Friday, February 25, 2011

9/11 Blog

September 11, 2001 I was sitting in my Kindergarden grade class room without a care in the world. A menial Kindergarden assignment preoccupied me and the rest of my classmates. All that changed when Ms. Abrams, our guidance councilor, nervously walked over to talk to our teacher. This was the 1st sign that something was wrong, Ms. Abrams rarely visits the class room unless someone was in serious trouble. Shortly after Ms. Abrams' arrival a T.V. set was wheeled into the class room which all the kids quickly gathered around. When the T.V. was turned on we saw the horrifying events unfold over and over which drew gasps from our teachers. That is all I remember of what happened to me on that fateful day.

The attack on the World Trade Center was the spark that set off the fuse, it was the event that triggered a full scale War on Terror. Also ever since the attack airport security has been heightened in almost every country in hopes of preventing anymore attacks form happening. We have been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for almost 10 years, and we have been trying to find terrorist leaders LIke Osama Bin Laden. Although he has eluded us, we have killed evil dictators like Saddam Hussein. The war is very controversial but it has effectively stopped terrorists from acting on USA soil.

Friday, February 4, 2011

Water Crisis

Millions if not billions of people do not have access to clean drinking water and are forced to drink contaminated water. In California it is estimated that if a different source of water is not found by 2020 there will be a shortage of water that is equivalent to the amount they consume now. Also there is some concern that the Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2035. The Himalayan glaciers are the source of Asia's biggest rivers, the Ganges, Indus, Yellow, and others. Even cities in the USA, like Atlanta, are facing water crisis.
One of the ways that people are using to get more drinking water is called desalination. Desalination is the process of taking water (like sea water) and removing salt and other minerals from the water to make it drinkable. This method is good for countries that are next to the sea, but don't have any fresh drinking water. Israel is a leader in the field of water desalination. The Hadera seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in Israel is the biggest seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in the entire world. Israel has 3 desalination facilities in operation right now and 2 more on the way.
One way we can help stop conflicts over water is to use methods like desalination to make
more drinking available to more people. In the Middle East lives 5% of the world's population,
but they only have 1% of the world's fresh water. Israel and other countries are thinking of ways
to solve this problem. As mentioned earlier, one way the create more available drinking water is
desalination.
There are many simple ways we as a class can conserve water. We could all bring water
bottles to school instead of drinking water from the fountain, because that wastes water. If you do
drink from the fountain though, make sure to let go of the button when taking breathes in
between drinking the water. Also turning off faucets when you see that it isn't fully turned off, and
also to tell maintenance if you see a leaking faucet, that can save 3000 gallons of water a year.