Top Ten Blog Entries of Fall Semseter

1. Week of October 13th- In this blog entry I looked into the connection between global warming/climate change and the supposed increase in the number and strength of hurricanes. I enjoy this blog entry because I did a lot of outside research and brought an interesting conclusion to class discussion.
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/10/week-of-october-13th.html

2. Week of November 3rd- In this blog entry I took notes on an article about Clean Coal in China. I then did further research on the Future Gen project and the process of turning coal into liquid fuel. I like this entry because I learned about new technology that is in the works to reduce CO2 emissions that I did not know about previously, such as Future Gen and Green Gen (the Chinese version of Future Gen) as well as why Future Gen failed, the reason for which is political and economic, which is my forte.
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/11/week-of-november-3rd.html

3. Notes on Class Projects- This blog entry is a series of notes on a group in-class presentation on solar power. I liked this blog entry because of some of the startling data, for example, "only 1% of US land would have to be allocated to provide energy for the entire US" and "right now we only use alternative energy to meet 1% of our energy needs."
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/10/notes-on-class-projects.html

4. Chapter 3: Energy: A Closer Look- This blog entry contains two textbook questions by group did in class about the about of oil used in the United States by cars, the amount of CO2 this results in and what would be the effects of switching to the use of hybrid cars or energy produced by fission from domestic uranium (nuclear energy.) I like this blog entry for two reasons. First, actually doing the math related to the science and coming up with conclusions on my own made me feel like I was discovering ways to reduce CO2 emissions. Second, this blog entry inspired my groups final project in that my conclusion after these questions was that the United States must start integrating the Hybrid Car into society in order to take advantage of the possibility of reducing the United State's daily oil imports by 1/3 (the conclusions of my math.)
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/09/chapter-3-energy-closer-look.html

5. Week of November 10th- In this blog entry I posted the questions my group worked on in class that week regarding albedo, emissivity, evapotranspiration, energy balance, climate models and the process of radiation that heats the earth. I like this entry because the terms that I learned about (via having to look them up and explain them in my own words) were entirely foreign to me prior to this class, and I feel they are staples in understanding the way the system of heating and cooling the earth works. I like this blog entry for the value of its knowledge, I feel like I might look back to it at a later date, in fact I did while writing up one of my labs.
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/12/week-of-november-10.html

6. Week of Nov 17th- This blog entry contains the notes I took when the speaker on the economy came as well as a paragraph on the useage of ethanol in Brazil. I like this blog entry because I thought the economic speaker was very interesting and his topic, the current crisis, was very timely. I also like the paragraph on Brazil because the usage of ethanol in Brazil is something I learned about in another class and a topic I am potentially interested in pursueing/ further researching in the future, maybe as a developmental project. My knowledge of the trade situation in Brazil allows me to see one way I may study the topic of alternative energy and use what I learned in Scientific Reasoning later on in my major.
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/12/week-of-november-17.html

7. Insulation- My blog from this week is about different types of insulation, the way they are used and their effectiveness in relation to their R-value. For example I learned: "The effectiveness of insulation is rated by an R-value. The higher the R-value, the greater the material's ability to insulate. Each inch of fiberglass blanket insulation, for example, provides an R-value of about 3.27." I like these notes because I did more extensive research, which truley resulted in me gaining a better understanding of the topic of insulation. There reason this post is so low on my list is because we never came back to the topic in class and I consider insulation a boring, althought important, topic.
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/10/insulation.html

8. My carbon footprint- In this blog entry I used two different sites to calculate my carbon foot print and took notes of the specific questions each calculator asked me and how the questions asked may have affected the results provided by the site. I have never calculated my carbon footprint before, so it was interesting to apply something that we often talk about in class "the carbon footprint" to myself and actually calculate it. I also found it interesting that the sites ask pretty vague questions and came up with different answers, possibly hinting at the point that the actual amount of carbon dioxide that one emits is not the main focus of the calculator, but instead the calculator is supposed to get people to think about what causes carbon dioxide emissions, and therefore how people can individually reduce their impacts.
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/10/my-carbon-footprint.html

9.Research- This was my first blog entry. This entry summarizes information from www.epa.gov about the basics of sustainability, going green, climate change, alternative forms of energy and the energy theory. While this blog is not as in depth as later blogs (it was the first one and I didn't really know what to do) it did help me understand the basics of the "going green" cause. I didn't know what sustainability was before this blog and therefore feel it is both significant and something I may look back on as a reference later.
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/09/research.html

10. Semester Project- This blog entry includes the earliest outline of my group's semeter project and all of the questions we could possibly have focused on within the 4 persepective we chose to view the hybrid car from (economic, scientific, political and social.) I like this entry because the topic of our semester project we originally my inovation and I'm proud of the idea and how my group made it come to life later on in the semester.
http://honor033.blogspot.com/2008/10/semester-project.html