Summer Already!

  

The Semester is almost over and this has been a great one. Before starting this semester I was not sure if Western was the right place for me to get my degree from. I have been so into Biology and nature my whole life so environmental studies was a great direction for me to go. Nature and Society was my first environmental class and I am so glad that I took it because otherwise this time next year I would have been in Lansing attending Michigan State. 
I am so happy with all the opportunities that I have been given in this class and being able to relate to people in my class. I have been able to discover Kalamazoo even more and see some of the great places around here. I actually recently discovered the trails around Asylum Lake last week and they are awesome. The first day I walked through them, I came back later that day and had a great run . I have been trying to find good spots to run that are more natural and away from the busy roads of Kalamazoo. This spot will now be my new running destination and a great place to spend an hour with some true nature.

SHINGO!

I am excited for the summer because I recently have gotten a new addition to my pack. My boyfriend and I adopted a 4 months old puppy last week from SPCA in Kalamazoo. He is a Shepherd mix and he will be a great running partner when he gets use to the leash.



In addition to my new pup, this summer will be full of work and school but I can't wait to get started working with Cari Delong. I'm sure she will teach me so many things that I will be able to apply to my future career. This opportunity with Cari is all due to our teacher Lynne Heasley inviting her to show her presentation to our class. I am so grateful to this class and I hope that my future ENVS classes will bring great opportunities in the future like this one has.

Eaarth

"The world hasn't ended, but the world as we know it has- even if we don't know it yet."- One of the many great lines from Bill McKibben's book, eaarth. Bill brings forward the important issue that a majority of the population have ignored about how our once beautiful planet has changed drastically and is in serious danger if we do not do anything. The name of his book is not just spelled wrong it actually is Bill's point of how the earth is not the same earth as it once was so we should not call it the same name that we did 200 years ago. 

Before reading this book, I was unaware that global warming has done so much to the earth. The last time I heard anything about global warming was in my Advanced Chemistry class in high school where we had to watch "The Inconvenient Truth" by Al Gore. At the time of this movie, global warming was still a questionable issue but now we know that it actually is an issue and a most important one. 

The signs have came very slowly but our earth is increasing in temperature and it is affecting the life around us. A lot of the unusual weather events such as more thunder and lighting are due to the increase in temperature. The climates have been all messed up with some places getting droughts and some getting floods when they are not expecting them. This causes life to die off or have to move from their habitats because their homes are not the same as which they have adapted to. This causes more extinctions and this is one of the last things we want.

Some people in class said that they did not enjoy reading Bill McKibben because he was negative but I loved the two books we had to read of his. I think that the only way to make a difference is to show the population the truth behind what is happening to our earth and we can't live the way that we are. We need to change our ways because if we don't the future of our generations won't be able to live on the earth. Bill makes it obvious that we are not able to undo what we have already done to our planet but we can try to prevent anymore damage. I would recommend this book to anyone and hope to come across many like it.

Cause and Effect of Pollutants on Our Lakes Seminar

Yesterday I attended a sweet presentation about the cause and effect of pollutants on our lakes that was part of Cari Delong's seminar series. This Presentation was presented by Carla M. Koretsky who is an Associate Professor in Geosciences here at Western.


Professor Koretsky's main focus of this presentation was three lakes in Michigan where she has been drawing samples from to see the types of chemicals in the lake and if or when the lake would turn over. The lakes are Asylum Lake and Woods Lake that are in Kalamazoo and Brewster Lake that is in an Rural area in Hastings.

Asylum Lake

Woods Lake

There are organic and inorganic pollutants to the lakes. The inorganics are our main focus where phosphorus and Nitrogen levels from treatment facilities, sewage leakage, fertilizers, detergents, ect. are in the process of being reduced. There also is higher levels of lead and Zinc than normal levels from lead gasoline and chemicals from tires driving on the highway.

Phosphorus is a limiting nutrient and forms algal blooms on top of the lakes that limit the exposure of the sun so the life on the bottom of the lake can not grow or live.There slowly becomes less and less oxygen as you approach the bottom of the lakes so no amount of life can live in almost over half depths of the lake.This is a major concern and they have been working hard to try to reduce phosphorus and the algal blooms.
There are a few examples of where the amounts got too high  and the lakes ended up really suffering. 

• In the 1950's hypoxia hit the Kalamazoo River. Hypoxia happens when the dissolved oxygen content of a body of water is decreased and oxygen dependent organisms die off. This event resulted in a massive fish kill.



This is not an actual picture of the Kalamazoo River but a massive fish kill that happened in a Louisiana Marsh from the same conditions


Phosphorus levels were once so high in Lake Erie, it was declared dead in the 1960's. This is why the 1972 Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement was formed.

Solutions:

• Control residential run off
• Reduce use of phosphorus in fertilizers and detergents
• Control agricultural runoff
• Reduce phosphorus in sewage
• Install fountains in bodies of water. 

Fountains are not just for looks, they actually are aeration systems that helps oxygen mix with the water.
"Dilution is the Solution to Pollution!"
Problems with road salt:

NaCl has became a big problem in body of waters next to paved roads that get salted for ice. Salt in the water can cause freshwater and groundwater to turn into salt water which would decrease the biodiversity in the waters. 

A quote made by Professor Koretsky meaning that the only way we can solve the problem of getting road salt in the lakes is to dilute the salt they use with other types of dilutions like sand. Other types of solutions are to reroute the storm water to go to bigger bodies of water but that just moves the problem it doesn't solve it. The only problem with trying to reduce road salt in the water is that NaCl is cheap and alternative ways are expensive.

Professor Koretsky and her classes have been working on a project where they are seeing the effects of road salt from paved roads on two urban area lakes (Wood and Asylum) and one rural area lake (Brewster). The results so far have been that Brewster Lake have very low levels of salt in its waters but the two urban area lakes have very high levels of salt in their waters. 

The worst is in Woods Lake where a student of Professor Koretsky has been working the most on finding the effects from this high amount. In this lake, it is not experiencing it's spring "turn over" where the cold less oxygen filled waters mix in a cycle like motion with the top, warmer more oxygen filled waters. This keeps the body of water alive and healthy. By December the lake is not even turning over in Woods Lake. Professor Koretsky and her students will be still sampling the lake to see when it when it finally turns over and if there is any hope for this lake.

Professor Koretsky was very impressive in her presentation. She is a great speaker and really knows her stuff. She teaches GEOS 3350 (Minelogy) and GEOS 5500 (Environmental Field Geochem) in the fall. I think she would be an amazing professor and I am considering taking a class by her sometime when I get higher up in my school status. 

Norway!

World's Largest Solar Production Plant

Norway is the headquarters for a huge solar production plant, owned by REC Group. They have taken the emissions problem seriously and they now plan to be carbon neutral twenty years sooner than originally expected. They have expanded with 5 different sales offices and production facilities in the US. Visit their site to find where they are and any information about their company. http://www.recgroup.com/

Northern Lights

The rainbow in the night

When looking at pictures of the northern lights, they all seem computer made and unreal, but they are really real. These Northern lights or aurora borealis are produced when the sun ejects a cloud of gas from solar activity, if this cloud reaches the earth within 2 or 3 days, it can collide with the magnetic force of the earth. This collision causes changes that make charged particles that are boosted with energy and when they collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms that are in the atmosphere, they produce dazzling auroral light. 

The best places to see these lights are above the arctic circle in northern Norway. The most frequent time to see these lights are in late autumn, winter and early spring where the days are shorter with day light.

A major fjord in Norway:

Also, if anyone is interested in going to the presentation by Dr. Carla Koretsky that Suzanne posted on her wall http://getoutanddosomething.tumblr.com/ for the cause and effect of pollutants in our lakes on Wednesday (04/20) at 1:30 in Wood, there is a correction: WMU STUDENTS AND FALCUTY DON'T HAVE TO PRE-REGISTER OR PAY  to go to this presentation. So please come, it's free and sweet!

Beautiful weather becomes Beautiful days

After having to work all weekend, I got to experience a beautiful day on Sunday and the weather that came with this week. It was crazy to drive down the street and see almost every house with people outside enjoying the weather. The way it has been this week is how it should be always, the great weather really brings out the best in people and makes them want to enjoy the outdoors. This is just the thing we need to start out the studying for the last exams of the semester and finals week. 
This week has started out great! I now can wake up and eat breakfast out on the deck and listen to all the birds that are enjoying the same thing as I am. I love when the birds come out, thats why I got a bird feeder last week for all of them to enjoy. 


This plastic one may be not be so attractive to birds but I plan on bringing back the type of bird feeder I use to make when I was a kid. It was very simple to make, all you need is a fairly big pine cone, string, peanut butter, a plate and bird seed. 

• First you tie a foot long string to the top of the pine cone so there is enough left on each side to be able to tie around a branch of the tree you plan to hang the bird feeder on.
• Next you cover the pine cone with peanut butter with a spoon.
• Then you pour some bird seed out on the plate and roll the peanut butter covered pine cone in it, making sure to cover all the peanut butter with bird seed
• Finally you hang your homemade bird feeder on a tree of your choice and let the birds enjoy!

I got my inspiration to bring back some of the arts and crafts I use to do when I was in 4-H as a kid when I went to the Gibbs house on Sunday. We made some really sweet flowers out of used pop bottles. They are cute decorations and help us reuse instead of consuming new products.

Also in a way to enjoy the weather on Sunday, a group of me and my friends went to the beach, the water was too cold to swim in, but it was a beautiful sight. There were small dunes all over the beach from the higher tide I believe. It was nice to just get away and enjoy some where we can't everyday. 

For all you who didn't know, Saturday is the free admissions day at the Nature Center. I plan to go around noon and walk the trails. It will be 55 out but there is a 70% chance of rain so make sure to bring a umbrella. I'm hoping that it ends up being dry and nice but it won't wreak the day if it does rain. 

Hope to see you there!