Leach-ate is a problem that isn't talked about much in the environmental conversation (in my nine months of experience). It starts as rainfall, and travels down through the waste that exist in landfills. Along the way, it collects toxic metals that are contained such as cadmium, lead, mercury. This in turn makes its way down into the groundwater, poisoning it and making it undrinkable to all people and unsuitable for fish habitats.
In class, we discussed how many landfills don't meed to the requirements to properly decompose and can be a potential leach-ate producer for decades. This is why most landfills that were constructed in modern times have a layer of clay and plastic along the bottom to stop the infiltration from occurring. Our practice for the AP exams also cover the fact that the leach-ate can be captured and converted into water for other uses like drinking water or plumbing.
A question I have is for you, Mr. Schreer. Do you read all these? I tried all year to make you laugh and I don't even know if you see it. I've enjoyed this class quite a bit, it has been the only science class I've looked forward to coming to, much less get a decent grade in.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
Trying to Land on a solution
This weeks articles covered a subject that was extremely interesting and also quite relevant to our class (Quiz on it tomorrow). They discussed how land use is a growing concern for people across the globe. Many forests, marshes, and swamps are being converted into either cities (with impermeable surfaces) or farmland. To get here, the habitats of thousands of plants and animals is destroyed to create a nice and flat surface to construct an Arbies on. This demolishes food webs on a global scale and is causing many ecosystems to collapse or clash with human migrations.
In class, we discuss foresting and the effect it has on nature. If I cut down all the pine trees in my home town to plant coconut trees, all the woodpeckers, owls, squirrels, and insects that lived there have to move somewhere else. The resources in that area will then be strained, which leads to a collapse of the ecosystem due to lack of food, and lots of baby owls trying to figure out where their mom is. Seen here -> https://goo.gl/images/XxHhdm
A question I have relates to mountains. I predict that mountains are the last sort of ecosystem that remains undisturbed by human construction due to their inconvenient terrain. Is this true? I wonder if the populations of mountains have increased due to many species retreating towards them from their demolished homes.
In class, we discuss foresting and the effect it has on nature. If I cut down all the pine trees in my home town to plant coconut trees, all the woodpeckers, owls, squirrels, and insects that lived there have to move somewhere else. The resources in that area will then be strained, which leads to a collapse of the ecosystem due to lack of food, and lots of baby owls trying to figure out where their mom is. Seen here -> https://goo.gl/images/XxHhdm
A question I have relates to mountains. I predict that mountains are the last sort of ecosystem that remains undisturbed by human construction due to their inconvenient terrain. Is this true? I wonder if the populations of mountains have increased due to many species retreating towards them from their demolished homes.