Applied Sciences-Earth And Space

Earth And Space

Water Essay

Where do you get your water?  Over the course of the next two days I want you to record every drop of water you drink.  Where does it come from.  Be sure to identify the water you drink as bottled water, tap water, filtered tap water, water fountain water, etc.  Keep a log of all the water you drink (including any water you may use in cooking) and record that log on the attached worksheet.

Write a short 2 to 3 paragraph reflective essay answering the following questions:

• Based on your past experience, does this consumption pattern represent your normal water usage?  If it does not, what is your normal water usage pattern?
• Where do you get most of the water you drink on a daily basis?
• Were you suddenly required to cut your water consumption in half (due to increased cost or limited supply), how would you cope?  In what ways would you have to adjust your behavior to accommodate this change and would it be difficult for you?

Each paragraph should average 4 to 5 full sentences.  I’m looking for a complete, well thought out reflective essay here.  Be thorough and descriptive in your essay and be sure to draw on the materials covered in the course directly.  For full points, you should not simply write an opinion piece – you must back up your opinions with facts derived from your readings and assignments.

 

Date	Type of Water	Quantity	Type of Water (tap, bottled, etc.)	Use (drinking, cooking, etc.)

Indiana Wetlands Essay

Wetlands are a vital component of the hydrosphere.  They are Earth’s natural water filtering mechanisms and they provide diverse habitats for numerous species of plants and animals.  Read more about Indiana’s wetland resources in the following article by Eric Myers, originally published in the book The Natural Heritage of Indiana.

Lifeblood of the Land: Water

 

For this reflective essay, I would like you to write 4 to 5 paragraphs reflecting on your use of wetlands.  Perhaps you grew up near wetlands or regularly go fishing or hunting in wetland environments.  If so, write about these experiences and the positive impact wetlands have had on your life.  If you do not regularly use wetlands, reflect on the value of wetlands in more general terms.  How do you benefit indirectly from our wetlands and how would their loss negatively impact your life?

Each paragraph should average 4 to 5 full sentences.  I’m looking for a complete, well thought out essay here.  Be thorough and descriptive in your essay and be sure to draw on the materials covered in the course directly.  For full points, you should not simply write an opinion piece – you must back up your opinions with facts derived from the video and your readings and assignments.

Water dowsing (also known as water witching) is a pseudo-scientific practice (meaning it is a practice that incorrectly claims to be scientific without adhering to the rigorous processes and procedures of the scientific method) of using some kind of simple instrument (often some kind of L-shaped or Y-shaped stick or rod) to locate underground water resources.  This practice is a kind of divining, where the practitioner invokes an unseen force, through the medium of the dowsing rod, to locate the water.  Water dowsing is often employed prior to digging a well or cistern.

Unseen forces do exist in the natural world and can be measured and used by scientists to locate materials.  For instance, Earth’s magnetic field is an unseen force generated by movement of heat in convection cells within the planet’s iron and nickel core.  Scientists use instruments called magnetometers to measure aspects of Earth’s magnetic field to, for instance, locate buried ore deposits.  However, scientific studies of dowsing have demonstrated that, while some dowsers are able to locate water, the success rate of dowsing is no better than chance.  That is, the dowser’s likelihood of locating water is the same whether the person is dowsing or just pointing at a random spot in the yard and saying there’s water there.

In this exercise you are going to learn more about dowsing as a pseudo-scientific practice and use your knowledge of Earth science to critically evaluate the practice.  To begin, let’s learn about dowsing from someone who practices the craft and believes in its efficacy.  Watch the following Youtube video:

Water Dowsing

Now, let’s learn what Earth scientists say about water dowsing and the science of water (known as hydrogeology).  Read this pamphlet on dowsing published by the United States Geological Survey (USGS):

USGS Pamphlet on Dowsing

 

This is a short essay assignment.  All short essays submitted for this course should be written in complete sentences and full paragraphs, each with a coherent beginning, middle, and end.  A rule of thumb for short essay lengths is 2-3 full sentences per question.

For this assignment you are to write a 3 to 4 paragraph short essay comparing and contrasting the methods of science with the methods of water dowsers.  How do these practices differ?  How do the beliefs and practices of water dowsers contrast with the scientific process?  What makes water dowsing pseudo-science rather than actual science, and what evidence do we have that water dowsing is an unreliable and non-scientific method of understanding Earth’s natural features and processes?

 

Calculating Stream Gradient

A stream’s gradient is the slope of a stream, or its change in elevation over a given horizontal distance.  More simply, the gradient is the distance the stream falls vertically from one point on the landscape to another.  To learn more about the gradient and how to calculate it, watch this Youtube video.

Streams are like lines that flow across the landscape, and a stream’s gradient is the slope of the flowing stream.  To calculate the stream gradient, you simply identify the change in elevation of a stream and divide this change in elevation by the measured horizontal distance over which the stream has flowed.

Schematic Stream Examples

Below are two schematic drawings of streams flowing across two contour lines (changes in elevation) from Point A to Point B.  Calculate the gradients of each of these streams and add the answer to the attached answer worksheet.

Example A

The contour lines are the vertical lines and the stream is the line running between A and B.  The contour lines tell you the change in elevation.  Every contour line crossed is one contour interval of elevation.  In this example, the contour interval is 25 m and two contour lines are crossed.

The horizontal distance is based on the map scale.  The map scale in this example is 1:15000, which means that every 1 cm on the map is 15,000 cm in real life.  In this example, the length of the line running between A and B on the map is 2 cm.

Answer the following questions on the attached answer worksheet.

1. a) What is the change in elevation in meters between Points A and B?
2. b) What is the horizontal distance between Points A and B in kilometers?
3. c) The stream gradient is the change in elevation divided by the horizontal distance.  What is the stream gradient in m/km?

Example B

In this example the contour interval is 10 m and the map scale is 1:5000.  The length of the line running from Point A to Point B is 2 cm.

Answer the following questions on the attached answer worksheet.

1. a) What is the change in elevation in meters between Points A and B?
2. b) What is the horizontal distance between Points A and B in kilometers?
3. c) The stream gradient is the change in elevation divided by the horizontal distance.  What is the stream gradient in m/km?

Philipp, Mississippi Quadrangle Map

The image below is a section of a contour (elevation) map entitled the Philipp, Mississippi Quadrangle map.  The river depicted is a section of the Tallahatchie River just north of the town of Philipp.  The distance between the “mile 210” and “mile 215” points following the wide meandering oxbow is 8.25 miles.  The distance between these two points following the Pecan Point Cutoff, which is an artificial cutoff that has shortened the length of the stream, is 5.05 miles.  Using this information and what you know about stream gradients, answer the following questions on the attached answer worksheet.

1. a) How many miles is saved by the cutoff?
2. b) If the elevation is 119 ft at mile 215 and 116 ft at mile 210, the gradient between these two points using the oxbow meander is how many ft/mi?
3. c) What is the gradient using the Pecan Point Cutoff?