Okay, so I just wrote half a page on our relationship with water, including a detailed list of how we should critically evaluate our relationship with water as it develops and changes in the future. Instead, I submit the following image: http://memex.naughtons.org/wp-content/LifeStrawU406x600.jpg A picture is worth a thousand words, right?
When Joe showed this image in class, I was overrun with an emotional response. First, I thought “nasty sludge,” then I realized it was a straw to clean water and I thought “oh, cool, great design to help get freshwater.” Then, I thought “dam, that is really disgusting.” I couldn’t get over how sickening the picture was. Is anyone else sharing this feeling with me? I sure hope so.
I know that some designer felt as if they had just saved the world when they successfully created this straw. In fact, I’m sure an entire team was rightfully given credit for such a great design. The design is genius – It requires no external power source to purify water. You supply the energy, and the filters in the straw do the work. It is exactly what needs to happen. Third-world countries are finding simple technologies (that don’t use oil) to improve their standard of living.
Let me take that back – they are improving their health, not their standard of living. This is where I see a huge design problem. I say this because it filters the water to make it healthy, but it doesn’t address the feelings and concerns of the drinker. What about the poor woman using this straw? How would you feel squatting down to drink from sludge, unable to see the “purified” water that is promised by this straw?
All I’m suggesting is that there should be a way to see the water that is purified before it hits your lips. What if the designers added a clear section of the straw where pure water flowed toward the mouth? I think this would be enough of a design fix that I would willingly use the straw.
Designs like this straw are helpful, yet extremely degrading. I feel that as we push to improve the standard of living in third world countries, we need to consider not only what they need to improve their health and technology, but also what they need to improve their education and comfort. Design fixes like this are helpful, yet extremely degrading.
Anastassia Fulmer 10/27/09 ADP 3- Joe Trumpey GSI- Ashley Leiber
Response to NASA Water Cycle Video
After watching the short video on the water cycle made by NASA I started to think about those days during the summer when you would hear on the news about how we were not supposed to water our plants or wash our cars because our water table was too low from lack of rain. I think at times people forget about that even if the water you are using is going back into the earth you are still having an affect on the water cycle.
Common sense tells us do what more educated people tell you to do and do not waste water. What does it mean though to waste water? How is it that we as humans waste water? I think the main idea I would like to take out of watching this video is instead of just doing what we are told we should take more action in learning about what it is we are being told to do.
Another idea that this video inspired was that of how do we protect and use efficiently the natural bodies and abilities of water. This video only slightly touched on the idea that people are messing with the water cycle but did not really say anything of value when it came to how we fix this problem we are having.
It appears that we are sucking the land dry. So how do we fix this? Do we force it to rain like they did in Asia? Or do we just let up on our overuse of water and let the cycle balance itself out? There does not seem to be a complete answer to any of our questions of how to fix this water problem but there does seem to be something everyone can do about it. It is important to become informed and the only people that seem to be are Scientists and the average person only knows the water cycle and that is it when we need to know what is happening to the water cycle and how we are running out of safe water and what it is we can do on a global scale to fix it.
At first, I thought that this video was rather elementary. It describes the basic steps and events of the water cycle. Then I realized that this information that became my common knowledge in third grade is something I take for granted and never think about. I think that this video would be beneficial to show to students every year in school, or to have as a commercial on television. It should serve as a constant reminder of how our planet works, and how we are constantly affecting it.
The video also brings up some points that I actually wasn’t aware of. Water can actually stay on the earth in the form of snow or ice on glaciers and mountains for a very long time. This fact has made me conscious that we must keep water clean because it affects the environment drastically.
Understanding exactly how the water cycle works will also be critical for the future. In order to make decisions on how to use natural resources, or making decisions on the creation of new roads or cities, we must know exactly how it will affect the water cycle.
Samantha Levy Weekly Statement 11 After watching the NASA video on water cycle, I realized how much we are interfering with a natural cycle. I know that we pollute water, but I never think of how the ways that we control water can affect things such as climate. How can we begin to fix the problem of water? We can’t necessarily run out but we can ruin our supplies of useable water and change our environment along the way. Purifying water might not be the simplest of answers. It is important to take steps as an individual- taking baths instead of long showers, not leaving the water running, and to cut down on how often we water our lawns. I would be interested in learning about how larger groups of people can work together to stop wasting water and come up with other ideas on how we can decrease our negative impacts on the water cycle. Before acting I think it is important to do research. Still curious about how we affect the water cycle, I found a NASA science brief discussing human impact (http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_02/). It explains that we have affecting runoff, which has caused a lowering of sea level. We are storing water for ourselves instead of allowing it to cycle through its natural course. It seems as though all of my weekly statements end up focusing on human impact, but I really do see humans as the problem. We have altered so many aspects of our environment due to consumption, agriculture, industrialization etc. I think that it is our responsibility to fix the problems that we have created for ourselves. We can’t just leave things the way they are. We are cutting down forests, polluting the air, changing the water cycle and we could eventually commercialize the deep-sea! To what limits can the earth support us if we continue to be environmentally ignorant?
Sixth Weekly Statement
ReplyDeleteJim Christian
10/21/09
Okay, so I just wrote half a page on our relationship with water, including a detailed list of how we should critically evaluate our relationship with water as it develops and changes in the future. Instead, I submit the following image:
http://memex.naughtons.org/wp-content/LifeStrawU406x600.jpg
A picture is worth a thousand words, right?
When Joe showed this image in class, I was overrun with an emotional response. First, I thought “nasty sludge,” then I realized it was a straw to clean water and I thought “oh, cool, great design to help get freshwater.” Then, I thought “dam, that is really disgusting.” I couldn’t get over how sickening the picture was. Is anyone else sharing this feeling with me? I sure hope so.
I know that some designer felt as if they had just saved the world when they successfully created this straw. In fact, I’m sure an entire team was rightfully given credit for such a great design. The design is genius – It requires no external power source to purify water. You supply the energy, and the filters in the straw do the work. It is exactly what needs to happen. Third-world countries are finding simple technologies (that don’t use oil) to improve their standard of living.
Let me take that back – they are improving their health, not their standard of living. This is where I see a huge design problem. I say this because it filters the water to make it healthy, but it doesn’t address the feelings and concerns of the drinker. What about the poor woman using this straw? How would you feel squatting down to drink from sludge, unable to see the “purified” water that is promised by this straw?
All I’m suggesting is that there should be a way to see the water that is purified before it hits your lips. What if the designers added a clear section of the straw where pure water flowed toward the mouth? I think this would be enough of a design fix that I would willingly use the straw.
Designs like this straw are helpful, yet extremely degrading. I feel that as we push to improve the standard of living in third world countries, we need to consider not only what they need to improve their health and technology, but also what they need to improve their education and comfort. Design fixes like this are helpful, yet extremely degrading.
Anastassia Fulmer
ReplyDelete10/27/09
ADP 3- Joe Trumpey
GSI- Ashley Leiber
Response to NASA Water Cycle Video
After watching the short video on the water cycle made by NASA I started to think about those days during the summer when you would hear on the news about how we were not supposed to water our plants or wash our cars because our water table was too low from lack of rain. I think at times people forget about that even if the water you are using is going back into the earth you are still having an affect on the water cycle.
Common sense tells us do what more educated people tell you to do and do not waste water. What does it mean though to waste water? How is it that we as humans waste water? I think the main idea I would like to take out of watching this video is instead of just doing what we are told we should take more action in learning about what it is we are being told to do.
Another idea that this video inspired was that of how do we protect and use efficiently the natural bodies and abilities of water. This video only slightly touched on the idea that people are messing with the water cycle but did not really say anything of value when it came to how we fix this problem we are having.
It appears that we are sucking the land dry. So how do we fix this? Do we force it to rain like they did in Asia? Or do we just let up on our overuse of water and let the cycle balance itself out? There does not seem to be a complete answer to any of our questions of how to fix this water problem but there does seem to be something everyone can do about it. It is important to become informed and the only people that seem to be are Scientists and the average person only knows the water cycle and that is it when we need to know what is happening to the water cycle and how we are running out of safe water and what it is we can do on a global scale to fix it.
At first, I thought that this video was rather elementary. It describes the basic steps and events of the water cycle. Then I realized that this information that became my common knowledge in third grade is something I take for granted and never think about. I think that this video would be beneficial to show to students every year in school, or to have as a commercial on television. It should serve as a constant reminder of how our planet works, and how we are constantly affecting it.
ReplyDeleteThe video also brings up some points that I actually wasn’t aware of. Water can actually stay on the earth in the form of snow or ice on glaciers and mountains for a very long time. This fact has made me conscious that we must keep water clean because it affects the environment drastically.
Understanding exactly how the water cycle works will also be critical for the future. In order to make decisions on how to use natural resources, or making decisions on the creation of new roads or cities, we must know exactly how it will affect the water cycle.
Samantha Levy
ReplyDeleteWeekly Statement 11
After watching the NASA video on water cycle, I realized how much we are interfering with a natural cycle. I know that we pollute water, but I never think of how the ways that we control water can affect things such as climate. How can we begin to fix the problem of water? We can’t necessarily run out but we can ruin our supplies of useable water and change our environment along the way.
Purifying water might not be the simplest of answers. It is important to take steps as an individual- taking baths instead of long showers, not leaving the water running, and to cut down on how often we water our lawns. I would be interested in learning about how larger groups of people can work together to stop wasting water and come up with other ideas on how we can decrease our negative impacts on the water cycle.
Before acting I think it is important to do research. Still curious about how we affect the water cycle, I found a NASA science brief discussing human impact (http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_02/). It explains that we have affecting runoff, which has caused a lowering of sea level. We are storing water for ourselves instead of allowing it to cycle through its natural course.
It seems as though all of my weekly statements end up focusing on human impact, but I really do see humans as the problem. We have altered so many aspects of our environment due to consumption, agriculture, industrialization etc. I think that it is our responsibility to fix the problems that we have created for ourselves. We can’t just leave things the way they are. We are cutting down forests, polluting the air, changing the water cycle and we could eventually commercialize the deep-sea! To what limits can the earth support us if we continue to be environmentally ignorant?