Article 2: Going Green while Staying Warm

- Sustainable energy does not alter biodiversity or ecosystems.

-Renewable energy sources are not reduced by use, or they can be renewed.
- Coal is the worst choice of a fuel to use. It is rarely used today.

- Coal releases carbon dioxide and other green house gases harmful to the environment.
- Often not thought of is the effect coal has on mining communities. It often ruins the ecosystems around it especially in "mountaintop removal."

- Oil is not only harmful to the environment because of its greenhouse gases, but is is also nonrenewable.
- The combustion of oil is what cause the emission of greenhouse gases and other damaging pollutants.

- Transporting oil risks spills that are very harmful to wildlife and drilling for oil upsets the local environment.
- Propane and natural gas also cause similar problems because they are fossil fuels ans are not sustainable.

- "The Environmental Protection Agency, however, found natural gas to have the fewest relative emissions of fine particles -- fewer than oil, pellet stoves or wood stoves." However, pipelines for natural gas have a negative effect on the ecosystems around it just like coal and any other mining or shipping of fossil fuels.

-Propane needs special procedures to be separated and refined that are harmful to the environment.
- Electricity is only sustainable when is comes from solar, wind, or hydro systems.

Forestry must engage in "selective uneven-age harvesting and replanting" for it to be sustainable.
-When a tree is alive it takes in carbon dioxide and turns it back into oxygen, so the life of the tree will account for the carbon dioxide released into the air when the wood is burned.
- An equal amount of carbon will be released into the environment whether or not a tree is burned or simply decays in the forest. Coal, oil, or gas will not naturally release their carbon dioxide "without human intervention."
- "Pellet stoves [are] ... fueled with compressed sawdust, wood chips, bark or other organic matter, or biomass fuels like nut shells, soybeans, corn kernels or cherry pits. "
- In a geothermal system, heat is drawn out of the earth through pumps and moved throughout your house to warm it. A small amount of electricity is used when the warmth is circulated around the house, and if that electricity comes from wind, solar, or hydro then the whole process is sustainable.

Response 1: Biofuel From Food Waste.

I found this article very interesting. I never thought about how ethanol can come from wasted food. It's really cool that school lunches can be transformed into power that not only fuels transportation but also fuels the distillation equipment required to transform the leftover food into fuel. Also, if you think about it, the amount of food wasted in the U.S. each year is ridiculous. Especially in schools where kids either don't eat their veggies or they just waste half there meal because it's gross. If these leftovers that no one will eat could be turned into fuel, then that would solve two problems at once. There are problems with this idea as in all ideas though. The first quote which I took from the article however is something I would never really think about at all, but could definitely be a problem. If many fields are converted into making the food that goes into ethanol, then what happens if you run out of room to grow the crops? I also wonder if land can be overused and loose its fertility.
The second thing this article looks into is a brief overview of how ethanol is made. The leftover food is separated several times into liquids and solids, gases and more leftover liquid. Ethanol is a type of alcohol so the food goes through a fermentation process too. I found all this information very interesting as well as helpful in my quest to understand sustainable fuels better. Ethanol is only one solution to this problem, but because it is often mixed with gasoline, it may not be the best.

Article 1: Biofuel From Food Waste

-food shortages have been thought to have been caused by too much land being used for biofuel crops instead of food crops.
-200 kg of school food waste is transported "to a local processing plant" where it is broken down and enzymes are added. Then waste is then separated into liquids and solids. The ethanol is "extracted from the liquid through fermentation," and biogas is taken from the solids and left over liquids of the wasted lunches.
-The ethanol is used to run the buses and any other school owned vehicles.
-The biogas that has been saved "powers a 9.9 kW generator and a boiler used to operate the distillation equipment."

I have been researching technology in sports for a while on a number of different databases and have found that there is not as much reseach as I thought available. I had not realized that this topic would have to be current within two weeks so I was not prepared for this change. I still want to research the topic, but I feel it is not current enough to sustain an isearch for 5 months. I am now switching my topic to my second favorite idea, sustainable fuel. This topic was my second choice to technology and sports. I am almost just as excited to be researching this topic.

Great ideas Katrina!

Fuel technology is definitely a huge current event, and therefore would be easy and fun to follow. Also, (as Aimee said) you could definitely tie it into global warming and skiing. However, your other topic, sports technology, is less well known and would be a new and refreshing topic for the readers of your I-search! Also, you seem really into the whole sports field and I think over the long run it would keep you more passionate and interested then your other topics.
The only thing I would suggest to do would be to narrow your topic down a little. I'm not sure of exactely what you're researching, since you have many many good ideas, but once you find a specific topic I'm sure it will be fantastic! :]

Response

I am very interested in technology in athletics. I want to learn how sports are being changed, and how it effects not only the athletes but also the competition. I want to research how countries around the world train their athletes for competitions like the Olympics. Is there a possibility that competitions like the Olympics are becoming unfair because poor countries can't afford the expensive training facilities that Americans or the Chinese can? Are some countries like China taking the idea of gold medals too seriously, and pushing the limits of their athletes to far? After all isn't the main point of sports to have fun, and bring the world together in large competitions? I want to find the answers to these and many, many more questions in my isearch.

This past summer the 2008 Beijing Olympics captivated the world with not only their splendor, but the intensity of all the athletes. Micheal Phelps broke 7 world records and won 7 gold medals. His success was not only from his natural skill, but also came from the swimsuits that all the swimmers were wearing. This is just one example of how technology is drastically changing that sport and others. I want to see how these changes not only improve the sport, but how other people see them. Do critics support this addition to the sport, or do they think that it is an unfair advantage to the athletes. I'd like to research this as well as any new technology that is created during the 5-6 months.

There is a lot of information available on this topic. Not only are there tons of articles following up the Beijing Olympics, but there are many others on how athletes are effected by the changes. I also want to follow some other smaller competitions like the X- games and the Dew tour. I want to see how things like bikes and skateboards are changing, and also how skiing is changing. There are so many new skis every year, and each pair is better than the next in one way or another.

This topic will be challenging for me because I currently have lots of ideas about this topic, but I don't really know much. I want to know more about the qualities of skis so I can actually know a lot about what is good and bad in a ski if I was to go buy a pair. This topic would give me a much greater knowledge on many things. If you go out looking for information, many times you'll find tons of things you didn't know. Knowledge about everything and anything is one of the best tools to have, and I hope to improve this for me by learning as much as possible about this topic.

dear trinaaa
I definitely think you should do sports and technology. You would have way more fun researching this topic than the other 2. I'm sure lacrosse & skiing would have lots of information on them and there are lots of different ways technology could effect them. Sustainable energy would be easy to find information on, but you would enjoy your other idea much more knowing your tiny obsession with those two sports.

Well, I think that you are interested in skiing and lacrosse more then anyother topic. And the first topic seems to strike u the most. But if you choose sustainable fuel, then you can tie in global waming /skiing. And it might be a little easier to follow for 6 months because it is a broad topic. There are alot of magazines on skiing and technology, maybe not as much on fuel. Interviewing is equal both ways, you can interview anyone's opinion on either subject. Choose the one that you can find more information on.

Heyyyy Katrina.
Well it seems to me that you are fairly interested in sports technology more than anything else. I personally think the idea is really cool, and there's soooo much you can do with it so you won't ever get bored or run out of information. So as far as finding information, I think you're good to go! If you did do sports technology, you might want to narrow down exactly what you're trying to research. I noticed you had a ton of ideas which is really cool, but I think for this specific project you could just weed out some things and make your topic less broad. For this topic you could look at olympic athletes, different sportswear companies, and different brands and companies that advertise for certain people and teams. It'd be cool if you could talk with someone through that to see how it all works. You could also ask about the criteria and how they (the company) and the athletes or teams benefit from it all.

You also seemed interested in sustainable fuel. This would also be a really good topic to research because of the government and all the things that are going on right now. You could easily talk to the climate action club, or a local group or organization that is interested in that topic. This would definetly have a lot of up to date information, and it could be followed closely.

I think that either topic would be really cool to research. They both seem to have a lot of information about them that is easy to access. I personally think that the sports technology topic would be really cool, because I'm into that stuff as well. Good luck!

My three ideas

I am so excited to start isearch this year. Last year I really started to discover how much this project can be personalized. So this year, when I can pick anything, I have decided to choose between three topics which really interest me. The first is how technology influences sports and athletes. This topic could include my favorite sports, skiing and lacrosse as well as others. My other two topics to choose from are America’s Healthcare, and sustainable fuel. Sustainable fuel is the other topic which really appeals to me. I would love to research this topic, but unfortunately I have to choose only one!
My first thought for this project was to search for something to do with lacrosse, it being one of my passions. Then I thought of skiing and how much I’d like to incorporate that into my topic choices as well. The problem with both of these ideas is it would be hard to focus on that subject and have anything to work on for the rest of the 5 months. Out of the blue I came up with the idea of technology and sports. It certainly effects pretty much every sport out there, and I’d love to learn more about this topic and research its finer points. Some things I would want to look into would be synthetic legs, swim suits, golf drivers and clubs, skis and there flex and shape, lacrosse heads and sticks, clothing that goes along with different sports, and possibly how Nike and large brands promote there equipment. For example, Red Bull and skiing, snowboarding, or other extreme sport logos advertize but sponsoring talented people to compete. Another thing to explore would be the use of steroids and other ways that athletes abuse technology to their advantage. I would love to look into this subject because not only is it very interesting, but it is a very current issue in our society.
My second leading idea is sustainable fuel. I’m really intrigued with this topic and how it is such an important issue at the moment. With high gas prices and a bad economy, many people are starting to look seriously at eco-friendly alternatives to fossil fuels. This is a very current issue that would have loads of information to research. It is in all the newspapers and other media, and is also a very hot topic in the presidential debates. I found Google News to be a very good place to look for information on this subject because it is mostly all up to date. I feel like this is a really good subject to look into, but I feel like my other idea for sports and technology would be really captivating too.
My third and final idea for the isearch is America’s Healthcare specifically, but also how it compares to the rest of the world. There is no doubt that America’s healthcare system is not only very controversial, but also very, very important to the people of America. Daily expenses are putting families out of there homes, and for the people that are still hanging on, they’re either nearly on the edge or are having a really rough time with the changes in the economy. Within this topic I would explore the different viewpoints on possible solutions, the candidate’s views, how it really works, and compare our country to other countries to see if or what America could learn from other healthcare systems. This is also a very current issue which I found quite a bit of information on.
In the end I think that my decision is between my first to ideas. These are the areas that really get me excited. They make me want to know more; all the details and challenges that go along with both questions. With sustainable fuels I really want to research what makes this such a hard challenge and what new ideas are being thought up. It just sounds so intriguing! At the same time, I want to know what’s new with sports?! How technology affects records, tricks, and the way humans continue to push the limit. I would like to research them both, but I will have to settle on one instead.