The Paris Climate Change Agreement was the biggest gathering of world leaders in one place ever. Including ministers from 196 countries that sat behind their country nameplates at 7.16pm, two hours later then when the agreement was supposed to be signed. When the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, announced that the last-minute compromises had been resolved and that the agreement was signed. The agreement produced by Paris was hailed as “historic, durable and ambitious”. It involves developed and developing countries alike to limit their emissions to 2C with an aspiration of 1.5C, a relatively safe level with regular reviews to insure the limits are met. Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International, described the mood as, “It sometimes seems that the countries of the UN can unite on nothing, but nearly 200 countries have come together and agreed a deal. Today, the human race has joined in a common cause. The Paris agreement is only one step on a long road and there are parts of it that frustrate, that disappoint me, but it is progress. The deal alone won’t dig us out of the hole that we’re in, but it makes the sides less steep.” The agreement will be deposited at the UN in New York and opened for signature for one year on 22 April 2016.

So what does this agreement mean? The agreement sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2°C and be entered into force in 2020. Some of the key elements of the agreement are; mitigation reducing emissions, transparency and global stocktake, adaptation, loss and damage, and support. To summarize, most of these key elements mean that as the human race we will put our difference aside and work together to secure our world and start to slow down climate change. Our governments have agreed to come together every 5 years to set more ambitious targets as required by science, to report to the world how well they’re doing, and to track the progress towards the long-term goal. As for the agreement entering into force, that will happen after the 55 countries that account for at least 55% of global emissions have deposited their instruments of ratification. We definitely haven’t solved the problem yet but we are most certainly taking the steps in the right direction.

http://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/international/negotiations/paris/index_en.htm
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/13/paris-climate-deal-cop-diplomacy-developing-united-nations
https://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2015/cop21/eng/l09r01.pdf
http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/paris-climate-change-agreement-first-draft-ignores-india-s-demands-115101400016_1.html

Going green has become a big part of many Americans daily lives. Many are worried about the emissions being released from vehicles every day and how it is affecting our environment. Fuel economy standards which were first established in 1975, haven’t changed much since the mid-1980s until the first Obama Administration. Under a rule passed in 2010, carmakers were already aiming to achieve an average of 34.1 mpg across the board by 2016. The government has since raised the bar even higher, to an average of 54. 5 mpg by 2025. The new standards will likely require auto companies to develop more hybrids, plug-ins and natural gas vehicles as alternatives to our everyday cars.

The White House has said the regulations will save drivers money at the pump in addition to reducing emissions. For the most part, automakers will have to accelerate their efforts to improve mileage by reducing the weight of vehicles, meaning they need to use more aerodynamic designs and decrease the engine size without sacrificing power. According to the Department of Energy, reducing a vehicle’s weight by 10 percent can improve fuel economy by 6 to 8 percent. So why not switch to a lighter material? Well although normally car components made of aluminum are anywhere between 10 and 40 percent lighter than conventional steel. Aluminum is about 35 percent more expensive than steel, and concerns that it might not be as durable are in everyones mind. Volkswagen AG Krupitzer announced “If you make a component stronger, it can carry the same load as it did before, but you don’t need as much steel to do it. You can make parts thinner, but they can absorb the same about of energy and hold the same load”. The auto industry still has a lot of playing around to do to figure out what the best long term solution is but they have made strides in the right direction. I’ll be interested to see what options are to come in the future and how it may benefit our environment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/business/energy-environment/obama-unveils-tighter-fuel-efficiency-standards
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/to-boost-gas-mileage-automakers-explore-lighter-cars/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2012/08/30/10-ways-automakers-are-helping-you-spend-less-on-gasoline/#4ddd409f31e9

My group is creating a Light bulb to determine the amount of energy produced in the graphite based off the number of batteries used. We are starting with 6 D batteries and then 8, and then 10 batteries to see how the light is affected. We are following this procedure listed below:
1. Using electrical tape, fix eight D-sized batteries together, end-to-end, with the positive ends connected to the negative ends.
2. Place a clear shot glass inside of a mason jar or other clear glass.
3. Tape one positive and one negative alligator clip to the top of the shot glass. Make sure the clip is facing up, away from the rest of the shot glass.
4. Carefully clip a mechanical pencil refill between the two alligator clips. The pencil refill needs to be in one piece, so be gentle.
5. Place a mason jar or clear glass over the top of the shot glass.
6. Touch the other positive and negative ends of the alligator clips to the ends of your batteries.
7. Give the circuit a moment to circulate the electricity the pencil refill begins to glow.
The idea behind this experiment is to see an electrical circuit which is a closed path where electrons from a power source flow. Electricity freely flows through a closed circuit, on a battery from the negative side to the positive side. By connecting multiple batteries, you increase the voltage. In the experiment, the clips complete the circuit. The graphite gives off light energy because it is made of carbon molecules and as electricity passes through it, the molecules gain energy. After gaining a lot of energy, it gets released as heat and light energy. (Source:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xre81ZuqyEg).

What are Vaccines and how are they effective? Vaccines primarily consist of weakened germs of the same type of disease, which are then injected into the body in the hope that it will stimulate the organism to produce protein antibodies to protect it against disease. Vaccines are important to help keep children healthy and more importantly alive. They were created to help the population protect themselves from deadly diseases. They have become very effective over the years in eliminating serious diseases like whooping cough and the measles. There is now a growing pressure to make vaccinations mandatory for children. In the past there wasn’t really a need to make them mandatory in the past because people believed they were beneficial and harmless. Many people have a fear that some immunizations cause problems such as autism and other possible defects in development of young children. Although the link between vaccines and autism was never proven many people got nervous and stopped getting important vaccinations for their children. Almost one third of deaths among children under 5 are preventable by vaccine. Now more then ever before we have the technology to save lives but we need to take advantage of the vaccines available to us. If people stop getting their children vaccinated they risk starting an outbreak of easily preventable diseases.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24442000
http://www.unicef.org/immunization/
http://vaccinationcrisis.com/

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Tom came in and talked to us about different inventions and tools and how they have progressed over time. He started with Robert Sterling who designed the Sterling engine which was supposed to replace the steam engine but failed because it couldn’t be made big enough and if the water gets too low the heat causes the steam to flash boil resulting in explosions. The steam engine risked the same thing if the water got to low. I don’t remember the name of it but he also showed us how they powered the fans in submarines and even some cars by using two different metals (bismuth and copper) and putting one in cold water and the other in warm water creating an electric current. The Medicino Motor is solar powered and was designed as a stating point and meant to be altered. Thomas Paige designed the rocking armature motor. Overall it was a really interesting class to sit through we talked about how electric currents are created and activate different gases. It was nice because I hadn’t stopped to think about how electric currents are create.

In this experiment we were measuring the voltage output of a solar cell and the light intensity output of a light sensor of the NXT. We performed several experiments to try to gain an understanding of the relationship between light intensity and the voltage output of the solar cell, as well as the relationship between the wavelength of light and the voltage output of the solar cell. We discovered that the more light intensity the larger the voltage output except for one of our runs that dropped a little. I believe that just happened because of an irregularity or possible was altered by an outside light force. In order to test this we changed the light intensity by varying the distance between the solar cell and the light source. Then we graphed the voltage vs distance as you can see above. We also ran the same test from the same distance but applied different filters to see how they affected the voltage output then we made a bar chart that showed voltage as a function of filter color. The graph reflects that the orange and purple filters changed the output voltage greatly compared to the blue filter and no filter at all. Overall this experiment helped me better understand how solar power works on a small scale and why it can be suck a useful renewable energy choice.

Does life exist beyond Earth? Mars had conditions suitable for life in its past. Future exploration could uncover evidence of life because, Mars is a rich destination for scientific discovery and robotic and human exploration as we expand our presence into the solar system. Its formation and evolution are comparable to Earth, helping us learn more about our own planet’s history and future. While robotic explorers have studied Mars for more than 40 years, NASA’s path for the human exploration of Mars begins in low-Earth orbit aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts on the orbiting laboratory are helping us prove many of the technologies and communications systems needed for human missions to include Mars. The space station also advances our understanding of how the body changes in space and how to protect astronaut health. Keep in mind that when it comes to human missions to Mars, NASA’s preparation has already lasted for 70 years straight.

So why aren’t we already planning to go to Mars? The delay is at least in part technical. A trip to the red planet is like visiting an even more inhospitable Antarctica, and its unbreathable atmosphere is less than two percent of what you’d find at Everest’s summit. Not to mention the fact that you have to fly at least a year, round-trip, to get there in the first place. That’s why the space agency has been helping promote the film “The Martian,” as a way to publicize its own plans to send astronauts to the Red Planet in 2030. They need to get the general public excited about space travel to create a hype around their plans. Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science division, said on Oct. 1, “The evolution of a Martian starts with our science — starts with our ground-truth that we get from our rovers — and it builds up to human exploration,” at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, during an event focusing on “The Martian” and the space agency’s Red Planet plans. This trip to Mars has become a useless dream for many Americans due to the duration of it. 70 years is a long time for the public to stay focused and support a trip to Mars especially when many supports are beginning to lose hope. What do you think about a trip to Mars? Would you be willing to go?

http://www.space.com/30733-the-martian-nasa-real-mars-mission-plans.html#sthash.FsB867ix.dpuf
http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasas-journey-to-mars
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151111-mars-mission-fail-history-astronaut-science/

In this experiment we were testing Faraday’s Law, which states that changing magnetic fluxes through coiled wires generate electricity. We tested Faraday’s law by shaking our generator as we increased the number of shakes, the voltage also increased. We followed this procedure of shaking the tube at a particular rate, counting the number of shakes in the data collecting interval (30 seconds), then we calculated it in Excel the sum of the squares of the voltages (SSV’s) (the voltage is logged after each second. We repeat 1-3 three more times at three for three different rates of shakes. Then we plotted the SSQV’s as a function of # of shakes and fit the result to a linear curve. Our outcome showed the greater the change in magnetic flux, the greater the currents and voltages. Our first number of shakes was zero which not surprisingly gave us little to no voltage since the magnets weren’t traveling through the coils. The only reason for any voltage would be random from the air. Next we did 14 shakes, 35, and then 68 shakes. Each time we increased the number of shakes, the voltage increased as we expected. The experiment overall went well and still proved the point of Faraday’s Law.

The film Pandora’s Promise explores the history and future of nuclear power and why mankind’s most feared and controversial technological discovery is now passionately embraced by many of those who once led the charge against it. The pro-nuclear power film Pandora’s Promise, which propagated three common myths about nuclear power: it suggested the environmental movement’s “scare tactics” are what has inhibited nuclear power, claimed nuclear power is cheaper than renewables and downplayed complications from nuclear waste. This led to a generally one-sided story, which has led to criticism from many reviewers. Lets start with the enormous cost of building nuclear power plants being a key inhibiting factor for the energy source. Despite receiving immensely greater subsidies than renewable energy from the beginning of its development, nuclear energy is still not competitive with fossil fuels in America, and new wind energy is estimated to be less expensive than new nuclear generation. Pandora’s Promise also focused on opposition to nuclear power from some in the environmental movement. In the film, author Mark Lynas even compared anti-nuclear activists to global warming deniers. However, this narrative paints a misleading picture: the lack of nuclear expansion in the U.S. comes down to a simple case of economics. Although nuclear power has potential to become a major power source, it comes with baggage. The U.S. has accumulated more than 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel, and continues to accumulate 2,200 tons per year, yet CNN’s documentary made light of this waste—Lynas claimed that nuclear waste is “not an environmental issue.” Despite its pro-nuke slant, environmentalists are the film’s intended audience. After all, as the film points out, most pro-business Republicans are already in love with the idea of more nuclear power plants, and need no convincing. But left-leaning supporters of green energy aren’t just the film’s target demo. They’re also its main subjects. Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas, Michael Shellenberger and other respected environmental activists, authors and experts appear throughout the film, explaining why they have recently started to reconsider their former staunch opposition to nuclear power. Contrary to the received wisdom of the environmentalist movement, they argue that nuclear power might actually be safer, cleaner and greener than many other energy sources. Overall it was a great film to get people talking about nuclear power and to bring it back into the mainstream media. Ultimately it’s up to you and what you believe is the right thing to do but this film definitely gets you thinking and possibly even researching.

In this lab we were testing Newton’s first Law, law of inertia, which states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force. It may be seen as a statement about inertia, that objects will remain in their state of motion unless a force acts to change the motion. As well as exploring Newton’s 2nd Law i.e., the law of conservation of energy, velocity and acceleration and power. We used the Lego Mindstorm motor to lift weights with a pulley. We set the power level of the motor which will set the toque on the motor wheel which will result in a particular force used to lift the masses. The higher the power level, the greater the force to explore Newton’s 2nd Law we kept the power level fixed and changed the mass. We took note of whether the acceleration varied with the mass or remained constant. Then we kept the mass fixed and change the power level and took note of the same thing. To explore the Law of Conservation of energy we computed, potential energy=mgh with h as the height that the center of mass of the weights travel. With the power level fixed, we studied how the battery energy drainage changes as a function of mass. Since the energy of the battery is converted to the potential energy of the masses, you would expect that the greater the masses, the greater is the battery drainage. However, the battery level reading is not that accurate. We calculated the average power used by the motor which equals power used = potential energy/time =mgh/time, for each of your experiments. For the same mass, plotas a function of the power level of the motor. We added a linear trend line (with equation and R2 indicated). My conclusion was that force is set by power level. When force is increased the acceleration is also increased but when mass is increased the power remains the same. Basically work equals force times parallel distance, work also equals force(distance)=mass(gravity)(height) or w=f(d)=mgh giving you Joules. In order to compute kinetic energy you calculate 1/2mv^2 which leads us back to the more mass=more battery discharge. Energy lost in frictional lost overwhelms the energy used to lift up the masses. That being said it can throw off your data as shown in my attached graphs.