Earthquake Safety Plan

Safety Plan

If there is an earthquake:

To Survive:

1. Get away from any large windows, shelves, or other glass objects.
2. Hide under the nearest doorway or table using the drop, cover, and hold technique. 
3. Attempt to phone for help if the building collapsed
4. If it didn't, make your way out of the building after the initial earthquake and find an open area.

To Escape:

1. Get away from any large windows, shelves, or other glass objects.
2. Leave the house from the nearest exit.

Earthquake Safety Kit

• First aid kit including bandages, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol etc.
• Whistle to call for help if somebody is badly injured
• Canned food and a can opener
• Water, approximately 3 gallons for every family member
• Extra clothes, including waterproof clothes
• Radio
• Flashlight
• Extra Money

Tsunami Essay

On December 26^th 2004 one of the largest tsunamis ever recorded struck the shores of India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and other countries in the region. With an estimated magnitude from 9.1 to 9.3 and killing almost 150,000 people it remains the third largest tsunami to date, caused by an earthquake off the shores of Sumatra, Indonesia. Many people believe the reason for this was the lack of warning systems in the Indian Ocean. Many tsunamis occur in the Indian Ocean because it is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, a large are of countries off the coast of the Pacific Ocean where a large amount of tsunamis and volcanic eruptions occur. In many places around the world they are beginning to develop tsunami warning systems in areas with a large amount of seismic activity off the shore. After the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean the United Nations held a conference in Japan to take a step towards warning systems and developed the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System and soon, other countries followed.

            In many countries around the world they are beginning to develop tsunami warning systems like in the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System was created after the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. The United Nations held a conference in Kobe, Japan in 2005 and resulted in the warning system being active in 2006. The IOTWS consists of 25 seismograph stations relaying information to 26 tsunami information sensors. It also consists of 3 deep ocean sensors to detect shifts in the water. The system works using the readings of the seismographs and the deep-ocean sensors to determine where a tsunami might strike and evacuate the areas that might be affected. This is a commonly used system, being used around the world to help detect tsunamis because the combination of the seismograph and the deep-ocean sensors gives two readings telling where and when a tsunami might strike.

            Though it is a very effective system there are many problems that can obstruct any warnings and/or evacuations. One of the main problems posed is the way of transmitting the warning to the people who might be affected. There are obviously many ways to transmit a warning such as radio, TV, phones, loudspeakers, but there is no guarantee everybody will hear it and be able to evacuate in time. There have been attempts like sending texts to your phone or setting up loudspeakers everywhere. The most commonly used method is using loudspeakers to warn people, but the problem is, how do you make loudspeakers loud enough that people can hear them in their houses through all the brick walls and other sounds in their houses. One thing that makes it hard to evacuate people before tsunamis is that once you get warned you have very little time to evacuate so the message has to be quick. If you get sent an SMS than it could be an hour before you read it but by that time you’d be underwater.

            Tsunami warning systems have many flaws but they still manage to save many people’s lives. Putting all the flaws of tsunami warning systems aside, they still manage to do their job. With tsunami warning systems active in most coastal cities around the world there are many seismograph stations which, when all connected, can give very accurate results on where tsunamis will strike, the strength, etc. Even though not everybody can be evacuated many lives can be saved with warning systems. The problem is not so much the sender of the warnings but the receiver. If somebody can’t find out a tsunami is coming their way in time that isn’t the fault of the warning system. Many lives are saved by warning systems so there is no real reason to think that they’re a bad thing despite some flaws.

            Tsunamis kill thousands upon thousands of people every year, and tsunami warning systems save thousands of people every year. In most coastal regions around the world there is some sort of system that warns people if a tsunami is coming. These systems are mostly very effective and save people but they can’t always save people. Tsunamis are lethal, and people are putting in an effort to save people who would be affected by tsunamis. There is really no way, or will not be a way for a long time, that people can be 100% safe from tsunamis because they come suddenly and are almost invisible until they hit the continental shelf. Detecting seismic activity with seismographs is the best way that people can get to safety before a tsunami hits and it is being used all around the world.

Waves Lab

I.  Guiding Question: How do waves change when they move over an object?

II.HYPOTHESIS:  I think that when a wave moves over a smooth object the wave length will get shorter and the amplitude will get higher.  When it moves over a rougher object I think that the amplitude will get shorter and its wave length will get much shorter also.

III.  Exploration-
Materials:Tray, water, smoother clay, rough clay,

Procedure: Test how waves’ amplitudes and wave lengths change when they are forced to travel over a smooth surface and a rough surface. First I tested what the average amplitude was with no objects, then I tested how waves amplitude changes when they travel over a smooth object then over a rough object.
        

IV.  RECORD & ANALYZE
A.

Object	Amplitude
No object	44 mm
Smooth Object	52 mm
Rough Object	47 mm

B. On my first test I tested what the amplitude would be when there is no object to pass over. I put the water at approximately 17mm doing a sideways motion the amplitude was 44mm. Then I tested with a smooth piece of clay for the waves to go over with the same amount of water the amplitude was 52mm. On the last test I tested how the waves’ amplitude would change when it moved over a rough object the amplitude was 47mm. Out of all the tests it seemed that the waves amplitude was highest when forced to go over a smooth object. When the wave travelled over something it’s amplitude was higher than when it didn’t have to travel over any object. I think that my tests were mostly accurate because I tested many times before I settled on a definitive result. It was hard to see the amplitude because sometimes it would go high and sometimes it wouldn’t.


IV.  Concept Acquisition (CONCLUSION): Throughout all my tests I noticed a lot of things that I could never have predicted. My hypothesis was somewhat correct but when I saw that the rough object actually had a higher amplitude than without a barrier I was very surprised. I was right about the amplitude of the smooth abject because it went higher just like I predicted. The wave length was something that I couldn’t test when I started testing because of the way I was creating the waves, moving the tank side-to-side. The wave length was something I could only guess and would, therefore, be very inaccurate so in the end I really couldn’t test it. I think that my data was accurate and maybe was off by a millimeter or two but was in the right general area.
 

Wave Simulator

In science today we used a wave simulator to simulate different waves. It started out as just a faucet dripping one drop of water. You can control many things to make the waves different like frequency, amplitude, barriers, and even change the direction at which you look at the tank. You can look at water waves, light waves, or sound wave. I tested mainly how the waves would react when you change the amplitude and frequency. When the amplitude was very high then the waves were large, and when the amplitude was minimum then there were barely visible waves. When the frequency was very high then there were a lot of waves, when the frequency was low than a wave would only come once in a while. I then tested with barriers and added detectors, which tested the wave length of waves in certain places. I added 5 barriers at a time and that made the waves dissipate very quickly. The wave simulator was a fun thing to do and  is very interesting and educational.

Wave Interactions

In science class we tested how waves would react with no barriers, one barrier, and two barriers. First we tested how the waves would react when there is no barrier while moving the tray side to side. the motion created roughly 3-4 waves that moved from side to side. The waves moved from side to side passing through each other created many standing waves. The waves remained virtually unaffected by each other, if one of the waves was isolated then it would seem as though it was just reflecting from one side to another. When we tested it with one large barrier using the same back and forth motion it became a totally different outcome. When the wave hit the barrier in the middle of the tray half of it was absorbed by the clay instead of reflecting it like when it did with no barriers while the other side kept on going before it got hit by the wave going in the other direction. The last test we did was with two large barriers placed parallel to each other in the middle of the tray. In the last test we used the same motion to create the waves as in the previous two tests. When the wave hit the barriers most of its energy dissipated but a small part of the wave goes through the small hole in the middle of the two barriers creating diffraction. From our tests on how waves interact I've learned a lot. Waves reflect when they hit a barrier, they diffract when they travel through a small hole, when two hit each other it creates the illusion of a standing wave. 

Food Inc. Reflection

Food inc. told an amazing story of the food industry and showed the public some things that nobody ever saw before about the food industry. The food industry is so illusive to the public and never wants to show anybody what their really doing and that’s why Food Inc. is so different and a one of a kind movie. The footage they show of the chicken houses especially and the chicken pickup shows how the food industries treat the food you eat. The soy beans that Monsanto made make a huge problem for people that have regular soy beans. Since Monsanto has the power to sue anybody that has traces of Monsanto soy beans they control the entire soy bean industry. Humans have destroyed the natural ways of farming when they farm on industrial scales. Animals that are grown on industrial scales are bigger and fatter but they can only walk for a couple seconds because they are so large that their bones can’t keep up with the rapid growth of the fat. Even though natural farming is much better than industrial farming and healthier than industrial farming, the only thing people want is faster, bigger, and cheaper. Even though we would have healthier food it’s just not fast enough to keep up with the fast food demand. This appears most obvious with cows and the beef industry. Beef is the most mass produced meat just because of the fast food industry. Cows are fed corn because there is so much even though cows are not made to eat corn. This is followed by Tyson making holes in the cows because they can’t digest the skin of the corn so they have to stick plastic tubes into the cows’ stomachs so they can pull out all the non-digestible food. Food Inc. was a really great movie and I think is a movie that had to be made to inform the public about all this. Even though they were not able to interview any companies they still showed a lot of footage of how everything is run and how everything is done.  So, overall this was really fun to watch and a great movie that I think everybody needs to watch.