APES AGENDA:August 30, Tuesday:B Day

WELCOME TO PLANET OF APES!

WARM-UPS:

  1. Who Are You and Who am I?
  2. On your notecard please NEATLY PRINT the following information, and follow the format instructions:
  3. Your Name: First, Last, Preferred “Nickname” (Line 1)
  4. PREVIOUS SCIENCE COURSES(Line 2)
  5. Leadership Role OR Support Role: In a group, which is more suited to your strengths? (Line 3)
  6. ONE WORD ORPHRASE that helps describe YOU PHYSICALLY and as an individual – similar to a mnemonic device (Line 4)
  7. I will give you 60 seconds to get suggestions from a partner (or 2 people if you need them)

OBJECTIVES:WHO ARE WE AND WHAT IS AP ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE?

  1. Attendance
  2. Student placement (1L to 3S, previous science courses)
  3. PREVIOUS SCIENCE COURSES – successful outcomes!
  4. Notecards on desk!
  5. Student Packet
  6. Safety – safety rap:
  7. Syllabus and pacing guide
  8. Rules
  9. My schedule
  10. Required Materials
  11. Suggested Materials
  12. APES: The Disciplines
  13. “Why ENVIRONMENTAL Science?”
  14. Current events/Issues illustrating the importance of ENVIRONMENTAL Science
  15. Creating a “Word Wall”- WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?
  16. First vocabulary terms for APES – confer with your group
  17. Discussion of terms – write on “The Wall” – SELECTION OF FOCUS VOCAB
  18. HOW OLD IS THE EARTH?
  19. Constructing a Geologic Time Scale
  20. You will work with your group to construct a Simple Geologic Time Scale based on changes in major life forms and complete the analysis questions
  21. Compare the simple geologic time scale with the current version
  22. With your group, compare and contrast the 2 – keep a record of your observations!
  23. Brainstorm why you think I chose this activity for AP Environmental Science
  24. Read the information on ANTHROPOCENE
  25. With your group, identify strengths and weaknesses for the new epoch

TAKE-AWAY:

  1. List the necessary skills for success in a Lab Science Course
  2. Identify any concerns you have about the REQUIREMENTS and/or RIGOR of this class
  3. MENTAL PAUSE: DEEP BREATH – TRY TO CLEAR YOUR MIND AND LISTEN TO YOUR DEEP, SLOW BREATHING

HOMEWORK:

  1. Get all your forms signed (you received these in HR today)
  2. You and a parent/guardian must sign and date the Science Safety Rules and return these to me next class
  3. Read through your APES Student Packet – come with questions!
  4. TO BE TURNED IN NEXT CLASS:
  5. On the top 1/3 of a sheet of paper, identify the components that comprise an excellent and helpful critique
  6. 2nd 1/3 of sheet – “How do you construct good questions?
  7. Last 1/3: How do we create a Team Environment in this APES Class?
  8. Austin’s Butterfly:

WELCOME to the 2016-17 LOUDOUN COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL YEAR AND HAVE A GREAT DAY!

APES

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

MRS. FRANCIS’SCHEDULE:

BLOCK / TIME / SUBJECT/NOTES / ROOM#
1ST A / 9-10:31 / Research Earth Science / 244
2ND A / 10:37-12:06 / Research Earth Science / 244
*3RD A / 12:12-2:12 / PLANNING / Earth Sci Prep Room or Sci/Math work room
4TH A / 2:18-3:48 / Research Earth Science / 243
5TH B / 9-10:31 / PLANNING / Earth Sci Prep Room or Sci/Math work room
6TH B / 10:37-12:06 / Cohort Planning / 244
*7TH B / 12:12-2:12 / AP Environmental Science (APES) / 244
8TH B / 2:18-3:48 / AP Environmental Science / 244
*Lunch
D shift / 1:42 – 2:12 / X / 243, 244, or 247
Morning / 8:30 – 8:55 / NOTE: Unless we have a pre-arranged meeting, I am available to see students for assistance at 8:30 / A day: 244
B day: Earth Sci Prep room or Sci/Math workroom
After school – EXCEPT Tuesdays (choir night) / 4:00 – 5:15 (if possible, please let me know in advance when you want to stay) / NOTE: I am usually at LCHS until 5:30 (6:00 if I drive to school). After daylight savings time change, if I bike, I need to leave by 5:00. If you need to see me for help, I will try to drive so I can stay longer than 5:00 / A day: 243
B day: 244

Email:

WELCOME to AP Environmental Science at THE Loudoun County High School!

EXPECTATIONS:

MINE: Mrs. Francis

  • Be KIND and Courteous
  • Be BRAVE – NEVER be afraid to ask for clarification/help
  • If you do NOT know something, don’t guess – ask someone who DOES know!
  • I want your BEST EFFORT – be on TIME and ready to learn as soon as the bell rings
  • I WILL GIVE YOU MY BEST EFFORT!
  • Follow directions/rules/regulations
  • SCIENCE SAFETY RULES MUST BE FOLLOWED!
  • Assist each other – work and play well TOGETHER – act like a well-seasoned TEAM
  • ASK QUESTIONS – PLEASE! (see the 2nd bullet above!)
  • PLEASE COME TO ME FOR ASSISTANCE BEFORE THE PROBLEM/CONFUSION BECOMES A BIG ISSUE!
  • Due dates, test dates, understanding of material

YOURS:APES Students – USE THE SPACE BELOW TO LIST YOUR EXPECTATIONS

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CELL PHONE/ELECTRONIC DEVICE POLICY

  1. Parking Lot
  2. I will assign you a number (based on alpha-sorting)
  3. When you come to class, be sure your device is OFF (unless I have indicated otherwise)
  4. Place your device/phone in the pocket corresponding to your assigned number
  5. These may change if students add/drop
  6. You may ONLY access your device when granted permission and this will ONLY occur if the device is needed for instruction

Getting to KNOW You…

PLEASE BRING YOUR NAME CARD TO CLASS!

REQUIRED MATERIALS:WHAT MUST I BRING to my APES class EVERY DAY?

  • 3-Ring binder with:
  • GRAPH paper – at least 10 sheets to start
  • Unlined paper - at least 10 sheets to start
  • SECTIONS? - I SUGGEST the following (use what works for you)
  • AGENDAS (I will POST a daily agenda on CMS)
  • NOTES
  • TESTS/QUIZZES
  • LABS
  • HOMEWORK (or use a HW folder)
  • JOURNAL NOTEBOOK (can be a composition book, a spiral notebook, a folder with 3-ring capability)
  • I like using a composition book with graph paper
  • Pen
  • Pencil
  • Textbook (unless I tell you otherwise)

(HIGHLY recommended, NOT required)

  • Graphing calculator
  • Colored pencils

Detailed Content Outline and required Readings: Sept - Oct

COURSE OUTLINE:

LABORATORY SAFETY ACTIVITY AND LAB QUIZ

INTRODUCTION TO ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE: Course content, protocols, expectations, materials

Planet Earth:Earth Science Concepts: Origin, composition, and components of Earth [SC1, SC2, and SC6]

  1. Earth Systems and Resources
  2. Earth’s 4 Spheres
  3. Biotic vs. Abiotic components
  4. Nebular hypothesis
  5. Formation of the sun, planet Earth, Oceans and Atmosphere
  6. YouTube video of Nebular Hypothesis
  7. Lab activity: Atmospheric evolution and modern structure
  8. Atmosphere
  9. Composition
  10. Air Pollution [SC9]
  11. Lab: Particulate pollution
  12. Lichen Study – long-range study
  13. Laws (Clean Air Act)
  14. Weather vs. Climate
  15. Seasons and tilt of Earth – mini lab
  16. Global Winds (Coriolis effect)
  17. Ocean currents – warm vs. cold
  18. El Niño/La Niña Activity
  19. Minerals, rocks, and the rock cycle
  20. Mineral formation/groups
  21. Mineral resources
  22. Mining
  23. Extraction
  24. Global Reserves
  25. Map Lab: All the World’s Minerals
  26. Map Lab: Issues/pollution – Historical and Recent Spills/Contaminants [SC9]
  27. Laws/Treaties
  28. GIZMOS Lab: Rocks and Rock cycle
  29. Plate tectonics
  30. TAZA Software: Plate Tectonics: Advanced
  31. LAB: Plate boundaries and geologic locations/features (volcanoes)/events(earthquakes)
  32. Geologic hazards
  33. Historical Geology
  34. Geologic Time
  35. Weathering/Erosion & Soils
  36. Chemical and Mechanical processes
  37. Weathering & Erosion Field Study
  38. Soil types
  39. Soils lab – using the soil texture triangle
  40. Soils lab – horizons/structure/abiotic and biotic components
  41. Soil depletion/degradation and conservation – Best management practices
  1. Global Water Resources & Use[SC6]
  2. All the Earth’s water
  3. Location of Earth’s fresh and salt water
  4. Surface vs Groundwater
  5. Groundwater flow demonstration
  6. Water quality (fresh)
  7. Water quality lab:
  8. Leaf-litter macroinvertebrate analysis and chemical tests (EPA water quality parameters)
  9. Lab 13B: Freshwater Stream Water Quality Study
  10. Riparian Buffer Internet Activity
  11. Field Trip: Riparian buffer vs. non-buffered water: Chemical and Biological Measures of Stream Health
  12. Save Our Streams Internet Water Quality Assessment Activity
  13. Water pollution [SC9]
  14. Sewage treatment and septic systems
  15. Field trip: Water and Sewage treatment facility
  16. Laws
  17. Natural Biogeochemical Cycles – an overview
  18. Student research and report:
  19. Students will present one of the 5 biogeochemical cycles (conservation of matter will be presented in lecture). Student mastery will be assessed on inclusion of 5 major components of the presentation

The Anthropocene Debate:
Marking Humanity’s Impact

Is human activity altering the planet on a scale comparable to major geological events of the past? Scientists are now considering whether to officially designate a new geological epoch to reflect the changes thathomo sapienshave wrought: the Anthropocene.

by elizabethkolbert
The Holocene — or “wholly recent” epoch — is what geologists call the 11,000 years or so since the end of the last ice age. As epochs go, the Holocene is barely out of diapers; its immediate predecessor, the Pleistocene, lasted more than two million years, while many earlier epochs, like the Eocene, went on for more than 20 million years. Still, the Holocene may be done for. People have become such a driving force on the planet that many geologists argue a new epoch — informally dubbed the Anthropocene — has begun.
In a recent paper titled “The New World of the Anthropocene,” which appeared in the journalEnvironmental Science and Technology, a group of geologists listed more than a half dozen human-driven processes that are likely to leave a lasting mark on the planet — lasting here understood to mean likely to leave traces that will last tens of millions of years. These include: habitat destruction and the introduction of invasive species, which are causing widespread extinctions; ocean acidification, which is changing the chemical makeup of the seas; and urbanization, which is vastly increasing rates of sedimentation and erosion.
Human activity, the group wrote, is altering the planet “on a scale comparable with some of the major events of the ancient past. Some of these changes are now seen as permanent, even on a geological time-scale.”
Prompted by the group’s paper, theIndependentof London last month conducted a straw poll of the members of the International Commission on

Are we living in the Anthropocene? The answer, the group of geologists concluded, was probably yes.

Stratigraphy, the official keeper of the geological time scale. Half the commission members surveyed said they thought the case for a new epoch was already strong enough to consider a formal designation.
“Human activities, particularly since the onset of the industrial revolution, are clearly having a major impact on the Earth,” Barry Richards of the Geological Survey of Canada told the newspaper. “We are leaving a clear and unique record.”
The term “Anthropocene” was coined a decade ago by Paul Crutzen, one of the three chemists who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize for discovering the effects of ozone-depleting compounds. In a paper published in 2000, Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer, a professor at the University of Michigan, noted that many forms of human activity now dwarf their natural counterparts; for instance, more nitrogen today is fixed synthetically than is fixed by all the world’s plants, on land and in the ocean. Considering this, the pair wrote in the newsletter of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, “it seems to us more than appropriate to emphasize the central role of mankind in geology and ecology by proposing to use the term ‘anthropocene’ for the current geological epoch.” Two years later, Crutzen restated the argument in an article inNaturetitled “Geology of Mankind.”
The Anthropocene, Crutzen wrote, “could be said to have started in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when analyses of air trapped in polar ice showed the beginning of growing global concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane.”
Soon, the term began popping up in other scientific publications. “Riverine quality of the Anthropocene” was the title of a 2002 paper in the journalAquatic Sciences.
“Soils and sediments in the anthropocene,” read the title of a 2004 editorial in theJournal of Soils and Sediments.
Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the Britain’s University of Leicester, found the spread of the concept intriguing. “I noticed that Paul Crutzen’s term was

One argument against the idea is that humans have been changing the planet for a long time.

appearing in the serious literature, in papers inScienceand such like, without inverted commas and without a sense of irony,” he recalled in a recent interview. At the time, Zalasiewicz was the head of the stratigraphic commission of the Geological Society of London. At a luncheon meeting of the commission, he asked his fellow stratigraphers what they thought of the idea.
“We simply discussed it,” he said. “And to my surprise, because these are technical geologists, a majority of us thought that there was something to this term.”
In 2008, Zalasiewicz and 20 other British geologists published an article inGSA Today, the magazine of the Geological Society of America, that asked: “Are we now living in the Anthropocene?” The answer, the group concluded, was probably yes: “Sufficient evidence has emerged of stratigraphically significant change (both elapsed and imminent) for recognition of the Anthropocene... as a new geological epoch to be considered for formalization.” (An epoch, in geological terms, is a relatively short span of time; a period, like the Cretaceous, can last for tens of millions of years, and an era, like the Mesozoic, for hundreds of millions.) The group pointed to changes in sedimentation rates, in ocean chemistry, in the climate, and in the global distribution of plants and animals as phenomena that would all leave lasting traces. Increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, the group wrote, are predicted to lead to “global temperatures not encountered since the Tertiary,” the period that ended 2.6 million years ago.
Zalasiewicz now heads of the Anthropocene Working Group of the International Commission on Stratigraphy, which is looking into whether a new epoch should be officially designated, and if so, how. Traditionally, the boundaries between geological time periods have been established on the basis of changes in the fossil record — by, for example, the appearance of

“What’s going to happen in the 21st century could be even more significant,” a geologist says.

one type of commonly preserved organism or the disappearance of another. The process of naming the various periods and their various subsets is often quite contentious; for years, geologists have debated whether the Quaternary — the geological period that includes both the Holocene and its predecessor, the Pleistocene — ought to exist, or if the term ought to be abolished, in which case the Holocene and Pleistocene would become epochs of the Neogene, which began some 23 million years ago. (Just last year, the International Commission on Stratigraphy decided to keep the Quaternary, but to push back its boundary by almost a million years.)
In recent decades, the ICS has been trying to standardize the geological time scale by choosing a rock sequence in a particular place to serve as a marker. Thus, for example, the marker for the Calabrian stage of the Pleistocene can be found at 39.0385°N 17.1348°E, which is in the toe of the boot of Italy.
Since there is no rock record yet of the Anthropocene, its boundary would obviously have to be marked in a different way. The epoch could be said simply to have begun at a certain date, say 1800. Or its onset could be correlated to the first atomic tests, in the 1940s, which left behind a permanent record in the form of radioactive isotopes.
One argument against the idea that a new human-dominated epoch has recently begun is that humans have been changing the planet for a long time already, indeed practically since the start of the Holocene. People have been farming for 8,000 or 9,000 years, and some scientists — most notably William Ruddiman, of the University of Virginia — have proposed that this development already represents an impact on a geological scale. Alternatively, it could be argued that the Anthropocene has not yet arrived because human impacts on the planet are destined to be even greater 50 or a hundred years from now.

READ MORE

“We’re still now debating whether we’ve actually got to the event horizon, because potentially what’s going to happen in the 21st century could be even more significant,” observed Mark Williams, a member of the Anthropocene Working Group who is also a geologist at the University of Leicester.
In general, Williams said, the reaction that the working group had received to its efforts so far has been positive. “Most of the geologists and stratigraphers that we’ve spoken with think it’s a very good idea in that they agree that the degree of change is very significant.”
Zalasiewicz said that even if new epoch is not formally designated, the exercise of considering it was still useful. “Really it’s a piece of science,” he said. “We’re trying to get some handle on the scale of contemporary change in its very largest context.”

As the international community focuses on climate change as the great challenge of our era, it is ignoring another looming problem — the global crisis in land use. With agricultural practices causing massive ecological impact, writes Jonathan Foley, the world must find new ways to feed its burgeoning population and launch a “Greener” Revolution.
POSTED ON 17 MAY 2010 INBUSINESS & INNOVATIONCLIMATEENERGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSCIENCE & TECHNOLOGYSUSTAINABILITYNORTH AMERICA