7annie

Hey Mr. Bruns

After calculating the number of gas mileage per week, how much recycling I do, and my electric bill, I realize my family and I put a lot of CO2 emissions into the air every week! My total emissions are 57,766, and if I took the listed actions I could reduce that to 14,265.

In my family we have a total of five people. The average mileage on one of our cars is about 480 miles a week, which is just including my mom. And that also doesn't include all the extra trips she has to make to the hospital, becuase she  is a nurse in Omaha and works three to four days there every week. So she spends alot of time driving. And then my two sisters and I are involved in a lot of sports and extra-curricular activities, which also includes a lot of driving. But we are careful not to turn our thermostat up to much, and we do recycle paper, cans, plastic, and paper, and hardly use very much glass. This summer we did replace our windows with Energy Star windows, so that did help to. And we do try to get everything we need when were in the city or in town so we don't have to make any extra trips.

One of the biggest things that we need to work on, besides all the driving that we do, is probably our electric bill. My sisters and I have a habit of turing to many lights on at once and forgetting to shut them off. I got into this habbit of turning on my basement light so much when I didn't need my dad actually duck-taped the light switch, and then had to take out a few of the bulbs to!

But we do recycle, try not to make multiple trips to one place in a day, and my parents' next goal is to get a more energy-efficient furnace.

Hey Mr. Bruns

Main Topics of Senator James Inhofe's Speech:

Some of  the main topics that Senator James Inhofe talked about in his speech were; the "smoking gun" and how it raised the temperatures to a "hockey stick" graph. The next big topic that he discussed was how the temperatures began warming after the Little Ice Age, which was before man-made Co2 emissions. Which means that we didn't start the global warming process. The other thing that he talks about is Kytoto Protocol would advert only 0.06 C of global warming by 2050! Then the article goes on to talk about the Time's Magazine articles and titles and how they didn't know whether to label the temperatures as freezing or melting.

The next big part of the article talks about Al Gore's movie-The Inconvienent Truth and how they have found lies and misunderstandings, and revised facts within his movie. I agree with the one statement from Mr. Inhofe about how the earth and the climate are dynamic and are always changing. Another thing that Senator James Inhofe talked about were the polar bears. Al Gore stated that polar bears were dying due to ice melting, which then causes exhaustion, because there is nothing for them to rest on for miles. When infact biologists say they are doing very well.

My Opinion on Global Warming:

I think that global warming is an issue that everyone needs to be aware of and and concerned about, but I don't think that it is as big of a problem as Al Gore is trying to make it seem. I believe that ice caps are melting, but I don't think the reason they are is because of us. The temperature and climate is always changing, but some of it could be contributed from us. Like all the polution that we put into the air. I think that if everyone did a small part to help, such as; cutting back on smoking, recycling, getting together to plant trees, or something along that line that it would help. But I think alot of global warming is being caused by greenhouse gases. And the other thing I don't know if I agree with is when the world is going to flood. I don't think anybody really knows when things like that are or aren't going to happen.

Hey Mr. Bruns

It was fun to play the Darfur game, but it was really challenging. I tried three different people before I even got 2000 miles closer to water. On my third try I finally mastered hiding behind the bushes and rocks, but then once I got hidden I couldn't get enough time to move, there was just truck after truck coming after me! So I didn't get very far in this game, and I wasn't even close to retrieving water for my camp.

Before this Darfur project, I never really knew anything about Darfur. I had heard it mentioned a few times during school, but not much more than that. But this project and research has really helped me see what a huge conflict is going on in Darfur. I am so thankful for all the blessings that I have in my life. We take so much for granted, that when we turn our faucets on water comes out, or having enough food, going to school, having religous freedom, and all of the other things that we have been blessed with. We complain about not getting a late start when schools around us have snow days, when people in Darfur are just lucky if they get to wake up in the morning. We are so blessed to be born in the United States.

This is why I still feel like President Bush made the right decision after 9/11 happened. I would never wish that this would happen to anyone, but I think that he made the right decision by standing up to the terrorists and trying to prevent it from happening again in the United States.

I can't imagine living in terror like the Darfurians have to every minute of their lives.

Hey Mr. Bruns

The main point of this story is that Greene County schools are separing boys from girls in classes. I think that there is good and bad to that. I agree with the article that maybe boys will behave better when they're not trying to impress the girls, but then again it's going to be all boys in one class, so they may misbehave just as much. The girls may speak up more because boys aren't there and they're not trying to impress any of them, but one reason they may not speak up is because they feel like their questions are dumb and do not want to be made fun of by other girls. So those reasons may or may not improve.

I don't see how students dropping out and girls getting pregnant are being effected by having girls and boys in one classroom though. I really don't see what the big deal is about having all girls or boys in one classroom. Things could get better, but then they may not change either. Some girls or guys have best friends who are the opposite sex, and the only time they get to see each other is maybe in the one class that they share together. Or sometimes girls and guys help each other out during the class. For example one of their friends, who could be a girl or guy can help explain something to them better than the teacher. So if they take girls or guys out of that class, then that could also drop grades to.

In the article some of the parents, students, and teachers were mad about not getting to voice their opinions. I think that everyone in those schools should have been able to put in their opinions, and let everyone vote on what they want, or what they think would help them. That way nobody would be mad, because they all got a say in deciding. But then maybe it was best that the principle and superintendant made the decision, because students could have voted against it because they want their friends in the class, instead of whats best for their education.

Hey Mr. Bruns!

My Quiz Results:

162 out of 192....so I got 30!!! 

 This quiz was a lot more challenging than the other quizes that we have taken, becuase those were mostly opinion based. But after studying the Asian Maps that really helped, and then there were some easy ones, such as the country that we live in, or ones that surround us. But it was fun to see how many I could get in ten minutes. I didn't do as well as I had hoped, I thought I would remember more, but it I couldn't spell a lot of them, so that didn't help. But it was a fun quiz!