Weekly Re-purposing Project

For my re-purposing project I decided to turn an old 3 ring binder into a key holder.

First you need a hot glue gun, an old binder, and a pair of scissors.

The Supplies

Now start to cut the binder so that you have the metal rings by themselves and two flaps.

The metal part that will hold your keys

Now take one of the flaps and the metal rings. Make sure that the flap is clean. If you are using a binder that has pockets on the inside use the front side (as pictured below) so that you can use the back to hold notes or mail.

One of the binder flaps and the rings

Next take the metal rings and flip it over so that the piece of plastic it is connected to is face up. Take the hot glue gun and start applying the glue quickly and smoothly. Be generous with the glue if needed.

Now quickly stick it to the flap where ever you want and press down. Make sure the glue cools before trying to move the piece. After the glue has cooled test to see if it has securely been adhered. If not you should apply more glue.

After securing the metal rings to the flap you should have a finished key holder that you can use!

Finished product

For extra fun add a handle to the back, using the hot glue gun, so you can hang it up on the wall. You can try using the metal wire from old notebooks or old ribbons and cloth. I used an old gift bag handle made of paper.

Key holder with a handle

This is an idea that I thought of on my own. I chose to re purpose old binders because they are really hard to recycle. Most people don't think twice when they throw them away or don't know that it can be recycled. Also, I know that these binders are not very durable to the everyday wear and tear. If we re purpose and recycle these binders there will be less in our landfill. It will reduce the amount of potential pollution that comes from landfills and reduce the amount of raw materials to make another binder. Also, we can reduce the amount of oil and fossil fuel use by re purposing this item. The reason is that factories use fossil fuels and crude oils to produce the materials that make the binders. If we recycle our old binders then we can effectively reduce air pollution and fossil fuel consumption. 

I hope that this get you to think about the impact one simple, everyday item has on our environment and that it gets you to reduce, reuse and recycle! 

Will's Weekly Repurposing Project

Fellow APES Students,

Well, my week for the repurposing project finally rolled around...better late than never I suppose.  It took me forever to figure out which item I wanted to repurpose and how I wanted to do it.  After over an hour of scrolling through Pinterest and other DIY websites, I decided to look around and see what I had an excess of or things that I normally just threw away.  I stumbled upon some of my Mom's clothespins and was immediately reminded of a Christmas ornament I had made in preschool back in the day.  I grabbed three of them and began to fashion my Rudolph ornament.  I used wood glue to hold them together with two facing down for the legs and another facing up for the head and antlers.  After the glue dried, I grabbed some googly eyes and a piece of red felt and attached them to the front clothespin and.....tada!  It's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

In my quest to find items for use, I came across a stack of old compact discs (CDs), one of which was scratched pretty badly.  So instead of throwing it away, I searched for ways to repurpose it and found this gem on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVxMM9SbjrU

This video was short, sweet, and to the point and I was actually able to get it right the first time.  Mine may not have looked quite as good as the one in the video, but it definitely served its purpose.  I would have shared photos of my creations with y'all, however I left both with Miss Bergeron on Friday.  I thoroughly enjoyed this project and I learned the importance of recreating items for different uses instead of just throwing them away.  After seeing all the awesome things out there on the web, I realize that almost anything can be repurposed and that it is our responsibility to do so in any way we can to keep trash from filling our landfills and polluting our planet!

Stay green and peace out!

Will Maness

Weekly Blog Post Thingy

Some of the main topics we went over this week in APES were:

• Air & water pollution
• Landfills
• Things that cause pollution (oil spills, nuclear disasters)
• Annnnnd (My personal favorite) The Tragedy of the Commons

Pollution comes from a lot of stuff and affects the world around this in many different ways. The topic of pollution concerns the actions of people that harm the environment, like driving a car (polluting the air via gas emissions) or using pesticides, or fertilizers (polluting by running into sources of water).

Now with landfills, I actually learned a bit in class. Okay, being perfectly honest here, I always thought landfills worked a little like this:

You dig a big hole

You throw people's trash in it.

I didn't really have a second thought of it. So I was pretty surprised that so much work went into making and maintaining landfills. For example, these "landfillians" (I will use this to refer to landfill workers of any sort) put these barriers around the landfill so that chemicals and other stuff don't spread through the soil. Landfillians also make these systems that remove hazardous waste that builds up in the landfills, like methane gas. These guys have more important job than I thought. Now that I think about it, that's what they should be called. It's epic and fitting. Really gets the importance across.

Things that cause pollution can be anything from little things, like using cars, to huge accidents like oil spills and nuclear accidents, both of which we dealt with in class. Pretty serious stuff for accidents. Both of these can really mess up the surrounding environment in ways that we sometimes can't even hope to understand. They can occur because of poor maintenance, mechanical problems, and even just plain carelessness. On another note, nuclear accidents affect us both more so than oil spills, which only affects us because we make a priority of cleaning up (pat on the back for society). Still, the effects of both are devastating. And two notable nuclear disasters weren't accidents...

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Quite easily one of the most horrible events in history. Really shows the cruel price of war and what it takes to end it once it has begun. I'm not going to get into the debate on the use of nuclear weapons or the morality behind it for the sake of not making this post longer than it already is. 

*Ahem* Moving on.

Well, my favorite part of this week, I'd say, was going through the Tragedy of the Commons. It was more on the philosophical side of things, which I like to think about a lot. It talked about how one act at a person's convenience can build up to be something that harms surroundings if everyone does it. Think about it like this: One person smokes and throws their cigarette on the ground, because it's honestly takes too much effort to dispose of it properly.

Well, it's not much right? It's just one person. 

But then, what if isn't? Then you got hundreds or thousands or so people smoking (good for the industry, not so much for those individuals) and dumping their junk all over the place. The Tragedy of Commons presents many concepts like this that really get you thinking.

Well, that's pretty much it for this post. Happy Holidays to all and be careful out there; a lot of crazy stuff goes on in the world. Be observant of your surroundings and be safe alright?

After all,

"This cosmic dance of bursting decadence and withheld permissions twists all our arms collectively, but

if sweetness can win, and it can, then I'll still be here tomorrow to high-five you yesterday, my friend. Peace."

    -The Royal Tart Toter

-Alex

Weekly Blog Christmas Edition

http://youtu.be/0H19uWxtvfc

Hello Fellow APES students,

This is going to be a special christmas edition of the APES weekly blog. We hope you enjoy


This week we went outside to test the Albedo of different surfaces, by measuring the tempature 2 inches from the surface. This works because if the temperature is higher then the Albedo is lower, and if the temperature is lower the Albedo is higher.  This is important because it Albedo is becoming lower then the energy from sunlight is becoming trapped into the earth, thereby heating our atmosphere.

and now please enjoy these special Christmas pictures

And now as we all know of the tragic events in Connecticut I would like to post something special for the families of the victims. We as human beings should all be disguisted by this, and I am sure all of us are.

Thank you guys for your time

-Jeffrey Davis

Salt Concentration Lab

This week in our APES class we are conducting a lab in which we test what salt concentrations plants can properly germinate in.

 

                The salt concentration is determined by the numbers located on top of the labels. The number 3 located on the label above means that there was three grams of salt dissolved within a 100 mL beaker. Although you are unable to see the seeds germinating in the salt concentrations above other salt concentrations like the control or .5 have already began to germinate. While our lab continues we will be writing down how many seeds germinated, how many haven’t and the percentage of germination.

By Kelby Butner

Weekly re purposing project

for this project i decided to make a bird feeder out of a plastic Coke bottle and two wooden kitchen spoons.  For this i used box cutters to make two large holes and two smaller holes.
-Every year in the US over 380 billion plastic bottles are thrown into land fills.
-An estimated 11 billion trees are cut down every year.
- In many areas the food sources for birds are being depleted.
This was important to be because in our area there are many birds and we also waste many plastic bottles.
Supplies- plastic bottle, 2 wooden spoons, box cutters, marker, bird seed

http://www.savvyhousekeeping.com/from-bottle-to-bird-feeder/

Hey guys!

I don't know if anyone will see this tonight but if you get a minute, watch this video:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121129-shaping-the-slums

and/or read this article

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/11/29/166156242/cornstalks-everywhere-but-nothing-else-not-even-a-bee

I'll add a few extra points to your next quiz (not sure how many, depends on the size of the quiz and the quality of your work) if you take some time to write a short 1 page (total) response to how either or both situations relate back to topics we've covered in our class. Both are interesting and worth your time! You can just comment on my post below to turn in your response if you'd like to write one. Enjoy!

Tomorrow is Friday-Eve :) Woot!

-Bergeron

Types of Water Pollution

Determine the effects, examples, and major sources for each pollutant:Infectious agents: (microbiological)

Oxygen-demanding wastes:

Inorganic compounds:.

Organic chemicals:

Plant nutrients:

Sediment:

Radioactive material:

Thermal pollution:

Water Pollutant Awareness Flyer:

When you have completed your research, choose one of the pollutants you think that our community could realistically reduce. Create a flyer to raise awareness about your topic and be sure to describe the effects it has, some examples of it, and where it comes from in our community. You want to persuade the public to change their ways and improve the environment so maybe include some alternatives or ways of reducing this pollutant. Your flyer should be attractive as well as informative and well thought out. You can create it using a computer if you like. Please site your sources and be mindful of using someone else’s ideas as your own (site your sources).

    Hi guys! Well this week in APES, we started off by discussing air pollution and the many different types of pollutants that could harm the environment. We also learned techniques on how to reduce the number of air pollutants that get released into the air. On Tuesday several students signed up to have their cars tested for CO2 emissions. We went down to the student parking lot on Wednesday and using a two liter bottle with an attached paper funnel, we left the cars running for five minutes to collect CO2.

Collecting CO2

Collecting CO2 emissions from a Ford F150

Collecting more CO2

We then took our results back to the room & Thursday we worked at our lab tables and measured the CO2. We added 50ml of H2O and 10ml of BTB into our 2 liter bottle. Then we had to titrate BTB with 1% baking soda until the BTB turned back to blue. We counted the number of drops used (which was a lot!) and began working on our lab report. On Friday we worked on two worksheets to better understand air pollution and ways we can clean it up. :)

Atmospheric Pollution Chart Key

Pollutants	Sources	Problems	Solutions
Lead	-          Leaded fuel -          Metal refineries -          Power plants burning fossil fuels	-          Brain and kidney damage -          Contaminated crops and livestock	-          Use only unleaded fuel -          Reduce reliance on fossil fuel burning power plants.
NOx	-          Vehicles -          Power plants burning fossil fuels -          Coal burning stoves	-          Lung damage -          Acid rain forms -          Deteriorate buildings and statues -          Damages forests -          Forms ozone	-          Reduce the use of fossil burning power plants -          Replace old coal burning stoves -          Reduce car emissions
VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds)	-          Paint -          Perfumes -          Nail polish -          CFCs (in refridgerants and cleaning supplies) -          Car exhaust	-          Respiratory problems -          May lead to cancer. -          Deplete the ozone layer	-          Reduce exposure to items that release VOC’s -          Reduce the use products containing CFCs
SOx	-          Coal burning power plants and industries -          Coal burning stoves -          Refineries -          Volcanoes -	-          Eye irritation -          Lung damage -          Kills aquatic life -          Forms acid rain -          Acid rain that forms damages buildings and forests.	-          Reduce reliance on coal -          Recycle metals so less needs to be refined.
CO2	-          Volcanoes -          Motor vehicles -          Power plants burning fossil fuels -          Forest fires	-          Produces smog when reacts with light. -          Increases the greenhouse effect	-          Reduce car emissions -          Utilize nuclear energy -          Prevent unnatural forest fires
CO	-          Motor vehicles -          Power plants burning fossil fuels. -          Kerosene or wood burning stoves.	-          Headaches -          Reduced mental alertness -          Death -          Heart damage	-          reduce car emissions -          Utilize nuclear energy. -          Stop or slow the use of wood burning stoves or kerosene.
NMHC: Nonmethane hydrocarbons	-          Fossil fuel burning	-          Increase greenhouse effect	-          Reduce fossil fuel use
SPM: Suspended Particulate Matter	-          Diesel engines -          Power plants -          Industries -          Windblown dust -          Wood stoves	-          Lung damage -          Eye irritation -          Damage to crops -          Reduces visibility -          Discolors buildings and statues	-          Reduce the use of diesel engines -          Filter smokestacks -          Reduce use of wood stoves
CFCs	-          Motor vehicles -          Refridgerants -          Cleaning products	-          Deplete ozone layer	-          Reduce the use of items that contain CFCs
Ozone (ambient air)	-          Vehicle exhaust -          Forms when other air pollutants react with sunlight. -          Forest fires	-          Lung damage -          Eye irritation -          Respiratory tract problems -          Damages vegetation -          Causes smog	-          Reduce car emissions -          Add pollutant filter to smoke stacks.
Ozone (stratosphere)	-          Vehicle exhaust -          When pollutants in atmosphere react with sunlight.	-          Increase the greenhouse effect	-          Reduce car emissions -          Filter smokestack smoke
Mercury	-          Burning fossil fuels	-          Contaminate fish	-          Reduce the use of fossil fuels.

Last Week Stuff

Alright guys, here's the last week update for the epic and magnificent endeavors of the 2012 AP Environmental Science course. Just so no confusion is caused, there was no school on Monday. On Tuesday, the class took notes on the subject of quadrats as well as researched the numerous different species of trees and shrubs in North Carolina (http://people.duke.edu/~cwcook/trees/). This information led into Wednesdays activity. The class traveled down to the pond area and conducted quadrat assessments of the deciduous forest and forest edge biomes. On Thursday the class partook in a mining activity which involved the creation of their own websites which can all be found on the blog.

FRQ Topics:

Dams
Quadrat Sampling
Water Shortage Solutions

Good luck and study hard!

http://hitupmypagefordatgold.weebly.com
-AJ Giles :)

Aluminum Knowledge

http://aluminumknowledge.weebly.com/index.html
By: Janet M

Here's my website on......
LEAD MINING
http://whattimeisit-educationtime.weebly.com/

To help you study for the test, here is the powerpoint we used for note taking.

http://www.waverly-shellrock.k12.ia.us/srhigh/Departments/Science/APES/EarthResourcesunit_files/frame.htm

Hope that helps you with your topic list!

DIAMOND LIFE

diamondlifee.weebly.com

This is my website for the mining project I hope you enjoy it, and find it very educational.http://limestonemining.weebly.com/
-Jeffrey Davis

Ravishing Ruby ;)

http://rubyversion.weebly.com/

Mica mining - Kelby

http://kelbymica.weebly.com/

by kelby butner

Graphite

http://apesgraphite.weebly.com/

Truly Tanzanite

http://trulytanzanite.weebly.com/

Coal Mining Website

http://coalminin.weebly.com/
This is Anderson Crowson's website about coal mining

Learning about Quartz!!!

http://letslearnaboutquartz.weebly.com/

APES Uranium

http://apesuranium.weebly.com/

Diamond Mining Website- Cameron

http://diamondinformation.weebly.com/

Good Afternoon APES Students!

Here is your assignment for today!

1. Post your mining website on the blog.

2. View another student's blog and comment on their work. In your comment, you should IDENTIFY and DESCRIBE 2 ways this resource benefits humans. You should also IDENTIFY and DESCRIBE 2 ways the environment is harmed due to humans using/obtaining this resource.

3. When you're done posting and commenting, visit this site: 

http://www.waverly-shellrock.k12.ia.us/srhigh/Departments/Science/APES/chapt141516guide_files/chapt141516guide.htm

...and work on answering the questions to help you practice and review for tomorrow's test. Some of the questions (i.e. the plate tectonic ones) are not going to be on the test, only the land use and water use type questions. However, the plate tectonic questions are good review for the AP test! Use your study topic list as a guide as well as the review reading sheet that was handed out Friday. Good luck!

-Ms. Bergeron

APES Iron

Weekly Repurposing Project - Wine Bottle Vase

I found a cool idea for a flower vase on Pinterest by wrapping yarn around a wine bottle!  I wanted to do something like this for my repurposing project, but I wanted to make it my own.  So, instead of yarn I used chalkboard paint. :)

Supplies:

- a wine/cider bottle

- chalkboard paint

- chalk

- flowers

Steps:

1.  Clean the bottle well.

2.  Paint the bottle with the chalkboard paint and allow 24 hours to dry completely.

3.  Decorate and place flowers in the vase!

The Desire for Sapphire

http://sapphiredesire.weebly.com/

Weekly Blog from SLHS APES!!!

Hey everyone, this is AJ Giles informing you on our adventure out to the pond. This week the entire APES class walked out to the pond to test it for various contaminations. For instance, my group had to test for Nitrate or Nitrite. In finding all these contamination we could learn on how these contaminants entered the water and about the safety regulations. Aside from testing the pond water we were also capturing organisms in the water to see if they can survive. Many of us gathered very interesting creatures and some came up unsuccessful. Well that is a weekly blog! Stay healthy, keep smiling, and save the enviroment!

-AJ Giles  

Emerald Mining

 Click on the emerald to go to my website about emerald mining. Enjoy!

Alex's Repurposing Project: GSU (Gravity-defying Storage Unit)

After about 20 minutes of roaming the interwebs,  I found a repurposing idea that's simple and flexible.

Here's list of supplies to get this going

• Binder clips (I've found the smaller ones easier to work with)
• Some tape (optional, can save you some binder clips and/or satisfy your urge to tape stuff)
• A toilet paper roll, styrofoam cup, or paper and other stuff once you get the gist of making these.

Now for some visual aid

With the toilet paper roll, you'll have to flatten it a bit and use a binder clip to pinch the bottom. If you don't feel like using a binder clip there, you can fold the bottom behind it and use tape to hold it. Then you hang it on a nail or hook up after putting a binder clip on a top edge.
For a styrofoam cup you just slap on (not literally) a binder clip and hang it up. Don't worry about disfiguring the cup, for it does not feel pain or shame.

This little craft doesn't take too much time and it can save some resources while providing some nice storage wherever you may need it. You can store away anything and have it readily available whenever you need it, whether it be pencils, markers, pens, and even little woodland creatures.

Here be the source of knowledge responsible for the creation of the magnificent GSU

Top-secret GSU File

Weekly Repurposing Project: Aluminum iPhone Case

At first, I had decided I was going to use bottle caps, a broken coat hanger, and an old jump rope to make a muscle massager. Needless to say, that didn't work out too well, and I had to resort to Plan B.

I have always thought that aluminum is an interesting metal, and we are constantly throwing away aluminum cans, so an aluminum case for smartphones and mp3 players seemed pretty interesting, since I have a phone that a case would be useful for.

Materials

• 4 aluminum cans
• knife
• scissors
• scotch tape
• duct tape
• sandpaper (optional)

Procedure

1.  Use knife to roughly cut out center of aluminum can.

2.  Use scissors and sandpaper to smooth out edges and flatten aluminum into a rectangle (do this for each aluminum can).

3.  Use your phone or mp3 player as a base and fold the four pieces of aluminum around it, using the scotch tape to hold the pieces together. Be sure that you make the case a little larger than your phone so that it will fit inside easily. (NOTE: This step is very complicated and took a long time. It is difficult to explain, and I did not take any pictures because my phone was inside the aluminum.)

4.  Use the duck tape to seal everything off and cover any sharp edges.

5.  To close the case, just tuck in the flap.

Although I would liked to have soldered the case and made it be entirely aluminum, I had to make do with what I had, and I am still repurposing something.

By making this case, you:

  1)  Reduce the amount of waste being emitted by humans

  2)  Put something to use that would otherwise have been wasted and thrown away

  3)  Eliminate the need to buy a case and use up more resources

I use my phone a lot and carry it around with me, so this was a project that interested me greatly, since my family throws away many aluminum cans.

This case can also be used to carry around other things, such as money or food, not just electronics.

NOTE:  THIS CASE IS MADE OF ALUMINUM AND MAY INTERFERE WITH INCOMING AND OUTGOING RADIO SIGNALS