Eye Opener: Online Learning Activity

Okay, Sooo I thought this was a fun eye opener, I mean playing games while building your knowledge about health issues. Sounds like a fairly easy learning assignment to me.

The first game I played was...
Valerie's Health Care Wheel of Fortune!

I will be honest, I am not very bright when it comes to wheel of fortune. For some reason I can watch it on TV and guess the words from time to time but the problem I have is getting the word started. I did have luck at guessing a few of the words in this game. Thanks for the Challenge Valerie!



Second I played...
Sara H's Quit Smoking Quiz!

I got a A! Yup, 90 out of 100 points was my score. I got the question wrong about smoking affecting reproductive health in only women because I happen to read it wrong. This quiz was quite interesting...over 4000 chemicals packed into a cigarette! Are you kidding me! How would that not get people to not smoke along with the fact that over 420,000 people die each year from them.

The third game I played was...
Sam's Open Door To A Healthy Heart!

Honestly I took this quiz twice. The first time was after Sam had posted it. So I would have to say I did pretty good on it. Quite interesting to know that your heart beats over 100,000 times a day. That's a lot of work for that little guy.

Lastly, I played...
Shannon's Food Groups Game!

Ha...That was very fun! Cool how the groups started dancing once you complete sorting them out. This game started to make me hungry. Sorting those foods helped me remember what I need to buy for groceries.

I learned more than what I thought I would in completing all these activities. Nice work webgroup!!!

Eye Openers: Photo Essay

My plan with the photo essay was to show how it is quite simply to be environmentally friendly in a couple different ways. I think a lot of people feel that they must go to extremes to be energy savers and environmentally friendly which is not always true. Every little change in the way you affect the environment or use energy can add up to have an impact on the way you help out yourself to become more friendly to the environment.

Thinking back to my childhood years, It made me think about how you might have started out to be environmentally friendly without even knowing it, mainly because you learned to ride one of these...Over the years I have added to my collection...I'm proud to say that a bicycle and a longboard are the means for most of my transportation during the summer.







Don't forget that while your cruising around on your bicycle its always a good idea to be hydrated...but its even a better idea to be hydrated by an ecofriendly canteen...


So if you are using one of these ----->

It's not a bad idea to switch to
<-----these.






To be incredibly friendly to the environment you can use your bike to cruise on down to a local hardware store and purchase one of these... By far a very wise purchase...a money and energy saver! Speaking of money saving.


With the harsh winters in Duluth heating bills can be costly to us college students. Saving energy is as easy as putting plastic over the windows.








It's the simplistic things that can be done to show your environmentally friendly awareness and by doing them will make you feel better about your contribution to saving the environment.

Eye Openers: Summary of Reading # 24: Managing the Environmental Legacy of U.S. Nuclear-Weapons Production

From the start I found my article very interesting. It deals with nuclear weapons which all of us should know has a great deal of impact on our environment due to the radioactive material needed for production. Now don't get confused, its not talking about the USE of nuclear weapons but about the excess material lying around from production of these weapons and how are we going to manage the situation. There are six sections to my article that help in defining the situation of managing the environmental legacy of U.S. nuclear-weapons production.

Nuclear-Weapons Production

During the Cold War arms race with the Soviet Union engineering began on creating facilities that would either serve as two purposes, to recover uranium (a radioactive element used for nuclear production) from mined ore and the other for assembly, maintenance and testing. There are over 5,000 facilities constructed for those two reasons. However, the largest facilities built for the material productions and processing of radioactive elements are Hanford also known as the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), Oak Ridge and Savannah River in South Carolina. Those three facilities are ones mainly discussed throughout this article. Scientists at those facilities used uranium, plutonium (a transuranic (element with greater atomic number than uranium) radioactive element) and tritium to develop these weapons. They have estimated that around the 45 years of nuclear-materials production in the U.S. there has been about 103 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium obtained from Hanford and Savannah River. On top of that, 994 metric tons of uranium were obtained from Oak Ridge and two other small facilities. To put those numbers into perspective, one metric ton weighs 2,205 pounds. So we have a total of 2,418,885 pounds of surplus and highly hazardous nuclear weapons material that somehow has to be dealt with. Looking at a number that large of harmful material it makes me wonder how the government didn't think about only mining the amount need for production of a weapon. They plan on using some of that surplus into fuel for nuclear power plants and the rest will be disposed of in a geological repository, an underground storage unit for nuclear waste. Storing this stuff underground does not seem to be an environmentally safe solution if were looking into protecting the environment.

Environmental Consequences

2,418,885 pounds of surplus nuclear material. That of course has to have consequences on the environment. A lot of this excess material is being stored in special underground tanks at various storage sites. It has been reported that many tanks have leaked some of the material contained within. The DOE (Department of Energy) which governs the nuclear production facilities have reported that at the Oak Ridge facility which works in separating the lithium from tritium to be used for mercury (a heavy silver metal) has leaked about 110 metric tons into the Clinch River-Watts Bar Reservoir system. This reservoir happens to be used for recreation and municipal water supply. When dealing with elements used for nuclear weapons I don't see how they should make this type of mistake. The leak jeopardized a water supply and worse off it puts many people at risk of getting mercury poisoning from eat the fish. Waste material leakage isn't the only problem that has to be dealt with. Nuclear production generates waste that is directly released to the environment in the for of gases. Volatile which is vaporized gas produced during chemical processing is vented straight to our atmosphere not always being filtered. Much of the waste liquid produced from these sites is simply discharged into large surface ponds or into subsurface soil and groundwater. It is incredible how no guidelines were set up as to where or how these gases or waste liquids should be disposed of after the chemical process. Simply dispersing it into our environment does not help manage the environment. It is clear that the production of nuclear weapons exceeded the thought of waste management.

From Production to Clean-up

This section basically talks about the progression that has been made since the late 1980's and early 90's once the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was enacted and the Soviet Union broke up. The one that started this cleanup process is John Harrington, the energy secretary during that time. He shut down the nuclear reactor at the Hanford facility because the simply stated that the U.S. had no need for it being that the country was already "awash in plutonium." He then went onto creating the Office of Environmental Restoration and Waste Management that would establish its main mission: environmental cleanup. Although this program would not seem to accomplish milestones as quickly as hoped for. The DOE has had some successful cleanup points. A geological repository located in Carlsbad, New Mexico will help to dispose of 175,000 cubic meters of transuranic waste from nuclear weapons sites. These repository's are located 300 meters underground within a salt dome or bedrock and are said to be the home for much of the nuclear waste. It may not seem like too bad of an idea to store it in these repository's if it is going to keep the environment from being contaminated.

Reducing and Managing Risk

Described in this section of the article are the milestones that cleanup program hopes to accomplish while keeping the contamination at a minimum and employment rate constant at these facilities. However they have hit a roadblock in their attempts due to a major problem, the lack of technology to reach these milestones. In addition, the milestones hoped to be reached are not focused around protecting human and environmental health. How do you set up milestones that deal with the disposal of nuclear waste and don't focus a majority of the attention around public safety and environmental health. They are simply just laying down these milestones so that progress in the cleanup system can be measured. I think these milestones are a waste of time if the health or people and the environment are not taking into perspective.

Long-Term Stewardness

This final section simply stated that the environmental legacy of nuclear-weapons production will not be eliminated but more on the lines of being controlled. Of course it won't be able to completely be taken care of because we don't have a plan that can make the nuclear material disappear. If anything it is going to be underground, surveillanced, and maintenanced once in a while due to an occasional leak. The cleanup program is planned to continue for several decades even though there are many optimistic views. Once the right technology is developed then hopefully there will be great positive future outlooks for the environment.

My Thoughts

I found the article very interesting but a little lengthy. It was easy to understand that the author is trying to show how we have been cleaning up what has been left behind from the arms race era but yet even after a decade or more not much has been done. I think as of right now the problem is the lack of technology. Your dealing with radioactive, highly acidic and harmful material that you can not have many options in a way to dispose of the nuclear waste. The best bet would to use what you can for nuclear energy and then simply store the rest so that the total amount will drop. I wouldn't like it to be used for nuclear energy because that's just leading to more pollution but storing it underground in specialized tanks that eventually erode and leak would seem to pose more of a threat to our environment if it were to leak into a underground water bed. Overall I learned a lot from reading this article and hope that our new Secretary of Energy Stephen Chu will bring better ideas to the table.

Discussion:

Due to the little progress with the cleanup program and continuous holding of the nuclear waste at facilities , is it possible that the U.S. doesn't exactly want to conduct a full cleanup thinking that it could lead to an increased risk of a terrorist attack?

Online Sources

Yucca Nuclear Waste Site Proposal: A Bad Idea For Future Generations
By: Brooke Neuman

I found one article that talked about the plans of disposing the nuclear waste material into the Yucca Mountains in Nevada. Brooke Neuman the author of the source finds the idea of disposing the material embedded underground as simply foolish. We are simply just leaving it behind for the future generations to deal with. He states that if the proposal does pass and activation for the Yucca Mountains begins in 2010 it would still take 50 to 100 years in transporting the material. It seems that no matter what the outcome may be it is inevitable that we will be leaving the waste behind for future generations to handle.

Nuclear Waste Storage Plan Will Be Safe, Minister Says
By: Shawn McCarthy

This article contradicts what Brooke Neuman was saying about storing waste underground. The Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn of Canada states that nuclear power repository plans are clean and safe and is the best way to handle the problem. You joking! Everything kept in those repository's is not close to being clean and safe. I'm going to have to go with Brooke Neuman on this subject being that Gary Lunn thinks storing nuclear waste in a location underground will directly be safe and clean with no negative outlook on the future at all...not even for our future generations.

Definitions

Radioactive- emitting or relating to the emission of ionizing radiation or particles

Repository- a place where things are or may be stored

Mercury- chemical element of atomic number 80, a heavy silvery white metal that is liquid at ordinary temperatures

Plutonium- a transuranic element with a fissile isotope of mass number 239 (plutonium 239) that can be produced from non-fissile uranium

Uranium- a chemical element of atomic number 92, used as a fuel in nuclear reactors

Volatile- a substance easily evaporated at normal temperatures

Methylmercury- any of several extremely toxic organometallic compounds, Hg(CH₃)₂, formed from metallic mercury by the action of microorganisms and capable of entering the food chain: used as seed disinfectants.

Transuranic- Having an atomic number greater than 92.

(Definitions from Dictionary.com and Mac widget dictionary)

Additional Resources

Yucca Mountain Repository
http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/ym_repository/index.shtml

Is Everything We Use In Everyday Life Radioactive?
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/faqs/consumerproducts.html

Eye Operners: CSPI

I started off with this eye opener by taking a Tour the Food Supply on Center for Science in Public Health website. That was quite an interesting tour. One of the most interesting facts I came upon was that 22 billing pounds of fertilizer would be capable of providing energy to 1 million Americans for a full year! I hope that sometime soon we find an environmental safe way of converting that fertilizer into energy. Something that really disgusted me was the amount of pesticides farmers are using on there crops. And some people wonder why there are consumer buying these foods and getting sick from them. Same thing with outbreaks of food borne illnesses. It is very unlikely that the slaughter house are keep clean but yet those houses are allowed to sell there product to supermarkets. A lot of interesting facts that seem to be ignored by a majority of people.

The Eating Green Calculator is a system that lets you see how your diet is compared to its affects on the environments health. I found out that the environmental burden from the animals I eat a year si 1.0 acres of grains and grass, 36.3 pounds of fertilizer, .3 pounds of pesticides, and 6323 pounds of manure produced from those animals. From my point of view I think its bad that what I eat affects the enviornment by the much. That makes me think about what impact larger people with higher food intake affect our environment. I think it would be possible for me to improve my diet. It would be harder for me during the summer times but during the winter I think it would be much easier.

I then scored my diet by taking Score Your Diet on the same website. This gave me an insight into how the food I eat is affecting the environment and animal welfare. I felt that this was not a very accurate test to take because the selection of servings it gives you in the drop down menus do not fully fit my serving amounts I usually eat. But of course I don't exactly write down my serving sizes so I had to estimate anyway. After entering my serving sizes I found that I scored the highest was in beef, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. I ties with fruits (3) and veggies (3), with whole grains (2) coming in third and beef (0) in fourth. I had all zeros for beef because I very rarely eat beef during the winter. Now if I were to take this during the summer time when I can start up the grill my beef consumption would be much higher. As for my lowest scores, these came in cheese (-17) and milk (-6) consumption. I have to think of ways to change my impact on the environment side of food because I scored the lowest in that category. I could change that number by eating more fat-free product. Overall I had an Uh-oh score of -18...which isn't a good number to be sitting at. It says I need help so I have to try and change my diet in way that will benefit our environment and animal welfare.

All of this means to me that my diet can have a great impact on the environment. I never really thought how what I eat can impact the environment until I did this eye opener. It will make me think of ways to improve my dieting so that I can feel better about my tracks that I leave on our environment. This eye opener definitely opened up my eyes in a new way to help out the environment.

Eye Openers: Ecoogical Footprint

After taking the Ecological Footprint quiz, probably the most interesting thing I found out is that if everyone lived the way I do we would need 4.4 planets to provide everyone with enough resources. Holy smokes, that's a lot. To add to that, it would take 19.7 global acres of Earth's productive area to support the way I live. What really struck me is that, having 19.7 global acres would result in 21.1 tons of carbon dioxide a year. Being that we would need 4.4 planets to provide enough resources if everyone lived the way I do makes me hope that there is a lot of people who may be living a more resource valued life to make up for my usage. I'll be thinking of ways to lower my rate of 4.4 planets. The use of electricity was the highest when I looked at what I use to support my lifestyle. Of course electricity will be the highest for mostly everyone but it reminds me that I have to do what I can to conserve that energy and use it to the very least. I know I forget to shutdown my computer for the night or leave the TV on when I'm not even watching it. Those are things I will change.

The second quiz I took was the Score Your Diet quiz. I thought this was a pretty useful tool in judging how well you diet yourself. I think to many people are to busy to actually pay attention to their diet so I find tools like this helpful to give me an insight on what I should maybe eat more or less of. I found out that I should be eating more fish and less beef. I grew up with my paps pretty much cooking meals with meat in them probably 70 percent of the time so that's been past on into my cooking abilities. My health score was a 7, while my environmental score was a -11 and my animal welfare score was a -6. For some reason I feel like those numbers are necessarily right but It's hard to select exactly how many servings you had of what. Either way it makes me think of how to improve my diet. Guess I'll be thinking of new meals to cook.

The third quiz I took was the Transport Impact Calculator. Once I started taking it I thought I would have a much worse impact on generating emissions but I found out that my annual pollution for road transport is better than average. Good thing I have a car that gets nearly 30 mpg. Thanks Toyota. I generate the most pollution while on trips to visit family, make sense to me since they live about four and half hours away. My sollution to cutting my emission rate is to car pool more often and to catch the bus more than what I have been doing.

I found these three quizes very helpful. They've made me realize a lot of what I do effects the environment. Not only that but what I'm doing I need to change so that I can have more of a positive effect on our planet. I will always be thinking of ways to go greener.

Welcome to Noah's Greenlicious Environmental Blog!

Hey! Welcome to my Greenlicious Environment!

Hi! Welcome to my Greenlicious blog! My name is Noah, I am majoring in Healtcare Management at UMD. I created this blog for my Environmental Health class and it is going to be used to talk about environmental issues as well as a place for NON-PAPER ASSIGNMENTS!

There are 5 possible types of posts on my blog. They include:

1. Advocacy Project
2. Eye Openers
3. Reflections
4. Reviews
5. Share and Voice

If you notice at the bottom of this post, the categories will be listed as labels. This post is has been labeled with all five kinds of posts. (Use the "label actions" feature in the edit posts tab to add the labels.) You will also see the number of each kind of post in my Labels Gadget at the top of the page. (Place labels gadget below blog header but above blog text). All post titles from now on will begin with one of the categories above.

The members of my web group are:

1. Shannon: Keepin' It Green With Shannon
   
2. Brenda: Brenda's Environmental Health
   
3. Sarah: Sarah H's Safe Environment
   
4. Samantha: Running with the Wild
   
5. Valerie: The Spring Girl
   

You can subscribe to my blog by clicking the subscribe gadget in the gadget column. You can also follow my blog by clicking "Follow this Blog" in the gadget column. I am subscribed to all the blogs in my blog list gadget. You can see my complete profile and all the blogs I am following by clicking on "See Complete Profile." (Make sure all these gadgets are in place).

Thanks for checking it out! Continute to think GREEN!