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2/15/2019

flint, michigan after water crisis

2/8/2019

The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.

There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report. This way the teacher has the option! Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.

A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals… this is the lab book for you.
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what I was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now. It’s a great resource!

http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html

*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !

“Governor Gretchen Whitmer [of Michigan] plans to restructure the state environmental agency that drew criticism for its handling of the Flint water crisis under former Governor Rick Snyder, The Associated Press has learned.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality will become the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. The agency will house new public advocacy offices for clean water and ‘environmental justice’ to help ensure fair consideration of low-income and minority community interests, according to officials who briefed the AP ahead of an announcement scheduled for Monday. …

The environmental quality department came under fire after overseeing Flint’s ill-fated switch of drinking water sources in 2014. The city, under supervision of a financial manager appointed by Republican Snyder, stopped buying treated water from Detroit and began drawing from the Flint River, which was a move intended to save money while a new pipeline from Lake Huron was built.

Investigators later determined that DEQ officials misread federal guidelines and did not require use of corrosion-control additives. The river water gnawed away lead from pipes, joints and fixtures that contaminated drinking water in the majority-black city of 100,000, where in 2015 children were found to have elevated levels of the toxin in their blood.”
https://www.wsjm.com/2019/02/04/michigan-governor-revamping-deq-after-flint-water-crisis/

”The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality will become the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy. The agency will house new public advocacy offices for clean water and ‘environmental justice’ to help ensure fair consideration of low-income and minority community interests…”
https://detroit.cbslocal.com/2019/02/04/whitmer-revamps-medq-after-flint-water-crisis/#done

“The environmental quality department came under fire after overseeing Flint's ill-fated switch of drinking water sources in 2014. The city was under supervision of a financial manager appointed by Snyder … when it stopped buying treated water from Detroit and began drawing from the Flint River. The move intended to save money while a new pipeline from Lake Huron was built.

Investigators later determined that Department of Environmental Quality officials misread federal guidelines and did not require use of corrosion-control additives. The river water gnawed away lead from pipes, joints and fixtures that contaminated drinking water in the majority-black city of 100,000 people. In 2015, local children were found to have elevated levels of the toxin in their blood.

The department's director and top spokesman resigned, while criminal charges were filed against several other officials. …
Guy O. Williams, president & CEO of Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice, praised the moves as reflecting an understanding that ‘all Michigan citizens, regardless of race, income or zip code, should have clean air to breathe and safe water to drink.’ “
https://www.gazettextra.com/news/nation_world/michigan-governor-revamps-environmental-agency-after-flint/article_ad995e3e-87c1-5b88-9f5b-262d738ee9df.html#done

“The plan doesn’t change the environmental department’s core functions, such as issuing permits for air and water pollution and monitoring compliance. …Another emerging threat to Michigan’s water quality: the discovery of toxic chemicals known as per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, at dozens of locations around the state. Under Snyder, the DEQ [formerly the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality] and an interagency task force conducted statewide testing of drinking water sources and initiated cleanups at highly contaminated sites.”
https://apnews.com/e62fb840a14e4f8aa0bf7824666ff4b5

“Whitmer signed a separate order making the group a permanent fixture in the new department and assigning it to coordinate Michigan's PFAS actions, including continued searches for contaminated water supplies, informing the public and recommending new laws.

The department will consider a tougher standard for initiating cleanup action than the current threshold of 70 parts per trillion that is recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Clark said.

Additionally, the department will have a new office on climate policy that will seek ways to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and promote renewable energy while helping Michigan adjust to a warmer world.”
https://www.kansas.com/news/business/article225496085.html

Past blog posts about Flint, Michigan include:
10/08/2015     Current Event - Contaminated Drinking Water
                          [Flint, MI]
12/17/2015     Current Event -- Lead Poisoning [Flint,MI]
12/23/2016     Criminal Charges in Flint, Michigan

You may want to consult or collaborate with Social Studies teachers in your school about this series of events.

*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom. Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.

Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.

Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.

Have a great weekend!

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warmer oceans reduce ocean kelp forests

2/1/2019

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The book Chemistry on a Budget contains inexpensive chemistry labs that are useful with easy to obtain materials.

There are two versions of each lab, one with a ten-question conclusion and one with directions for a full lab report. This way the teacher has the option! Each lab is two pages to allow for one two-sided handout.

A 5-Star Customer Review of Chemistry on a Budget at amazon.com states:

“[S]traight forward, to the point, using household chemicals… this is the lab book for you.
I teach high school chemistry and this is exactly what I was looking for. Labs included simple household chemicals that could be easily found. Nice format, easy to follow along procedures, and touches on every topic of our chemistry curriculum.”

You can buy this lab book for $23 at amazon.com or lulu.com. It will take 1-2 weeks to get to you -- Order Now. It’s a great resource!

http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Budget-Marjorie-R-Heesemann/dp/0578129159/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1389410170&sr=1-1&keywords=chemistry+on+a+budget

http://www.lulu.com/shop/marjorie-r-heesemann/chemistry-on-a-budget/paperback/product-21217600.html

*Some of you have already purchased my lab book – be sure to check out Page 141 !

“ ‘…[T]he CO2 that humans are pumping into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels gets absorbed by the ocean and favours weedy turfs, which replace kelp forests that support higher coastal productivity and biodiversity,‘ project leader professor Sean Connell said in a University of Adelaide press release.
In order to compare current ocean carbon dioxide levels with those projected for the end of the century, researchers looked at volcanic seeps of carbon dioxide in the ocean.

They found that more carbon dioxide caused the weeds' natural predator, the sea urchins, to eat fewer of the plants, enabling the weeds to take over coastal ecosystems.

A weedier ocean is yet another consequence of ocean acidification, the process by which the carbon dioxide absorbed by the oceans forms carbonic acid and lowers the water's PH level. …

Acidification also poses a problem for hard-shelled animals like mollusks or coral, since it raises the level of hydrogen relative to carbonate ions in the water. Marine life uses carbonate ions to build shells and skeletons out of calcium carbonate, the BBC explained. This could lead to a 60 percent reduction in warm water coral reef calcification, which could weaken reef structure and make reefs, already vulnerable to coral bleaching due to warmer ocean temperatures, also more vulnerable to erosion.

Now, kelp forests have been added to acidification's hit list.
While they get less media attention than coral reefs, kelp forests provide important habitats for many species. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), kelp forests are home to more biodiversity than almost any other ocean ecosystem."
http://www.planetexperts.com/climate-change-cutting-planets-kelp-forests/

“A steady increase in ocean temperatures — nearly 3 degrees Fahrenheit in recent decades — was all it took to doom the once-luxuriant giant kelp forests of eastern Australia and Tasmania: Thick canopies that once covered much of the region’s coastal sea surface have wilted in intolerably warm and nutrient-poor water. Then, a warm-water sea urchin species moved in. Voracious grazers, the invaders have mowed down much of the remaining vegetation and, over vast areas, have formed what scientists call urchin barrens, bleak marine environments largely devoid of life.

Today, more than 95 percent of eastern Tasmania’s kelp forests — luxuriant marine environments that provide food and shelter for species at all levels of the food web — are gone. With the water still warming rapidly and the long-spine urchin spreading southward in the favorable conditions, researchers see little hope of saving the vanishing   ecosystem.“
https://climateprotection.org/oceans-warm-worlds-kelp-forests-begin-disappear/

“The Tasmanian saga is just one of many examples of how climate change and other environmental shifts are driving worldwide losses of giant kelp, a brown algae whose strands can grow to 100 feet. In western Australia, increases in ocean temperatures, accentuated by an extreme spike in 2011, have killed vast beds of an important native kelp, Ecklonia radiata. In southern Norway, ocean temperatures have exceeded the threshold for sugar kelp — Saccharina latissima — which has died en masse since the late 1990s and largely been replaced by thick mats of turf algae, which stifles kelp recovery.” https://e360.yale.edu/features/as-oceans-warm-the-worlds-giant-kelp-forests-begin-to-disappear

“Kelp forests are an at risk temperate marine eco-system. These forests grow worldwide in clear, relatively shallow, and nutrient-rich water whose temperatures are between 42–72 degrees… Sea Urchins are not the only species that is a threat to marine temperate environments. Migrating tropical fish can also cause enormous destruction to seaweed beds and kelp forests.”
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/12/11/1718277/-As-Oceans-Warm-the-World-s-Kelp-Forests-Begin-to-Disappear

“Environmentalists in many places are trying to take action to reverse this trend. In Tasmania, the best strategy is to boost populations of predatory rock lobsters, which prey on sea urchins. But once the urchin barrens form, there is basically no way back.

In California, sea otters are voracious predators of urchins, so there is more hope for the kelp in that area.

The concern about kelp is not just about the giant underwater algae itself. There are many marine animals that depend on kelp including abalone, commercially valuable urchin species and many kinds of fish. The destruction of the kelp forests is a major disruption of marine ecosystems that will have far-ranging impacts.”
https://earthwiseradio.org/podcast/disappearing-kelp-forests/

“Kelp forests, where otters hang out, are some of the most efficient absorbers of carbon dioxide known. Like any land-based forest, kelp forests sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, transforming it into the energy they need to build their leafy structure.

But these kelp forests are at risk from sea urchins: small, spiky marine animals that love munching on kelp. With no predators around, sea urchin populations can multiply, forming herds that sweep across the ocean floor devouring entire stands of kelp.

Fortunately, sea otters have an appetite for urchins. The otters help keep urchin populations in check, allowing kelp to flourish and capture more CO2. According to a recent study, otter-supported kelp forests can absorb up to 12 times more CO2 from the atmosphere than if they were just left to the urchins.”
https://kcts9.org/programs/in-close/environment/sea-otters-v-climate-change#done

Past blog posts about similar subjects include:
01/27/2017      2016 Warmest Year on Record
06/23/2017    Antarctica Melting
10/13/2017      Overview of Global Climate Change

*This Blog contains several entries that would be helpful to your chemistry classroom. Check out the Topic List to help you to find past Blog entries.

Also, Write To Me about your successes, challenges, or questions in the Chemistry Classroom.

Remember, buying a copy of the lab book Chemistry on a Budget can be very useful to your Chemistry classroom with labs and class article ideas.

Have a great weekend!

0 Comments

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flint, michigan after water crisis

warmer oceans reduce ocean kelp forests

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