Owl pellet Lab

Josef Elliott

Bio 105

Lab 3

Part 1Why do you think Carson titles this chapter “A Fable for Tomorrow?” Think about the choice of words in the title. Think about what fable teaches us and apply that here.

A.    A fable is a story about animals as characters. I believe she titled it this way so that the animals would be the main focus. Creating it this way would allow her to create a bond between the reader and the animal characters, which in turn when we saw the affects pesticides has on the animals it will hurt on a deeper emotional level.

1.    What did you know about pesticides before watching the Earth Days segment or reading part of Silent Spring?

A.    I have known about pesticides as far back as I can remember. I know that I used to think they were a good thing and kept animals and bugs from destroying crops. It wasn’t until biology my first semester of college that I learned of some of the affects it has on the environment. It does more that just protect our crops it kills animals, pollutes the soils, pollutes the waters, gets carried in the wind to other places and affects them, and even poisons our food.

2.    What do you feel so strongly about that you would want to fully dedicate yourself to it, producing a groundbreaking work of literature, film, music or other media, even if this risked your professional reputation and how others thought of you? Your answer can be hypothetical! Not everyone has a passion that they would carry this far.

A.    Hypothetically I would devote my life to finding a pesticide that would only target certain pests and would have no additional affect to other animals, plants or people. It would not pollute anything or kill anything it wasn’t intended to.

1.    Name four places pesticides exist.

A.    Fields

B.    Air

C.   Water

D.   soils

2.    What are two effects of DDT on birds and mammals?

A.    It poisons them.

B.    It kills a lot of their food sources.

3.    “Our aim should be to guide natural processes as cautiously as possible in the desired direction rather than to use brute force...Life is a miracle beyond our comprehension, and we should reverence it even when we have to struggle against it...Humbleness is in order; there is no excuse for scientific conceit here.” – Rachel Carson in Silent Spring.

Take a little time to define humbleness in an appropriate manner for this question before answering.

A.    ”having or showing regard for the decencies of behavior, speech,dress, etc.; decent:” (dictionary.com)

How can we exhibit humbleness in terms of our relationship to nature?

A.    We can do this by changing our nature to appreciate the environment and the animals. By changing the way we use pesticides or even pesticides at all.

Part 2 drawing of biological magnification example –

Part 3 –

Part 4 –

1.      Review concept of personal ecological footprint.

2.      Predict how many Earth's each person needs, if they all lived your lifestyle

A.     I don’t believe that my ecological footprint will be that great I try to recycle as much as possible. We also have solar panels. I even have a car that gets 28 miles per gallon.

3.      Calculate your ecological footprint using the,Earth Day Footprint Calculator (Links to an external site.) (http://www.earthday.org/splash_page.php (Links to an external site.)). Many other variables may come to mind as you do your assessment, or the questions might not "fit" your circumstance. Just do your best. It is probably best to ignore the donation request.

A.     

4.      How do you feel about this? Comment on your reaction in at least five sentences.

A.     I was extremely surprised. I honestly thought I lived a fairly simple life. I had no idea I had this big of an impact on the world. I never would have guessed. I find it insane even the amount of acres that I alone need. This is definitely an eye opener. 

Josef Elliott

Bio 105

Lab 2 The Cube

Observations:

1.     The cube has one side that is red.

2.     The cube has two sides that are blue.

3.     The cube has two sides that are white.

4.     All of the faces on the cube have a single name on them.

5.     All faces of the cube have two numbers. One on the top right and one on the bottom left.

6.     The top right number equals the amount of letters that are in the name on the same face.

7.     the white faces share the first 2 letters “Al”

8.     the blue faces share the first 3 letters “Rob”

9.     The bottom left number on the face shows that the corresponding color (exact opposite face on the cube) have the same begging letters in the amount of the number.

10.  The matching colors are on the exact opposite side on the cube from each other.

Question 5:

            The bottom face (Blank face) of the cube will have the name “Fran.” It will have the number “4” in the top right corner. It will have the number “4” on the bottom left corner. It will be the color red.

Question 6:

            The reason for my answer to question 5 is because I found a pattern. I will use the blue sides of the cubes for my explanation. I looked at both sides and realized that the top right number was the amount of letter in the name. I then noticed that the names started with the same letters. I then looked at the bottom left number and realized that on each face of the cube that each color had the same bottom number, I then put together that it showed me the amount of letters that each name started with that was the exact as the other name. So with this information I was able to figure out the answer to number 5.

Josef Elliott

Bio 105

Lab 1 Tragedy of the Commons

1.      What is a "commons?" Give five more examples besides pastures and ponds. Justify your answer by explaining why these areas are a commons.

·       Commons are a place that is open to everyone and are not owned privately by someone.

·       Five examples of a Commons are:

Oceans

Forests

Mountains

Deserts

And parks

2.      What are two solutions to the Tragedy of the Commons?

·       Solution 1: Put a restriction on the amount of resources someone can take.

·       Solution 2: Do things like the fish hatchery in page springs does. That is to raise fish (or other resources) to help replenish the places that are being depleted of their resources.

3.      Describe a situation you have observed where commons have been degraded.

·       To me a tragedy of the commons would be that everyone wants to go to Hawaii and swim on the beaches (which I don’t blame them it beautiful). While I was there I learned that so many people go swimming and put on sunscreen that the oils are coating the reefs and killing the reefs off. This in turn kills the fish that live and depend on the reefs.

(Disney own their own island and they are growing coral to plant by their island to help the coral grow back to help replenish the life that was once there.)

4.      The Tragedy of the Commons considers humans being impacted by this tragedy. How is ecosystem sustainability affected? In your answer, be sure to refer to the definition of the word "sustainability".

·       Well for example we are developing tools to catch more and more fish all the time in the ocean. This has caused a huge decline and even extinction rate in fish. This is affecting us because, we now have to have some regulations on fishing and will need to keep them so we don’t deplete the fish population completely.

5.      Which do think is more important, your individual freedoms or the common environmental good?

·       To me the common environmental good. At this rate we will deplete all of our resources and then no one will be able to survive.