. Whale hunting or whaling occurs from the occupation of catching and extracting commercial products from whales (1).



Even though this cartoon is poking fun at whale
hunting, it still captures the aspect of how most
whales are hunted and killed.



Where &Why Whale Hunting  Happens: Whale hunters engage in the capturing and killing of whales because once they sell different parts of the whale to food markets they in return earn money for their labor. Whaling happens all over the world, but a more exact place where this happens is in Iceland. Iceland has accepted this issue that so many people are against for a very long time now. For this reason, the United States has tried to help change Iceland’s views on whale hunting for quite sometime now because Iceland earns a good portion of there money by selling fin whale parts and products to the common person that lives in Iceland (2).

                       Effects of Whaling:

The industry of whaling has hurt their population since whale hunting has been around. The numbers are so high that some of the different species of whales are now considered endangered. Still focusing on Iceland, their involvement of selling whale parts for a cash profit in return went against an official document known as The Fisherman’s Protective Act of 1967, which protected the whales from being hunted because whale hunters were no longer able to sell products of an animal that was on the endangered species list (2). By these whale hunters still participating in whaling, they were technically breaking the law and continuing to increase the possibility that the whales living off the coast of Iceland would eventually become extinct.

A killer whale performs in front of an audience. Although
it's not in its natural habitat, it is safe from being hunted
by whalers.

Protecting All Whales:

 Methods to protect these whales that are being hunted day in and day out have been put in place so that the entire whale population will no longer be endangered or even worse become extinct. Multiple documents have been written and put in place so that hunting these animals in many places around the world is illegal. One written document put in place in the United States is The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 that is attempting an ecological role for all marine mammals (3). In Iceland, organizations are pushing for nonlethal ways of using the whales in the wild by observing them for educational and scientific research to protect them from extinction (2). Finally one of the most common ways of protecting these large animals is by taking them out of the wild and inhabiting the whales in locations such as Sea World in Disney World. Although this form of conservation has it’s negative effects as well, the whales are protected from being hunted and less likely to become endangered or extinct (4).

References

(1) Whaling (Full Definition). (n.d.) Merriam-Webster Online. In Merriam-Webster. Retrieved November 17, 2014 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/whaling

(2) Daily Compilation of Presidential Documents. (2014, April 1). Memorandum on Pelly certification and Icelandic whaling.

(3) Roman, J., Altman, I., Dunphy-Daly, M., Campbell, C., Jansy, M., & Read, A.J. (2013). The marine mammal protection act at 40: Status, recovery, and future of U.S. marine mammals.  Annals of the New York academy of sciences, 1286, Issue 1, p29-49. doi: 10.1111/nyas.12040

(4) Oteyza, M. & Cowperthwaite, G (Producers) & Cowperthwaite, G. (Director). July 19, 2013. Blackfish.

Figure 1 Whale Cartoon Image. Retrieved from Cartoonstock website: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/w/whaling.asp

Figure 2 Orca Image. 2014. Retrieved from The Washington Fancy website: http://thewashingtonfancy.com/2012/02/13/peta-calls-for-animal-abortion-rights-planned-parenthood-reaches-out-to-new-species/10776

 Eco-Friendly

          

Figure 1: This car saves the Earth every day!

    America’s automotive industry has changed very much from thousands of years ago until now. The

form of transportation use to consist of walking and a horse and buggy until the first car came along. Automotive, automobile, and vehicle simply means the cars that are being driven on the roads everyday. The first vehicle was made in the late 1600’s. Cars have come such a long way, from being just a gasoline powered engine to a gasoline and electric engine. An engine is what powers the vehicle which allows it to perform and make the car run. Technology has become so advanced and modified over the years, and it has made all of the transformations possible from computers to cellphones to hybrid cars. With a hybrid car, the environment can be more safe and eco friendly. Car makers started to think of new ways a better engine could consist of and they came up with the electric and gasoline engine. 
           
        The first hybrid vehicle was built in 1839, by Robert Anderson (Berman, 2011). Hybrid cars are known to be more safe because they do not give off nearly as much pollution as just a gasoline powered car does. Pollution is very harmful to the environment, so if it is not taken care of early, serious problems can occur. Since hybrid cars are safe, they are beneficial into keeping our world a cleaner and healthier place to live. Also, with owning a hybrid vehicle, it saves the driver a lot of money. Even though these kind of vehicles cost a little bit more money up front, with having the ability to run on electric as well, it saves a lot of money. 



     

This car is powered by batteries that are rechargeable!

  For years to come, technology will just going to keep getting better and better, and cars are going to eventually be gas free and will all be eco friendly. Vehicles are already halfway there, since some of them already consist of half gas and half electric. For the future, everyone wants to live in a healthy and pollution free environment, so with that being said gasoline free vehicles is a big help with all of this. Also, saving money in the long run really helps people out. I think that that since young children are being taught today about new advances in technology they will continue to make all the best options possible to have a healthy environment. They will come up with an even better way to have no more gasoline powered engines so save the environment.

References:
 Figure 1: Seymour, Deb. (2014) Deb Goes Green (Photograph) Retrieved from

www.debgoesgreen.com

 

Figure 2: Ditzhazy, A.C (2011) Innovative Battery Technology Fuels Electric Cars Quickly (Photograph) Retrieved from http://campus.albion.edu/acditzhazy/files/2011/03/german_electric_car1.jpg 

Source 3: Berman, Brad (2011) . Hybrid Cars . Retrieved from http://www.hybridcars.com

The Absorbent Monster Gas!

(2)

 

WHAT IS THIS MONSTER?

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Sponge Bob Square Pants! But what else acts like a sponge, lingers earth’s atmosphere, and is not nearly as nice and squishy as the smiley face square creature that lives in the ocean? That would be greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases are the gases that are causing the earth to slowly keep getting hotter. These gases are released from things like cars, industrial buildings, and electricity. The three major gases that are contained within those objects stated before are methane, ozone, and carbon dioxide. These gases do the same thing our happy, yellow critter on the ocean floor does; absorb. But, these gases don’t absorb water, they absorb heat. The sun shoots down beams of UV (Ultra Violet) rays down on earth. Instead of being reflected back into the universe, these rays are absorbed by the greenhouse gases. The reason theses gases act like sponges are because they are made up Nitrogen and Oxygen. Both these gases are GHG molecules, which are the molecules that act as the sponges and are absorbing all of the sun’s heat (1). These “sponge” molecules soak up all of the sun and squeeze that heat out right back into earth’s atmosphere, creating what we call global warming and in-turn making earth hotter.

These terrible gases can be stopped though. The only way this is possible if people earth start to take action

 

 

TAMING THE BEAST!

(3)

-       Driving eco-friendly cars

-       Using less heat at home

-       Transporting with non-motor vehicles (eg. Bicycles)

-       Creating more safe bicycle, walking, and hybrid vehicle lanes

-       Create more oxygen-producing organisms

-       Producing more lower-emission vehicles

 

 

THE MONSTER AND YOU

In the daily American lifestyle all these reduction goals are hard to achieve though. When it gets cold in the winter it’s extremely hard to stay comfortable if you don’t turn that heat on. Same thing when you want to go have a play date at your friend’s house. If your not going to walk, mom is going to have to drive you in her Chevrolet. What about when you want that new video game that just came out? Without industries mass-producing products, that game would only be available for a select few people. All of those things that you want can’t be obtained without greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. Start telling your parents that you want to stop releasing these evil gases and help stop the earth from over-heating. The earth is our home, start treating it with as much care as possible!

(1) Russell, R. (2007). A simple explanation of the greenhouse effect. The Greenhouse Effect & Greenhouse Gases. http://www.windows2universe.org

(2)  http://spongebob.wikia.com/wiki/File:Spongebob_SquarePants.jpg

(3) http://greenliving4live.com/2013/08/hybrid-cars-positive-effect-environment/

The Travels of Sojourner The Mars Rover

The Travels of Sojourner the Mars Rover

The Planet Mars. (4)

          Sojourner the Mars Rover was the first robot to ever land on the planet Mars. He was a robot who had six wheels and a tiny body about the size of a remote control car. He had a camera attached to his body and received energy from the sun through a panel attached to his back. Sojourner was a special robot because he had been where no human or robot had ever been before. He was rolling through the surface of Mars! But Sojourner just didn’t go to Mars for the fun of it. He had a job to do and a lot of responsibility on his robotic shoulders. He had to explore and investigate the unknown and dangerous surface of Mars.

Sojourner the Rover (Clip Art)

        Sojourner’s job was to take pictures of this red desert-like land and send them back to scientists on earth. It was a very risky job for Sojourner to travel the rocky deserts of Mars, and Sojourner was all alone. He had no other rover friends to help him explore.

       Sojourner had spent years exploring until one day he saw in the distance what looked like two more rovers. Sojourner excitedly wheeled towards these two rovers and introduced himself.

          “Hi, my name is Sojourner” he said.

          “Hello! My name is Spirit” said the one rover, “And I’m Opportunity” said the other.

Spirit and Opportunity (Clip Art)

          Sojourner noticed that Spirit and Opportunity were much bigger than he was and had a lot more tools attached to their bodies. They had bigger cameras, bigger solar panels attached to their backs, tools to dig through the ground, and drills to drill through rocks (5). They were supposed to look and dig for water as well as take more picture of the surface of mars (5). What Sojourner also noticed was that these two rovers were exactly the same, almost like they were twins.

           Although Sojourner had new friends, they didn’t stay long. Spirit and Opportunity had bigger missions to accomplish and were headed to the polar ice caps of Mars to look for water (3). Sadly, Sojourner was again alone and without a companion.

         Many years passed and Sojourner had completed all the missions that the scientist asked of him. While wondering around the red planet one day, Sojourner saw in the distance a massive rover digging through the dirt and drilling through rock. This rover was almost the size of the car and had a robotic arm attached to its body along with digging and drilling tools (5). He was a state of the art rover equipped with all sorts of advanced technology Even though Sojourner was intimidated by this huge rover he gathered the courage to introduce himself.

       “Hello my name is Sojourner”

       “Hi. I’m Curiosity! You’ve been here for a long time haven’t you? Have you seen any aliens? I’m supposed to be looking for intelligent life here on Mars.”

        “Well I haven’t seen any green men walking around here and I’ve been here for years. But if you dig through the dirt you might find smaller aliens. They may not be green and they’re probably microscopic”

Curiosity the Biggest Rover (1)

          When Curiosity heard this news he seemed to be disappointed. He was expecting to see big green aliens on the planet but now all he could hope to find were tiny organisms in the soil. Sojourner, being an experienced traveler of Mars, offered to guide Curiosity through the rocky terrain. Curiosity, who was very happy to have some company took Sojourner along with him to help him complete his mission. Sojourner finally had a companion to travel with on the barren and deserted planet. He was no longer alone.

Curiosity (2)

    
 Sojourner, Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity still rove around the surface of Mars today looking for signs of life, searching for water, taking pictures, and digging through soil. These robots may be far away on a distant planet, but the work they do is still very important. Who knows, maybe one day these rovers will find big green aliens on the planet Mars! 
   

References

   
 1. Curiosity the Biggest Rover [Online Image]. (2014). Retrieved from   https://www.pinterest.com/pin/554083560377423305/

    
2.Curiosity [Online Image]. Retrieved from http://www.fotosearch.com/UNN011/u551573  

     
  3.Grotzinger, J. (2013). Field trip on mars: Curiosity, the mars rover, is the next best thing to being there. National Geographic, 28. Retrieved from http://eds.b.ebscohost.com/eds/detail/detail?vid=16&sid=460a8f07-d06a-4915-ba71- fc5091a92e3a%40sessionmgr111&hid=126&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWRzLWxpdmU%3d#db=edsgao&AN=edsgcl.336843582

     
 4.The Planet Mars [Online Image]. Retrieved from https://images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A0LEVvBAPH1UdDUABwQPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBsa3ZzMnBvBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkAw--?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-Elex-elex_v9&sz=all&va=mars+clip+art&hspart=Elex&hsimp=yhs-elex_v9

5. Wright, A. (2013). Revving the Rover. Communications Of The ACM, 56, 14-16. doi:10.1145/2408776.2408782