Wind Power

wind energy is very important in mountainous areas like princeton where two large turbines are going in. these new turbines are going to replace the old turbines on the backside of the mountain. there is another spot where they are considering putting in three more mid size turbines. all of these will help to power the town of princeton and feed back into the grid.

undersea turbines

Regular wind turbines harness the power of the sun. undersea turbines on the other hand harness the power of the water to create electricity. water is much more dense than air which means that a slower speed is needed to turn the blades. water is almost 850 times more dense than air which means that if a turbine underwater has a water speed of 10 miles per hour, then some turbines can create up to 15 megawatts of power. the average wind turbine creates less than one megawatt. these turbines can be place in any body of water that has lots of tidal movement. the turbines blades are only about 20 meters long. which is much less than the average length of a wind turbines blade. there are also many different types of ways to capture energy by mimicking the ways of nature. things like turbines designed to sway like seaweed that creates energy. or tidal generators which act like large turbines.

Wind Energy

Wind energy is becoming a very important form of energy in the world today and the US is helping to lead the way with many advancements in the area of wind energy. wind energy is a way of harnessing the kinetic power of wind to power a generator that creates electricity. wind mills range in size from 1 foot blades to 186 foot blades. the larger the windmill the more efficient and more cost efficient. modern wind turbines are capable of powering over 5000 homes and creating 20 million killowatt hours per year. windmills are installed in open terrain as well as on water and in th hills.

laws of thermodynamics

file:///Users/trudycrowley/Desktop/Movie%20149.mov

Key Terms

        Over the last week, we spent some time in the Buffone garden looking at the garden and exploring our our key terms.We investigated a compost pile compost it turns out is very smelly but that smell is the smell of organic materials breaking down when compost is a way of breaking down foods and their materials into a soil that is extremely rich for farming and is very useful to farming. plants are composted by putting materials into a large  bin and letting it sit there. over time, you would aerate the bin and maybe put organisms like worms into it to speed up the process. compost is another way of creating good soil that is created from waste, this is a way of supporting the environment while using waste to create new soil. Worms are also very important to a compost pile as well as to an ecosystem. they are beneficial because they aerate the soil and produce vitamins that are vital to the soil. worms eat the soil for its nutrients and let it pass though them allowing the ground to be aerated. worms can be put into a compost pile to help in that process or are naturally found in the ground. decomposers are living organisms that eat or destroy plants that live. they eat and grow on the plant until the plant dies. they eat the nutrients out of the plants and then let them die. another important part of the ecosystem, animals, provide a way for plants to reproduce and can also spread seeds. animals also eat the crops and help to germinate the plants and crops in the garden.

 

http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/MarsSim/SimHTML/info/whats-a-decomposer.html

http://www.fcgov.org/news/index.php?id=1550

http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/

Buffone Garden

At the Buffone garden in Worcester,Ma. we saw many things. This farm is in the city and is a co-op farm, run by volunteers.The farm is about 30 by 30 feet large and had many different types of plants that were in individual pens. The group saw soap on a stick that was seen hanging in a garden. This is used to help drive away animals that would eat crops, like deer. The soap gives off the smell that a deer is used to smelling, if  a human hunter is close. Deer have grown accustom to being hunted by humans or prey,they have developed a knowledge of what a person smells like so the soap will keep them away. 

On a farm like this one might see insects like the yellow jacket and a grasshopper. a yellow jacket’s impact on the plant life is pollination.  a necessary purpose but plants not dependent on bees, even the wind can pollinate.a bee will fly around to plants and rub its abdomen up against them which will make the pollen stick to its side. the bee will then fly to a different plant, land and rub the pollen onto the female reproductive part of that plant. the other insect is a grasshopper, a grasshopper can be a negative insect because it will slowly eat the crops and food for birds, however in some cultures the grasshopper is considered food for humans.

a decorative flower can also help in pollination because it will have the pollen from its own flowers and the pollen of other flowers that is left on it by bees. it can also provide more food for the bees and other insects and animal life. a decorative flower, such as a rose, also provide 

the insects adaptations are, in the bees case, the ability to pollinate and sustain plant life while still getting food for themselves. or in a grasshoppers case, the ability to blend in can be equally important when trying to hide from a predator.

community garden

today we went on a trip across the road to the community garden. once we got there we went around and looked and talked about the different species of plants that were growing there, we learned about which plants could be grown when and when they would start to offer good fruit. after that we split up into groups to begin picking. we were told what a ripe fruit or vegetable looks like and how we should pick them. 

we went to the community garden for the 2nd time and finished picking the plants.

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