On the 22nd of October, I learned that there are different ways to protect soil. Some of which are crop rotation, contour farming, terracing, inter cropping, windbreaks and no till farming. I found this interesting because around the world there are different ways to help maintain nutrients within soil. For instance, in Asia there is the use of terracing to grow rice. Another one that I did not know of before was the shelterbelts. I thought it was smart to have a build up of natural materials to protect the crops from the wind.

I also found learning about The Dust Bowl interesting. I have heard of it in the past, but never really knew what it meant. I was surprised to find out that so much top soil can be spread along the states. The pictures in the notes are amazing; I thought that was just in the movies.

Oct 22

So far i learned about agriculture and different techniques that farmers adopte, the different types of soils and their formations, and also some agriculture impact on soil which i found very interesting.

October 22 Class

The whole section on genetically modified food was very
interesting. I remember seeing
articles and hearing news stories GMO's
but honestly never paid much attention since we grow (and can) a lot of our own
veggies or get them from an organic farm.
I think it would make you think twice about eating genetically modified
food if you think of it as such, but if they can load up an ear of corn with
the good nutrients you get from fish and it still tastes good then I think I
would be open minded enough to try it.
From my point of view developing more nutrient rich food is not a bad
thing mainly for the underdeveloped countries.
In think we need to keep in mind that without people experimenting with
plants in the past we would not have the food choices of today.

Comments on the videos

The first two videos I got a lot out of. For instance, how to conserve soil and how to prevent soil erosion simply by using the natural resources provided for you by your environment. I would have never thought of using old plant residue or straw to prevent the water from seeping directly onto the soil which eventually creates soil erosion. The third and fourth video intrigued by its humor. I became knowledgeable of actually how bad some insects are to the crops and how or what one should do to prevent there presence which is called integrated pest management and how technology is a significant part of their elimination so we can have healthy vegetables to consume. It is interesting to learn that our modern technology can improve our way of living by making our food healthier and cleaner.

Ashley's comments

Ashley's having some difficulty posting onto the web, so she emailed her comments.

October 1st class

I actually had no idea that the amount of space that is taken up by building housing developments. I thought that every development had the same format, but i was wrong. And i had no idea that the different ones will take up a different amount another one. I think that this world is so moderized that there will never be a such thing of a farm if we keep up with building many new housing developments and then our food really will just come from the supermarket instead of the farms because we keep destorying them. ITS AWFULL!



The group of 4 videos;.:

Video 1: I think it is great that people are finding was to use ecofriendly pesticides. It will help everyone later in life. With the new round up pesticides farmers do not have to till their croplands to control the weeds which saves them money on the gas of the tractors. Plus it helps reduce the amount of CO2 that is put into the air but 30%. i found that absoultely amazing!



Video 2: I did not realize that the heavy grass on the bottom of a hill on a farm was to help prevent erosion. I learned something new. It is a good thing to have grass of last years crop on the soil to help prevent erosion. Because this keeps the nurients in the soil instead of having to go somewhere else. The bare soil in the deminstration in the video had nothing to help keep the soil in place therefore the soil just went straight with the water and into the jar. That was a really really good deminstation to show what helps with soil erosion.



Video 3: I had no idea that it would take this much time and effort to produce health vegetables in a backyard garden. i dont know about anyone else but i do not know anyone with a garden that carries around a little magnifying glass with them to find eggs. i found that extrememly funny because i can not see someone doing that. And i always thought that building a health garden you plant, water, pick. I did not know there was that much thinking involved.



Video 4: I cannot believe that there are that many people that are starving and die from it. To start that lady looked nuts. but it was said that it is easy to protest whenever yours not starving which is so true. There are so many people in the world that we cannot produce food the same way we use to. Therefore we have to fall back on factory produced foods. And i think it is great that the guy produced a wheat that produced 4 times as mmuch wheat than they would have in new mexico. He is a great person to help out with the food that many people need and we probably still use this kind of wheat today.



Class on 10/22

I liked this class because i like the farm atmostsphere so whenever someone talks about farms but ears perk up. I really could have done without knowing about the spidergoat. That was a little much for me that early in the morning. And to know that that is possible kinda freaks me out because what will them use next? It just made me think a little about how people are producing more of a product by using other organisms. I little freaky. And a side point whenever the spidergoat was said all i could think about was the Simpson Movie and home singing the spiderpig song.

4 Videos

It was nice to learn that in Brazil, where they lost 10tons of soil per hector per year, they were able to fix the problem by eliminating tillage. In the second video, even thought erosion is a fact of nature, we can still able to protect our environment through the methods shown. The third video basically, show us how to manage pets in plants and have healthy vegetables to eat by first building our plants knowledge base, monitoring our plants, by decision making and last by intervening. The last video is about Genetic Modify Food where a the end they were saying the best thing to do is to spray out technology so other countries can be able to feed their population and reduce hunger.

4 Videos

Okay. Finally found out what Iwas doing wrong....using Vista.

The 4 videos were very informative. Some of the information I will be able to use for my own flower garden. I have been plagued by weeds and I think I have tried just about everything. But I will keep trying. One of the videos made me understand why I see fields that are not plowed every year. Now I know it is done for a very good reason. Isn't education wonderful!!

The fourth video was really the most informative. Personally, I have been against genetic engineering in food because I didn't know what they were actually doing to or putting into the food. Now that I am much better informed, my view has certainly changed. The video was certainly correct. Organizations work on people's fears and fear definitely sells. I fully agree with Penn & Teller. We need to have the ability to grow more food so we can feed more people. Genetically engineered food is going through 3 possible inspections before getting to consumers, which is more inspections than other food. People need to wake up and do their own research instead of listening to others.

oct 22 class

Natasha Lebby
4 video comments

In the first video, it seems that the decrease of plowing and the use herbicides has helped lower erosion. My first thought, was that the use of herbicides was more harmful to the environment then the use of plows. However, after listening to this video, it seems that the use of the tractors and plows are more helpful to the environment. Apparently, there has been a decrease of green house gas admissions by fifty percent. According to Graham Brookes, in 2004 there was ten billion kilograms less co2 within the atmosphere. He said it is the equivalent of taking twenty percent of the cars in the United Kingdom off the road for a year. That is a very large portion of co2 that has not been released into the air.

In the second video, I liked how there was a demonstration used to describe how rain water filters through grass, corn residue and soil. It makes sense to me to stop soil erosion by the use of grass and the left over crop residue on the surface of the soil because it helps produces better filtered water.

In the third video, when the man states what gardeners should look for in their plants; it seems quite self explanatory. Although, his steps seemed be very useful. I also think it is very important to know what could damage the plant and keeping a good eye out for it. In addition I liked how he stated what sort of pesticide that should be used for safe organic gardening.

In the fourth video, I would need to research more about the situation to really decide what I think is best. I believe that it is fine that researchers are trying to find ways to make more crops for people in developing countries. I personally think, in the years to come we will find out that the genetically engineered crops are more harmful then useful.

october 1st class

I did find it interesting to learn about urbanization and sprawl and i learned that sprawl have a negative impact in our environment were taking too much spaces just to feel that we have our privacy or making our own bubble. I think it will be interesting to see how this gonna affect the future of our land.

4 videos on soil conversation and feeding the masses

Grat information on protecting and utilizing our farm fields - minimum till and no till techniques help minimize soil erosion thus protecting our waterways all the way to the oceans. Would be nice if more farmers would use the techniques and not just those farming the hills or those farming in high wind areas. This way government mandates could be loosened on other industries. Being a gardner I liked the idea of looking other remedies (besides pesticides) to control garden pests, which will help to yield more vegetables and fruits. Totally agree with Penn & Teller - what is wrong with using science to produce vegetables and fruits that will increase output - this is nothing new as we learned in previous chapters it was through cross breeding plants and animals that we have such a diversity of both animals and plants today. If we want to sustain our growth we need innovators such as Norman Berlaug to provide the tools to maintain our current consumption needs and at the rate we are growing to sustain an even larger population. I don't think organic farms will ever go away so those wanting "organic" can continue to have it keeping in mind the plants they are growing and eating are only available due to earlier versions of what we call genetic engineering today.

Four Videos

Because Chapter Seven is a big chapter, we're going to have four videos this week. The first two are about soil conservation. The third one is about integrated pest management. The final video is about genetically modified foods and it's from Penn and Teller's "BS" show, so once again, I'm going to give you the "It's not safe for work because there's some bad words in it" warning.

Urban Sprawl

I so agree with him that we waste so much space and develop way to much. I never payed attention to how much space that buildings waste. I found how he compared the school to a jail because of the architecture. It would be more useful for our shopping and work to be close to where we live. This would save money and cut down on pollution.

Biosphere 2

I found this video to be very interesting. It almost made me want to grow my own food. Anyway I feel she made an interesting point when she talked about how she was living in two biosperes. Her experience has made me think about how we always try to separate ourselves from the environment and each other. We rely on the earth as much as it existence relies on how we take care of it. The industrial eco-system genuis and what a way to turn pollution into something useful for other people. Our responsibility is bigger than we realized. Also I read the labels too.

Bio103: The Lorax

Bio103: The Lorax Almoustapha Amadou
I enjoy this video because it shows how by ignorance or by their interests people don't take care about their environment . They destroy their natural ressources which very important in their life. It an obligation for people to protect their environment to avoid many problems.

What I learned Oct 1

I liked learning about urban sprawl in the last class. It gave me a sense of why cities appeared in the first place. Factory jobs were the main reason why people moved into cities. There are many cities today and it fascinated me to see pictures of the different development sprawl techniques. It was kind of surprising to find out that sparse street networking is pretty much worthless. I am also slightly disappointed that people know we are decreasing forests and ecosystems in the environment, yet there are still large amounts of development occurring.


Video Comment

James Howard Kunstler didn’t seem to beat around the bush. He made his point clear and easy to understand with his photos. James was stating how the Americans define space. It seemed important to him that better designed buildings are worth more than having badly designed ones. James also made a point that trees in city streets are there for shade and covering the buildings. They do not really help the environment; they are planted there for the benefit of people. He also said that in the future people will need to learn how create ways to make developed areas on a smaller scale. For instance houses and shops will be closer together. It makes sense that we should have places that are meaningful and do not take up valuable space and are visually pleasing to us.

Kunstler Video

Although I appreciated the speakers humor on failed architecture, I really only enjoyed the last 5 minutes of his talk. His "sky is falling routine" extremism generally rubs me the wrong way. I've never been a fan of trying to affect change by beating people over the head and screaming about how their way of life is wrong. There's better ways to do it.

However I agree with James H Kunstler as the issues with the movement for a more civic model living environment from the suburban promotes a healthier lifestyle.

For example most families that live in the suburbs that I know will travel by car to the closest walmart to do their shopping because there are no safe side walks. This also deters children from playing outside or even walking to school (which probably is not closely located to many homes anyways). However from my own experience growing up in a civic style neighborhood, there are wide side walks and narrower roads which promote people to walk and cars to slow down. You can walk to the market nearby, there many small shops and cafes and local business located all within 20 minutes walking distance. Finally there are always children outside and people walking.

The rate of obesity in children is alarming and using the built environment to alter the way we live and move about may help to decrease the prevalence of this disease and maybe even others that are highly correlated with it.

October 1st Class

I really enjoyed learning about urbanization and sprawl. I learned that te term urban sprawl generally has negative connotations due to the health, environmental and cultural issues associated with the phrase. Residents of sprawling neighborhoods tend to emit more pollution per person and suffer more traffic fatalities. Sprawl is controversial, with supporters claiming that consumers prefer lower density neighborhoods and that sprawl does not necessarily increase traffic. It will be interesting to see where Sprawl and Urbanization lead us in the future.

October 1st Class

It is really interesting learning about urbanization and sprawl because it makes us less ignorant about the economical problems that it can or has caused. I liked seeing the different communities and how they were structured because it does explain why there is less farming and industrialization in some areas. I understand the importance of boundaries when it comes to sprawl and urbanization.

Making way

It is something how one speices can have such an impact on another.In humans attempt to progress we trespass on anothers speices home and force them to move.In a attempt to expand our kingdoms we destroy another,and cause a dramitic change in the lives of others.
I never really thought of the impact one action has on another till you break it down to smallest level.Every action has a reaction either good or bad.

Oct 1st class

I am really into realestate and this class put some somethings I never even considered from a science point of view. I never even considered the impact new development had on the evironment and on people. Recently i had a conversation with someone and they explained to me that Hershey did not flood in 72' but because of all the new development and the new sprawl it did this year. I never considered how a city was laid out effected our health and transportation. This is something that people consider when buying a house but this information took it to another level. The chapter goes inot city planning and urban planning and until now, I did not know the difference.

Sept 24th class

I had to leave early this class but I did find an interesting article that I feel is very relevant for what our class discussions have been about. In  Montgomery , Alabama the kudzu runs rampid. The article says, that is climbs over what ever is in its path and covers about 7million acres in the south.  Well they have bean plataspids that feed on the kudzu and are native to Asia. They were only discovered in 2009. Some people would like to give the insects a try but the insects bring their own problems.  They are known to dine on soybean and peanut plants. Some people seem to think that the insects will be easier to get rid of then the kudzu. There breeding has been described as profilic and their appetites voracious. The bugs have been known to reduce kudzu growth by one-third... What do you guys think? Is this good or bad?

James Kunstler Dissects Suburbia

Enjoyed this presentation - Mr. Kunstler was very pointed in identifying the problem of sprawl. I agree with him on his criticism of stark architectural designs of public buildings that add insult to injury with wasted space inside and out. The concept he presented of creating a self-contained community is being tested today in several areas across the state - attached and detached single family housing, multi-family housing, retail for service and support of the community. All in all though they are still bedroom in concept in that the people still need to travel to where they work. In these communities they save on fuel costs once they get home in that they don't have to travel far for groceries, a beer and sandwich or the drycleaning. I agree with his thought thad we can use the areas already developed - instead of turning new land to build a bigger box store look at the vacant areas first and try to rehab them - we are at the perfect junction for such a project with the economy forcing a lot of vacancies on residential and commercial properties.

Sept. 24 Class

One of the questions in this chapter is "do we have ethical obligations to other species?" The obvious answer is yes. Humans have come along and have caused so many issues on this Earth and didn't even realize we were doing this until the 1960s or 70s. We have harmed the Earth and took part in causing the extinction of many speices by overharvesting and polluting. We have learned that some steps were taken early on, but humans were still and still are permitted to do things that destroys the natural habitats of many species. This is all making me realize the importance of the sciences that study what causes these things to happen and what can be done to stop or slow the process. These beautiful animals such as the polar bear, panda, and tigers should not have to pay for the human lifestyle.