1. In 150-200 words, describe what the biodiversity is like in your hometown. Do you feel that your hometown is more or less diverse than others?
Blue Bell, Pa is home to many different plants and animals. For plants, there are many deciduous and coniferous trees sprawled about my town along with all different types of flowers and shrubs. For animals, in my backyard alone I’ve seen squirrels, rabbits, foxes, groundhogs, mice, deer, skunks, and different types of birds. There’s also lots of insects like ants, grasshoppers, praying mantises, bees, butterflies, etc. I believe you would be able to find all of these animals and insects anywhere you go in town. I’m not really sure where my hometown stands in terms of biodiversity. I would imagine that it has more biodiversity than your average big city like Philadelphia due to there being more grass and wooded areas for animals but I’m not sure. It certainly would not be more diverse than a place like the Amazon rain forest which was mentioned in the module. I think my town has an appropriate amount of biodiversity.
2. In 200-250 words, follow H.I.P.P.O. and write about which threat you believe is the most harmful to your hometown today. What can you or anyone else do to help stop this threat?
I believe that the biggest threat to biodiversity in my hometown, and many hometowns is habitat loss. I’m not sure how many species of plants and animals were originally where my hometown is but I imagine that there has to be less due to deforestation and humans building the town. Today, there are still new buildings and shopping centers and all kinds of expansion going on which are destroying habitats. Take deer for example; sure there are still woods for deer to live in but the majority of them have been cut down. As a result, they have to venture onto our properties to try and find shelter and food. I have seen plenty of deer in my yard trying to eat our flowers or tomatoes. All you have to do is drive down any major road and there’s a good chance you’ll see a deer on the side of the road that was hit by a car. This can happen to all animals, not just deer. There isn’t a whole lot that can be done to help save the biodiversity because a lot of people would agree that human expansion is a good thing. One thing that I could do though is try and persuade my local government to set aside land for reserves that cannot be touched.
Michael, I am from Hatfield about 20 minutes away from Blue Bell. We have very similar levels of biodiversity in our towns but I feel recently in my area it is depleting. The reason is because they are cutting down a lot of trees for homes and buildings and this is leading to the animal habitats to deplete. This also connects to the biggest threat to biodiversity in both of hometowns which is habitat loss. Humans are directly impacting these habitats and causing them to die out. Great post, check mine out http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/04/15/douglas-apple-module-10/
Hi Michael! My name is Taylor, here is a link to my post:
http://sites.psu.edu/geog30/2016/04/15/gunderson-mod-10/
Blue Bell, Pa sounds like a pretty interesting place to live. I appreciate the fact that you recognize the fact that human expansion is inevitable and good for the most part. I agree with you and am hopeful that more small governments find way to maintain land reserves to ensure biodiversity into the future. I enjoyed reading your post, good luck with the rest of the course!
Hey Michael! My name is Shanda. Here’s a post to my blog for this week! https://wp.me/p3RCAy-f5p
Your post really interested me because it is unlike my own. I was really unable to focus on one part of biodiversity when thinking about my hometown, Pittsburgh PA. I see you are from Blue Bell, PA. Is that like where the ice cream comes from? Anyway, I really appreciate how you painted the picture of what your hometown is like. I think it is fairly similar to the outskirts of Pittsburgh! Enjoy your weekend!