Welcome To Our Blog!

In conjunction with the Center for Environment, Economy and Society of Columbia University and Ms. Kim Baker we are studying environmental issues regarding sustainability. We will be blogging to report our learning and observations. Keep an eye on our blog as we examine critical issues regarding our environmental future.

EARTH

class 612, Mr Damon, ms Baker are studying the earth and how we can keep it a sustainable for everyone to live in it. For us to gather more information about this we did many things such as going to the Borough Hall green market to see where we get our fruits and vegetables an from that we learned that our fruits and vegetables are local meaning that they come from about 200miles away. we also did a experiment on cleaning dirty water and we learned that cleaning water isn't something easy to do. This unit of study is happening currently at the secondary school for journalism in Brooklyn New York. We are doing this to keep a sustainable earth and community for every one to live in


Santiago Alonso

Food

Class 612 is studying food. we are doing this for us to learn if there is an even amount of food for everybody to have. This study is happening currently in the Secondary school of Journalism. In order for us to get more information on this subject we went on a trip to the Borough Hall Green Market to learn about where does our fruits and vegetables come from and which are healthy for us to eat. What I have learned from this trip is that most of the fruits and vegetables come from 200 miles away from local farms and that they are fresh picked. The reason why we are doing this is to keep a healthy and sustainable enviorment and because we have to.

FARMERS MARKET!

Today we learned about the fresh and healthy foods from the farmers market. Just yesterday we went on a trip with the 7th graders to the farmers market at jay street, Borough Hall. When we went there what I learned was that there are many different farmers markets all over the world in and out of New York the state. What I also learned was that there foods are locally grown and are produced.Then today we were taste tasting apples from the super market and farmers market and we wrote in our journals on how it taste smelled and felted. I thought that the farmers markets apples were better tasting because they were locally grown and smelled better along with felt alot harder and cruncher then the super markets apples because they had no taste and weren't juicy enough to call them apples.By the way if you ever go to the farmers market and its 31 degrees cold always were a coat!

Learning

Mr.Damon has been helping us understand the meaning of sustainability. I feel that everyday we go to ELA I develop more about sustainability and the reason why water is so hard to clean now I know because that's what Mr.Damon is here for to help us learn about sustainability and more.

The Danger

In class 612, we are learning about dirty water, and how we can clean it. In Brooklyn NY, the Gowanus Canal is so filthy, that if you touch the water in there you can easily catch a disease.

The Gowanus canal has 1,000s of dangerous chemicals, and objects that are unsafe, to the environment, and to all of it's surrounding. The government is trying to clean the bodies of water that are filthy. We are learning this because we want the future, to be cleaner and safer for us, and other people in the world. We also learned, that to save water, we have to fix the leaks,turn off the tap water,take showers for less minutes, and instead of using a hose, to wash your car, you can use a bucket and a sponge.

Class 612, in Brooklyn, are learning about how to make the water clean. We made some thing that can clean the water so we can use it. How can we save water to help people? We can reduce our use of water. We can reduce our water by fixing the leak by putting a color in the water to find the leak. You can turn off the tap water when you are brushing.

The Dangerous Unsustainable Water Problem

In class 612 we were talking about water and how dangerous the issue has become.Water is so important because our body,our plants,and our animals need it. Doing an experiment I learned that water is very hard to clean. My water foot print could be much better.You should check your footprint and check if it is sustainable.Don't leave the water running, you can make a difference by just turning a knob.

Class 612,in Brooklyn is learning about how to make water clean. We learned about the Gowanus canal which is located in Red Hook. We should care about water because a lot of people don't have clean water. Also, we did an experiment on how can we make water clean, but our result were that we can make water clean because we need strong chemicals. We also,learned about water footprint which is when we answer a lot of questions of how to save water. To reduce you can turn off the tap water, using less water, fixing the leak as fast as possible and to wash yourbike or car with a bucketandsponge.

Our water cleaning Experiment

In class 612 we have been doing a experiment on how to clean water. We are trying to clean the water to see what real people that have a job to clean the water have to go through. We had to bring in 2 liter bottles and use objects to help us clean the water. My group used the following materials.

• Cotton Balls
• Coffee Filter
• Charcoal
• Sand
• Scrubber sponge
• yellow sponge

All theses materials I just listed were very useful in this experiment. My groups results were not very good. We were supposed to clean the water the only things that were clean was the dirt the dirt was out of the water the color was the same and the smell. There were only two differences in our results from before. From this experiment I learned that you have to have the right supplies because water is very hard to clean.