Treaties and Conventions

4/30/2014

Quiz over National Parks Pioneers

1. Captain Charles Young            a. fought and won humane treatment of
                                                                                     wild predators with scientific evidence. 
2. George Melendez Wright        b. saved Biscayne Bay from exploitation by
                                                                                                      oil refinery developers.
3. Lancelot Jones                         c. National Park's Service oldest ranger spent his life
                                                                                                      caring for San Gregorio de Abo Mission in New Mexico.
4. Federico Sisneros                    d. Japanese painter interred in a prison camp in
                                                                                                     Utah during WWII; recognized for
                                                                                                      Yosemite paintings
5. Chiura Obata                           e. born into slavery; third African American to graduate
                                                                                                     from West Point; led Buffalo Soldiers in protecting
                                                                                                     Yosemite before it was designated a National Park.

Introduction to Treaties and Conventions

Cornell notes and summarize.

In your opinion which has had more impact on conservation and preservation of the Environment, national acts or international treaties and conventions? Justify your answer with examples.

Megahan's National Park Tour

 

National Parks Act

4/28/2014

The National Park System Organic Act

Early Pioneers


Watch this video and complete the worksheet from the lesson plan on early pioneers. You can create your own table based on the one provided. 

Click here for video

Earth Day Tx Expo

The Laws

The Laws Name:

1. Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

2. Clean Water Act

3. National Environmental Policy Act
4. Safe Drinking Water Act
5. Occupational Health and Safety Administration
6. Clean Air act
7. Endangered Species Act
8. Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act
9. Toxic Substances Control Act
10. Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act
11. Environmental Protection Agency

Way to be on task Adan, Brenda, and Jessica 

1. ______________________________________________ - 1969

• Declared a national policy to encourage a constructive and harmonious relationship between

humans and their environment.

• Required government agencies to submit environmental impact statements for all major

projects. Each federal agency had to access and consider the significant environmental
impacts of its actions and alternative courses of action before the agency could change
government behavior and policy.

• Forced agencies to plan for the environmental consequences of their activities and gave

citizens the opportunity to challenge their findings.

• Essentially procedural.

• Created Council on Environmental Quality to advise the president on environmental issues

and ensure compliance.
 

2. ______________________________________________ - 1970

• Established by the White House and Congress in response to the growing public demand for

cleaner water, air and land.

• Develops and enforces environmental regulations in order to protect human health and

safeguard the natural environment.

3. ______________________________________________ - 1970

• The agency is set up within the Department of Labor to ensure safety in the workforce.

• Responsibilities include setting standards for employee exposure to hazardous substances.

4. ______________________________________________ - 1970

• Set deadlines for EPA to promulgate national ambient air quality standards for the

protection of public health (primary standard) and welfare (secondary standard) to be
implemented by the states, national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants, and auto
emission standards.

• Authorized citizen suits.

5. ______________________________________________ - 1972

• Sought “fishable and swimmable” waters.

• Controlled the discharge of pollution at the source.

• Bans the unpermitted discharge of pollutants into navigable waters.

• Requires application of technology-based controls on dischargers.

• Established pollutant discharge permit system.

• Increased federal grants to states to construct water treatment plants.

• Authorized citizen suits.

6. ______________________________________________ - 1972

• Requires registration of pesticides.

• Required the EPA to regulate more than 50,000 to guard against illogically adverse impact(s)

on the environment.

• Authorizes the EPA to ban unreasonably dangerous pesticides.

7. ______________________________________________ - 1972

• Prohibits ocean dumping of wastes except with a permit at sites designated by the EPA.

8. ______________________________________________ - 1973

• Prohibits federal action that jeopardizes the habitat of species in danger of extinction and

prohibits the taking of such species by any person.

• Broadened federal authority to protect all “threatened” as well as “endangered” species.

• Authorized grant programs to assist state programs.

• Required coordination among all federal agencies.

9. ______________________________________________ - 1974

• Requires the EPA to set limits for maximum allowable levels of contaminants in public

drinking water systems.

10. _____________________________________________ - 1976

• Mandate the EPA to review more than 50,000 existing chemicals and approximately 1000

new chemicals each year to identify and, as necessary, to regulate their manufacture, sale, sue
and disposal to prevent “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.”

• Required testing for health and environmental effects prior to a chemicals manufacture or

distribution.

• Required records to be kept and allowed EPA enforcement through civil proceedings.

 

11. _____________________________________________ - 1976

• Directs the EPA to establish regulations ensuring the safe management of hazardous waste

from “cradle to grave.”

 

 

QUIZ:

1. Are they federal, state or local laws?

2. Do they seem flexible or inflexible?

 

3. Why did so much environmental legislation pass in such a short period of time?

4. List two major air pollutants impacted by these laws. 

 

 

 

 

Environmental Legislation

 

4/23/2014

Quiz:

1. What is the date of the first Earth day, include the year. 
2. What famous person has the same birthday?
3.  What is the name of the book that started the Environmental Movement?
4. Who wrote the book that started the Environmental Movement?
5. What was that book about?


 

Create a diagram that traces the legislative process from an issue to a law. Write the following steps

into their proper place in the diagram.

• This Bill passes through Congress in both Chambers.

• Someone has an idea for a solution or improvement.
• This idea is written into a Bill.
• Debate ensues.
• This Bill passes through relevant Congressional committees in both Chambers.
• Someone notices the problem.
• This idea is communicated to a legislator.
• Negotiations occur.
• This Bill goes to the President’s desk. If s/he signs it, it becomes a law.
• Problem exists.
• This Bill is introduced into Congress in both Chambers.

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!

4/22/2014

Happy Earth Day!

Discuss the trends in emissions based on your assigned graph.

Be ready as a group to record:

the peak
the lull (lowest point)
the general trend

Graph title	Lowest Year	Highest Year	General Trend (increasing or decreasing)
1. Carbon Monoxide
2. Nitrogen Oxide
3. Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs)
4. Sulfur Dioxide
5. Lead
6. Population, GDP & Vehicle Miles
7. Life Expectancy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. For each Graph ask describe the change

in emissions from 1940 to 1998.

2. What factors would cause such a change?

3.  What are possible sources of air pollution?

 

4. How, then, could these causes of air pollution be mitigated or reduced?

 

5. Do people change first and this cultural shift leads to new laws, or do laws come first and then force people’s habits to change?

 

6. Why would a Congressperson introduce a law in the first place?

http://www.naem.org/?CP_COMP_milestones

  

Trends in Environmental Legislation

4/21/2014

 

“Within a six year period, 1970-1976, the United States Congress enacted nearly all of the basic
environmental legislation . . . most of it by overwhelming bipartisan majorities.”


– Robert V. Percival, Director of the Environmental Law Program at the University of Maryland

What happened during this time that led

to so many laws being passed in favor of protecting the environment? 

Based on the graph provided, describe the change in the trend. When was it highest? When was lowest? What is the overall rate of increase/decrease?  Be ready to present at the beginning of class tomorrow.

1. Carbon Dioxide
2. Nitrogen Oxide
3. Volatile Organic Compounds
4. Sulfur Dioxide
5. Lead
6. Total U.S. Population, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and Vehicle Miles Traveled
7. Life Expectancy


8 major air pollutants

1. SPM                                   a. suspected carcinogens
2. VOC                                  b. blocks oxygen from cells
3. Carbon Monoxide             c. respiratory irritant & acid rain
4. Nitrogen Oxides                d. formation of ozone
5. Lead                                  e. respiratory irritant
6. Ozone                                f. poison and acid rain
7. Sulfur Oxides                    g. brain damage and death
8. Air toxics & radon            h. impair respiratory function

6 weeks test

online administration for anyone absent on Wednesday

http://www.schoolobjects.com/Aware/OnlineTesting?org=DAL-4923843B-63B


username: ID number
Password: adamson

The Gorax

4/14/2014

The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change) released a report on Climate Change calling for an immediate mitigation of CO2 emissions. Reductions on the order of 40-70% by 2050 are needed to avoid a 1-2 degree rise in global mean temperature. The report includes ways to change. Check it out. 

http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/mindex.shtml

Rewrite "The Lorax". Cast Al Gore as the Lorax (Gorax?) and consider the signs of climate change as reported in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth". What would happen if the Once-lers paid attention to the first signs of climate change? Tell me how the factories could be restructured?

Minimum one page story. The illustration of this story is a GREAT project for people needing hours. 

The Lorax

http://www.arcticclimatemodeling.org/son/pdfs/SystemInteractions.pdf

Water quality

Crazy about the Mercury

http://water.epa.gov/drink/contaminants/basicinformation/mercury.cfm

http://www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/

Writing Lab Reports

4/3/2014 and 4/4/2014

Today you will be doing one of two labs.

Some people will redesign the Greenhouse Gas & Global Warming lab.


Others will use an online lab to learn about Dissolved Oxygen and Primary Productivity

http://www.phschool.com/science/biology_place/labbench/lab12/intro.html

All students will write a complete lab report which includes all of the parts mentioned on this rubric
Lab report rubric.

Name: _____________________________ Lab: _____________________________ 4		3		2		1		0
Introduction	Background information is researched and cited. Hypothesis is stated in "If…then…" format and explained.		Background information is researched and cited. Hypothesis is stated but not explained and not in "If…then…" format.		Background information is vague or brief. Hypothesis is stated but not explained and not in "If…then…" format.		Background is vague or brief, hypothesis is vague, or background or hypothesis is missing.		No introduction is presented.
Materials and methods	Materials and amounts are identified. Steps are easy to follow and in paragraph form.		Materials are mentioned but without amounts. Steps are easy to follow and in paragraph form.		Materials are mentioned but without amounts. Steps are vague but in paragraph form.		Doesn’t provide enough information to represent an experimental procedure.		No materials or methods described.
Data	Data is complete and relevant. Tables are easy to read and units are provided. Graphs are labeled and show trends. Questions are answered completely and correctly.		One component of data incomplete: ___Tables ___Graphs ___Questions		Two components of data incomplete or one missing: ___Tables ___Graphs ___Questions		Data is brief and missing significant pieces of information.		No data reported.
Conclusion	Conclusion summarizes experiment, cites data, addresses hypothesis, and cites sources of error.		One component of conclusion missing: ___Summary ___Data ___Hypothesis ___Errors		Two components of conclusion missing: ___Summary ___Data ___Hypothesis ___Errors		Conclusion is brief and is missing significant pieces of information.		No conclusion present.
Report quality	Report is well organized and		Report is well organized and		Report is somewhat organized with some		Report contains many errors.		No attention to detail evident.

 

 

Data collection with CBL