Blog Post 2: Pavelko-Fox

Humans have impacted the natural environment more than any other animal this planet has ever known. In the diagram I have created there is a distinct relationship between society (India) and the environment. When you look at this from a systems perspective, you are able to see how both systems (humanity and environment) affect each other positively and negatively. As you can see there seems to be a direct correlation between population growth and decline in both health and sustainability. People need food and in order for more people to eat, more fuel needs to be consumed (leading to deforestation in this example). Geography in this case is needed to answer the question, “what happens when the carrying capacity has been reached/exceeded and people no longer have the resources to sustain the overgrown population?”. This is when we see innovation occur, like the bio-gas tanks used to capture methane as a viable source of fuel. There are many parallels in fact between my diagram and the one given to us by Gerry Marten. Both Marten and I use webbing to show how different things interact and effect each other. We also incorporated things like technology, population, plants, and human built structures in our examples. However Marten’s illustration is more of a template while my graph is a specific example of a problem in India. I think what we can take from these two examples are that these diagrams can be used to show the cause and effect of any change in an ecological system no matter how small.Screen Shot 2016-01-27 at 11.20.35 PM

2 thoughts on “Blog Post 2: Pavelko-Fox

  1. Hey Matthew, I think it is interesting how you set up your diagram. It looks neat and organized, and is similar to mine in the way you have it separated by social and economic systems. In my post (http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/27/biogas-diagram-alex-deebel/) I included money that is gained from selling the tanks and compost. I also like how you separated women and children from the general growing population, as they are the cause for why the tank was initially created. How you included sustainability as part of the diagram is cool, I mentioned it more in my write-up, but did not include it in my actual diagram.

  2. Hi Matthew! My name is Peter Han and I am studying mechanical engineering at Penn State. I like how thorough your diagram was as it was easy to follow due to the color coordination and the relationship description on each arrow. Your system diagram encompasses every positive effect of biogas on the social system and ecosystem that was stated in the video and was able to relate them to one another effectively. Like your diagram, mine also included children, health, dung, and firewood, however your diagram includes aspects like women, sustainability, and slurry, which are topics I wish I had touched on more, so great job on that! I can tell you put a lot of thought into your diagram and hope you can take a look at mine too.

    http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/01/27/peter-han-systems-diagram/

    Peter Han

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