June3-4 Environmental science

We've been busy doing activities centered around environmental science.

In the last week we have explored food chains and webs, and have seen how animals high on the food webs need many more food items lower than them --else they don't survive for long. We have seen how toxins get concentrated in higher order animals (such as ourselves).

We have also completed a lab that modeled wolf survival both with and without human intervention.

Most recently we discussed the importance of clean, safe drinking water and then worked as epidemiologists to discuss factors that affect diseases in populations. We learned that 80% of all diseases are waterborne, that is they spread by the contamination of water. We also learned that less than 100 years ago, many households in the US did not have piped in drinking water--they had to gather water from wells and carry it to their houses.

On Friday we will use the game pandemic 2 to look at disease vectors and how people try to combat the spread of infectious diseases.