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Articles 1 - 30 of 55
Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Human Energy Capstone
Activities
Movement is very important for humans. From our earliest days, we seem eager to get up and move around. The most celebrated moments of a child’s life seem to be geared around the ability to move: the first crawl, the first walk, the first bike ride, and (every parent’s nightmare) the first driver’s license. The ability to get around is one of the most cherished abilities and freedoms. For many Americans, our ability to get around when and how we want is almost considered a sacred right. Physics textbooks, which have many chapters devoted to motion, build a great many …
Efficiency
Activities
The previous two activities in this module have shown us the importance of conservation laws. These laws provide extra “tools” that allow us to analyze certain aspects of physical systems and to be able to predict the motion of objects in the systems without using more complicated analysis. Even in situations wherein we cannot exactly solve the motion, these laws are incredibly useful. For instance, if someone shows us an incredibly complicated device that can seemingly produce electricity with no energy input whatsoever, we know not to invest money in this device, as it must be a sham since it …
First Law Of Thermodynamics
Activities
In last week’s activity, we calculated the motion of objects by studying the forces on them. Using Newton’s Second Law of Motion, we were able to relate the forces on an object to the acceleration it experienced. The presence of constant forces led to constant accelerations, which corresponded to linearly-increasing velocities with respect to time. Comparisons made between the velocities we measured and those calculated from a study of the forces on the objects allowed us to validate Newton’s equation F = ma. In this week’s activity, we are going to investigate almost the same experimental setup as last week, …
Newton's Second Law
Activities
There are two ways to study the dynamics of a system in which there is motion. One of these is to study the kinematics of the system to see if there is any acceleration. If there is an acceleration, then this implies that there is a net force on some part of the system. If there is no acceleration, then this means that either there are no forces on the system, or that the forces within the system are all balanced. The other way to study the system is from an energy standpoint. Energy can flow from potential to kinetic, …
Population Growth
Activities
When George Washington started the first Presidency of the United States of America, he was governing less than 4 million people who occupied an area of 2,300,000 square kilometers. It was an agrarian society, with 95% of the population living on farms and only 5% in cities or towns of more than 2,500. There was plenty of land, and a vast array of natural resources, just waiting to be tapped. Today, we live in a country of over 294 million people. While we are one of the major food producers in the world, it is no longer due to us …
Age Structures
Activities
One of the tools that demographers use to understand population is the age structure diagram (it is sometimes called a population pyramid, but it is not always pyramidal in shape). This diagram shows the distribution by ages of females and males within a certain population in graphic form. Figure 1 shows a diagram in which the ages and sexes for the United States population are arranged so that ages are grouped together such as 0 – 4 years, 5 – 9 years, and so on. The population of each is group is represented as a bar extending from a central …
Population Statistics
Activities
For all of its futuristic stylings, the television show Star Trek was, like most science fiction, a commentary on the state of society at the time it was written (late 1960’s). One of the more famous episodes of that series was the one entitled The Mark of Gideon, which dealt with a planet that was so overpopulated that people did not have anywhere to sit down. At the time of the show, the Earth’s population was at about 3.5 billion, and was increasing at an incredible rate. The effects of such a large population on the environment were beginning to …
Toxic Chemicals
Activities
Humans have used chemicals for a long time. The ancient Egyptians used chemicals for dyeing, soldering and coloring metal, and making jewelry. The Industrial Revolution, which began in the middle of the 18th century, spawned the development of many new chemicals and chemical processes. Since World War II, the global chemical industry has boomed. Global production of chemicals was 1 million tons in 1930 and is now over 400 million tons. Environmental scientists study chemicals to determine if they are harmful to human health and the environment. Pretty much every chemical can harm you if you ingest too much of …
Home Chemicals
Activities
Chemicals are everywhere, in the air you breathe, in the food you eat, and in the chair you’re sitting on. Moreover, you’re mostly chemicals. Ninety nine percent of the human body is composed of just 6 chemical elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus. After you die, you’ll decompose into hydrogen, nitrogen, water, ammonia, carbon dioxide, phosphoric acid, and sulfuric acid. So, from chemicals we come and to chemicals we go. Chemical elements are substances that contain one kind of atom and cannot be separated into simpler substances. There are 116 known chemical elements, of which 91 occur naturally. …
Mineral Identification
Activities
For this activity, we are going to try to identify ten different minerals from their properties. There is an attached listing of the major properties of the most commonly found minerals. Use it and any other resources you might have to identify the ten minerals, and list your findings on the sheet below. In order to help you by giving you a little practice with mineral identification, we suggest the following virtual identifier: http://facweb.bhc.edu/academics/science/harwoodr/Geol101/Labs/Minerals/ Your instructor will provide you with up to 10 different mineral samples for identification. To test for hardness, you will also be provided with a copper …
Plate Mechanics
Activities
Imagine a swimming pool that is totally covered with air rafts, with the air rafts neatly lined up end to end and side by side. Then imagine someone running up and doing a cannonball jump into the pool. Logically, the rafts will be thrust about with some of them jamming into each other, others pulling apart, and still others sliding past one another—and so it is with the tectonic plates of Earth: some of the plates are colliding, others are pulling apart, and still others are sliding past one another; therefore, understandably, where there are boundaries between the tectonic plates, …
Plate Speed
Activities
We are truly in motion no matter where we stand on the planet. The tectonic plates that compose the crust of the Earth are in motion at a measurable rate. Everything on the crust of the Earth changes its location in relation to the planet. Yes, the plates are moving over the mantle, and we can measure this motion to determine the rate of plate movement by figuring the distances and times involved. For example, if we know the past location of a certain island, then we can measure the distance between the present location of the island and its …
Earthquake Epicenter
Activities
In this week’s activity, we are going to try to locate the epicenter of an earthquake using readings from three different seismograph stations. This will be done by measuring the difference in time between the arrival of the P and S-waves. The difference it time of their arrivals is due to the difference in speeds for both waves. In particular, the difference in time is given by (distance to epicenter)/(Vp – Vs). Thus, we can find out how far away a particular seismograph is from an earthquake by solving this equation for distance. Since there are three stations, we can …
Climate Change
Activities
Global warming is a huge issue, not just because of the potential impact of the warming on the earth’s ecosystems, but also because the principal activity responsible for the bulk of emissions, fossil fuel combustion, literally fuels the engines of industrialized, urbanized societies. The stakes are huge -- international, political, financial, and environmental. In this exercise, you’ll learn about how to assess information sources, a critical skill in forming your own opinions and actions.
Ozone Depletion
Activities
While we often talk about the “Ozone Hole” over the Antarctic, we rarely talk about what ozone levels are like above our own heads. While the thinning of the ozone layer over the South Pole points to potential problems that we might experience here one day, it would be nice to know what our current situation is. In this week’s activity, we will do just this with the aid of data from 4 different satellites that have been monitoring ozone levels around the world for the last several decades. The Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) Program was started in 1978 …
Acid Rain
Activities
Acidity is measured on the pH scale ranges from 0 to 14 with 0 being acid, 7 as neutral, and 14 as alkaline. The pH scale measures the concentration of hydrogen ions in solution, which indicates acidity. The pH scale is also logarithmic, so that a change in one unit represents a tenfold change in acidity, thus a solution of pH 4 is 10 times as acidic as one with pH 5 and 100 times as acidic as pH 6. "Natural" or unpolluted rainfall is slightly acidic and has a pH of between 5.6 and 5.8. When fossil fuels, such …
Air Pollution
Activities
The following exercise is designed to acquaint you with point sources of pollution in your neighborhood. The exercise utilizes the EPA’s Envirofacts website. Envirofacts allows users to search and find out information about pollution sources anywhere in the United States. You can also identify point sources of pollution in your neighborhood, learn about specific facilities, and create maps. To begin with, go to http://oaspub.epa.gov/enviro/ef_home2.air and enter your zip code. What will be displayed is a list of facilities in your zip code that have been issued an environmental permit. Scroll over to the “Stacks” column and then down the page. …
Atmosphere
Activities
The objective of this exercise is to have you observe atmospheric conditions as well as develop your understanding of major atmospheric concepts. For this exercise, you are asked to observe and record weather conditions for four days. In addition, you are asked to answer questions about your observations, as well as respond to a series of questions on general atmospheric characteristics. In the second part of the exercise, you are asked to perform a number of calculations relating to atmospheric conditions and characteristics.
Water Capstone
Activities
This activity is still under development. Please check back later for an update or e-mail John Pratte at jpratte@kennesaw.edu for more information.
Wastewater Treatment
Activities
When you think about the variety of materials that enter the wastewater system from a typical home, the list is diverse and extensive: wastes from toilets; soap, detergents, and cleaning products from drains and washing machines; food items from garbage disposals - all along with large quantities of water. How is this material removed so that the water may be safely returned to the environment and, possibly, utilized again by other people downstream? The answer depends on where you live. If your home is not serviced by a public sewer system, your wastes are undoubtedly treated with a septic system. …
Drinking Water Treatment
Activities
In this activity we’ll be treating "contaminated" water to observe firsthand the steps involved in purifying water for human consumption. The activity will use everyday items to carry out the steps in drinking water treatment and you will record changes in the water’s properties as the process progresses. The basic version of this exercise has you record the appearance and odor of untreated water as it moves through the various steps. In some situations, depending on available equipment and personnel, you may also be able to measure turbidity. Turbidity describes the clarity or “muddiness” of a water sample and is …
Water Use
Activities
If you’re like most people in the developed world, you don’t think much about water. Clean, drinkable water is delivered into your residence almost invisibly, and it’s always there when you turn on a faucet. As such, most North Americans don’t see the need for water conservation, particularly those who live in areas where freshwater supplies are abundant. But as populations grow and water supplies stay roughly constant, more and more pressure is being brought to bear on rivers, reservoirs, and groundwater aquifers and the need for conservation has become almost universal. These efforts are particularly crucial in areas with …
Renewable Capstone
Activities
In this capstone activity, we are going to look at the availability and economics of solar and wind power where you live. To do this, we are going to need maps of available sunshine provided by the U.S. government. We are also going to need to know the price of solar panels and wind turbines that are commercially available. Foremost, though, we are going to need to know how much electrical energy you use before we proceed to estimate the cost of using renewable energy. Finding out how much electrical energy we use is actually quite easy. All that one …
Wind Energy
Activities
This week, we are going to study the relationship between barometric pressure and wind speed and direction. If you watch the weather forecast during the news, you will usually hear the meteorologist (or weather reporter, as the case may be) state what the air pressure is for the day and in what direction it is changing. As we have seen above, differences in air pressure are what causes air to move from one place to another. If the local air pressure is decreasing, then this means that the area is becoming a lowpressure area, and that wind will start blowing …
Solar Energy
Activities
This week’s activity is going to investigate the effects of color and collection area on the amount of solar energy absorbed by a system. While this sounds like a very simple task, it is complicated by several factors that can seriously impact results. The biggest of these factors is that a solar collector will begin to lose energy via heat transfer as soon as its temperature increases above its surroundings. Any system that we place in sunlight will begin to conduct heat through its support, convect warm air from its surface, and re-radiate energy in the infrared to its surroundings. …
Hydroelectric Energy
Activities
Water has always been one of mankind’s most vital resources. While the human body can go weeks without food, it can only survive for a couple of days without water consumption. Crops in the field will shrivel and die without a readily available supply. We use it for cleaning; we use it for cooking. And since almost the start of recorded history, we have used it as an energy source. Some of the first recorded mentions of hydropower go back over 2,000 years ago to ancient Greece and Egypt, where water wheels were connected to grindstones to turn wheat into …
Ozone Capstone
Activities
You have already analyzed your emissions of smog-forming compounds from your vehicle, but it's important to realize that this is not your only contribution of these pollutants. Nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons are also released by coal-fired power plants, natural gas combustion, gas-powered lawnmowers, and other sources. In the Capstone Activity for this module, you will be analyzing your nitrogen oxide emissions from these sources, combining them with your vehicle's emissions, and estimating your total emissions of smog-forming NOx.
Personal Ozone Impacts
Activities
In this exercise you will be examining your individual emissions of ozone-forming compounds from driving. To do this, we will use the "Gas Mileage Impact Calculator" from the Hybridcars.com. This calculator provides you with an estimate of your outputs of smog-forming nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons (VOC's) for your vehicle and driving habits. As you learned in the Transportation Air Quality brochure, a number of factors influence NOx and VOC emissions from vehicles. While this calculator does not take all of these factors into account, it does provide a good estimation of your emissions.
Stratospheric Ozone
Activities
Last week, we studied ground-level ozone. We discovered that our modern way-of-life produces ozone in great quantities, which can be extremely harmful to the environment since it is a chemical poison to many life forms, including humans. This week, we are going to investigate stratospheric ozone. As we read last week, this ozone is responsible for filtering out ultraviolet radiation from sunlight and reducing levels of it found at the Earth's surface. This action is extremely important to life forms found in our ecosystems, since this highenergy form of ionizing radiation can have damaging effects. While our eyes allow us …
Ground-Level Ozone
Activities
In this exercise we will be examining ground-level ozone, commonly referred to as "smog" ("smoke" + "fog" = "smog"). Smog is formed by the combination of air pollutants and sunlight, and can have adverse effects on humans and other organisms. You have likely heard of ozone in a different capacity. Ozone also occurs high above the earth's surface in the stratosphere, where it serves a protective function by blocking harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. The ozone in each case is the same molecule (three bound oxygen atoms), but in one location (high in the atmosphere) it is beneficial to …