Tag Archives: visualization

Water Usage

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The water supply for my home is not connected to any municipal sources because of its location in a rural area.  My family has several wells on the property for both residential and farm use.  The ground water is around 70 feet below the surface and is completely potable.  The well for our house recharges from natural drainage from the 40+ inches of rain received in Erie County every year.  That water is pumped with an electric pump into my house where it is used for drinking, cleaning, showering, and etc.  The gray water from the house is disposed of into our leech bed which infiltrates water into the ground.  The water drains through the soil back into the groundwater supply, thus completing a cycle.  Some of this water is probably lost from runoff and evaporation, which means it ends up draining into French Creek or lost into the atmosphere.  This is a fairly common setup for water in my area, where almost everyone has their own wells.

 

waterusage

In my attempt to use only 2 gallons of water in a day, I realized how difficult that actually is.  The areas of water use that I focused on were cooking, drinking, and hygiene.  Immediately, I realized that showering was not a realistic possibility.  Drinking water and cooking were the most important activities that required water, so I focused on satisfying those needs first.  For hygiene, I decided to use a small amount of water to wash my face instead of showering, which greatly cut down on water use.  I drank half a gallon, but I did not leave the sink running like I normal do.  I used another gallon for cooking.  I failed the experiment the first time I had to use the bathroom; that in itself uses more than 2 gallons.  I did use just a fraction of my normal water use of around 100 gallons.  Geography is relevant to water use because of the unequal distribution of water supply and use across the Earth’s landscape.  My area has more than enough water that can support my usage, but many places do not.

Getting to know you

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Hello! My name is Maura. I am originally from the South Hills of Pittsburgh. I enjoy riding horses, skiing, hiking, cooking, and traveling. I graduated from Penn State in May 2014 with a degree in forensic science (chemistry option) and minors in chemistry and psychology. I began doing research my junior year and following graduation I accepted a full-time position in the research laboratory.   I am a research assistant in an analytical chemistry lab that focuses on environmental and forensic applications. I live and work full-time at University Park. I am currently applying and interviewing for pharmacy school. My career goals are to become a pharmacist. I am currently taking courses to meet the prerequisites for pharmacy school. I have laboratory experience investigating environmental chemistry impacts on human health. I am excited for this class to display other perspectives on the environment. I hope to have a well-rounded understanding of the environment and how humans effect the environment after completing this course.

 

The United States of America has been experiencing an energy crisis.   The coal supply is rapidly decreasing and the USA is becoming increasingly dependent on the Middle East for oil. With the diminishing amount of fossil fuels in the USA and the government’s reluctances to rely on the Middle East, the USA has displayed governance. Foreign policy and natural resource constraints have resulted in unconventional shale gas drilling in America. People have expressed great concern about the sustainability of fracking. Many people are worried about the potentially detrimental impacts fracking could have on the environment. A fracking incidence could result in dangerous chemicals leaching into drinking water. This would affect a local scale in which small towns or counties could experience health effects if fracking sites were to contaminate drinking water supplies. Maps of the shale rock basins in the USA visualize the various shale basins present in the bedrock of America. The shale rock stretching across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio is the Marcellus formation.

M1_LearningActivity_wzz5097

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I am Wenjie Zheng, a sophomore this year. Right now I live in State College, PA but I grew up in Beijing, China. My major is Economics, but I would also like Geography as my minor, even as my second major. I haven’t decided what to do as the future career, but it will definitely be related to what I am learning now. Currently the topic of sustainability is a hot issue, as it closely related to the future of all human beings, whether how long we are going to last on this planet, and how we are going to sustain that amount of time. It interests me that I want to answer all the observations I witnessed around me. One of my hobbies is travelling. So I always see the actions people deal with environment. For example Germany likes to China harshly regulates the use on plastic bags; as well as the detoured ferry route to avoid shallow water coral reefs in Fiji.

I would like to talk about the issue with Visualization from this module. Visualization is an important way for people to be familiarized with this world, and it is also one of the most crucial tools for people to learn an object. In this section it addressed the issue that the most common map of the world that people are most familiar with is actually inaccurate in depicting the size of each country, water area, and continents. In the video posted, the scientists mentioned the example of Greenland Africa. It seems the Greenland is the same size as Africa on the map but it is actually 14 times smaller than Africa. This is due to the rectangular distortion with the map. They then introduced the Peters Projection, in which more accurately describing the size and location of each land in a rectangular map. By simply looking at the maps without knowing the figures and data people are often biased with area of a particular land. Visualization such as maps should offer an accurate depiction rather than making the map ‘good looking’.