March 6, 2013

                             height of sun

8:00 am 15ft 6 1/2in facing 287 degrees      = .21       28 degrees

10:45 am 4 ft facing 325 degrees                 = .82       

5:00 pm 10 ft 7in facing 89 degrees              = .31       17 degrees

3ft 3 1/2in object

tan = o/a = length of stick/length of shadow

example of what to do

In Darwin’s Dilemma there are mysterious sudden appearance of dozens of major complex animal types in the fossil record without any trace of the gradual transitional steps Charles Darwin had predicted in his theory. Instead different species belonging to several of the main divisions of the animal kingdom suddenly appear in the lowest known fossiliferous rocks without any evidence of prior ancestral forms. It also makes other arguments for the supposed impossibility of getting new genetic information by Darwinian natural selection process.

Nearing completion, China's massive Three Gorges Dam is altering the landscape and the lives of people living along the Yangtze River. In the movie they said that a lot of ancient villages and historic sites would become submerged under water, and at least 2 million people or more would lose their homes. China has set out to harness the Yangtze with the world’s largest mega-dam. In the movie a family sends their 16 year-old daughter to work in the cruise ship industry that has sprung up to give tourists a last glimpse of the legendary river valley but she doesn’t want to go. however, this is the only way she can help her family because both of her parents are out of work. She has to leave her family behind and give up her dreams of continuing further in her education to work. As she works on the cruise ship the water slowly rises everyday and eventually her family has to gather all of their possessions because the water is rising and their home will be submerged underneath. At the end of the movie most of everything that used to be there is gone because it’s submerged underwater.

 

A long time ago scientist began to have theories about how the scablands were formed. The scablands are a huge region of the united states. It is just east of Seattle, Washington. The scablands have hundreds of gorges like a canyon that are hundreds of feet deep, there are huge boulders that are scattered across it, hills with ripples, and a water fall bigger than the Niagara but there is no water. In the mystery of the mega flood there was a scientist, geologist J. Harlen Bretz, who had a radical theory about how the scablands were created. He believed that they were formed by a catastrophic water flow and at the time most scientist believed that it was formed by a gradual erosion overtime. The main reason why most scientist didn’t believe his theory was because there was no source of water for what Bretz was talking about at the time. It had not yet been identified. His fellow scientists and colleagues thought that he was crazy in his theory. However, they all changed their minds later when evidence turned up to back up the scientist's theory. There were traces of an ancient ice dam alongside a Montana valley, which held in millions of gallons of water, until the dam itself melted  and it sent sending raging waters across the Pacific Northwest bull dozing everything in its path.

In the Flood of 1994 rivers and lakes across Georgia got bigger, breaking dams and levees, including the 30-foot-tall, mile-long levee running from the Otis Redding Bridge to the Industrial Park past Central City Park in Macon, GA. All the lower portion of East Macon was flooded. Below the city the Southern railway tracks were covered in water.  About 500,000 people in seven counties including Bibb, Lamar, Butts and Sumter counties had shortages of drinking water, some for as long as a week. Worries included industries not being able to run for months because freight rail lines were shut down by washed-out bridges and hazardous chemical sites flooded the area and had the potential to cause significant environmental problems. 

The Perfect Storm

A storm that absorbed hurricane grace. The Perfect Storm originated from a cold front that exited the east coast of the United States. The cyclone got bigger as a result of the difference of temperature between the cold air to the northwest and the warmth and humidity from Hurricane Grace. The perfect storm was the combination of Hurricane Grace and a non-tropical system that created such a massive storm. The two storms had come together just right so they were able to feed off of one another the way that they did. Grace had weakened just enough so that it could be pulled in by the non-tropical system, but still contained enough deep moisture for it to feed into the cold. When tropical moisture is added to cold air in such a way it creates enormous amounts of energy, which leads to increased rain and wind. Which in the movie created called the perfect storm the waves in the ocean that the boat was traveling in were massive causing the boat to be taken under water and turned over and the winds made it hard for the coast guard to go and rescue people; even in rescue boats also because the current from the wind and the storm were too strong.

Cruz Plaza

infrastructure contributes to the economic output of a region, it is an important measure of productivity. However, developing efficient and cost-effective transport infrastructure is challenging. When deciding what to build, infrastructure planners and policy makers often need to balance complex political, economic, social, and environmental tradeoffs. In safety issues structural stability takes a look at the risks and prevents unintentional structural collapse  and the measures you need to take to prevent accidents in excavations. Next is electrical safety in construction where workers take precautions against the risk of death or injury from electricity. In fire safety they work to avoid fire hazards involving but not limited to storing combustible/flammable materials safely away from sources of ignition in buildings. T Erosion is a natural process that can be greatly accelerated by human activities, especially those that change or remove vegetation or that disturb the soil. Temporary sediment control practices include those practices that intercept and slow or detain the flow of storm water to allow sediment to settle and be trapped. These practices can consist of installing temporary linear sediment barriers (such as silt fences , fiber rolls, sandbag barriers, and straw bale barriers). There are some others but these are the most important ones.

http://construction.about.com/od/Federal-Agencies/tp/Tips-Controlling-Sediment-And-Erosion-Problems.htm

http://www.nonprofitrisk.org/tools/workplace-safety/public-sector/topics/ct/construct-ps.htm