FLOW, for the love of Water

Privatization
So today in science, we watched a video called Flow, for the love of Water. It was about clean drinking water in the world, and especially in the poor countries and how they struggle with clean water. In the poor countries that were in the video, the villagers were saying that some of the big water companies had bought out their chiefs, but they themselves could not be bought.

The companies that privatized the waterways that these people were using, promised the villagers that they would provide them clean drinking water, but these were only verbal promises, and none of them were put on paper, so no one could make the claim on the promises that they were given.

In some other cases, the people were told to move off the land that they had been living on for many generations, so a dam could be built. The villagers said they had no choice, they were told, and they weren't allowed to move their graves either.

It was very sad and it was very unfortunate and unfair to the people, and when they moved, their lives became much harder than they were before.

In another case, a village was told they could not use the water they were using, because it was not theirs.

In my opinion, no one owns water, and no one should be told they can't use it because its not theirs. Water is a natural resource and in some places, it can be very hard to find, and so I think it should be shared equally.

Water

For the past few science classes we've been watching dvds about water. Here are three quotes from the video:

"its melting away, its wasting away, I need it, there's no doubt about it". When I heard this quote, it made me think about how lots of people need water, but some people who have lots of water let it waste away down their drains. "its melting away" makes me think of global warming and how its melting our earths' glaciers and frozen water, and how it will affect polar bears, penguins, seals, leopard seals, and other wildlife that lives in earths icey waters.

"its what we've got, its all, thats it" makes me think about how limited our earths resources are becoming becouse people aren't thinking about how everything they do affects the world in little ways, but eventually all of those little things add up.

"every drop counts" remindes me about how people need to start thinking about new ways to conserve water because we can't keep ignoring the facts.

Ocean Currents as Alternative Energy

What I learned is: ocean currents are gaining significance as a possible form of alternative energy. Water is dense, and carries an enormous amount of energy, that could be possibly captured and converted into usable energy. The way to capture this energy would be through the use of water turbines. Turbines convert water into energy.

My connections: the dams that I see from the highway, and they are really big, and when the water flows through them they make kind of man-made waterfalls. They are all used to create alternative energy.

I wonder: how they measure the energy in the water, and what makes them choose the rivers and waterfalls they dam, and also how much impact the dams and turbines have on the wildlife in the area.

Ocean Currents

Last week in science class, we learned about ocean currents. Ocean currents are vertical and horizontal movements of both deep and surface water throughout the worlds oceans. Did you know they usually move in a specific direction, and help significantly to circulate the earths moisture, weather, and pollution?

Ocean currents are found all over the world, and vary in size, importance, and strength.

Surface currents are those found in the upper 400 meters (1,300 feet) of the ocean and make up about 10% of all the water in the ocean. Surface currents are mostly caused by the wind, because it creates friction as it moves over the water, and creates a spiral pattern, called gyres.

Did you know that gyres in the northern hemisphere spin clockwise, and gyres in the southern hemisphere spin counterclockwise? I wonder what would happen if they spun into each other. Would they create one huge gyre, or would they wear each other out till there was nothing left of either of them?

Mitochandria and Chloraplast

For the past 2 days in science we've been looking at pictures of the mitochondria and the chloroplast. Both the chloroplast and the mitochondria have an inner and outer membrane, and are similar in shape. Did you know that the mitochondria is found in lots of different kinds of cells, but the chloroplast is only found in plants and organisms that use photosynthesis?

Purpose of the Chloroplast: to absorb an energy from the sun called C02, and use it to convert carbon dioxide into an energy rich sugar called glucose. The glucose is then sent to the mitochondrion.

Purpose of the Mitochondrion:

Once the mitochondrion receives the glucose it goes to the inner membrane called the cristae. During a reaction of cellular respiration, the mitochondrion controls the energy within the glucose to make ATP. ATP is like a battery and will be sent and used in other parts of the cell.

Cells

Did you know that the first electron microscope was invented in the 1940's? As scientists began using microscopes, they discovered microorganisms, and were also enabled to view and study cells.

The first person to ever record looking at water with a light microscope was Anton van Leeuwenhoek. The light microscope was considered simple because it contained one lens and used natural light to view things.

Two other microscopes are the SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope), and the TEM (Transmission Electron Microscope). The SEM scans the surface of cells to learn their three dimentional shape. The TEM allows scientists to study structures within a cell.

Two basic cells are the Prokaryotic cells and the Eukaryotic cells. The Prokaryotic cells are cells that don't contain internal membrane-bound structures. Eukaryotic cells do contain internal membrane-bound structures.

Cell Theory:

All organisms are made up of one or more cells

The cell is the basic unit of organization of organisms

All cells come from preexisting cells