Tsunami essay

Tsunamis are one of the most dangerous natural disaster. They kill up to hundred thousands of people. An example of one big tsunami would be the one that struck Indonesia, Sri Lanka and over nearby countries. This tsunami had a magnitude of 9.1/10. This magnitude is of the earthquake that caused it. It is classified on the Richter scale on which 9 is one of the highest levels ever achieved. This tsunami is one of the biggest ever, and unprepared for. The evacuation and warning systems for this tsunami were bad, not notifying people to evacuate on time. Due to this bad preparation, countries began making ways to detect seismic activity in places it occurs often.

The easiest, and most logical way to protect yourself from a tsunami is to reach higher ground, where the water cant reach you, of course to reach higher ground you need to have time. That means that people must be notified at least an hour before a tsunami to be able to flee. Now the question appears, how can we be warned before the tsunami? how do we know a tsunami is coming? Easy, that is where the seismograph comes in, a seismograph is a tool used for detecting seismic activity. Basically, a seismograph is a pen that is not moving that is writing on a roll of paper that is moving so that it accurately displays seismic activity. When seismographs are posted near shores they detect the incoming activity and the people can be notified.

Evacuation is also a method used for avoiding tsunamis. The way it works is that the media and news inform the people about the incoming threat, and tell them where to go and where they can be evacuated. When using this method there needs to be a good way of transferring the information to the people, radio, tv, telephone and other ways are used but nobody knows for sure if everyone will be informed. Even the people that do hear it may not hear it in time. A method used by the government often is sirens and loudspeakers. They set up speakers on poles so that in case of an emergency they can transfer a message through these sirens. These speakers have to be loud enough so that people could hear them though.

Although tsunami warning systems are not perfect, they do help a lot and without them the numbers of lives lost would be doubling, so they still do their job although when playing with peoples lives you can never do your job too good. Modern technology allows us to have seismograph stations at many coasts that communicate to help determine where the tsunami will strike, how strong it will be and many other important factors.People need to learn to take their warning more seriously, because if the people are prepared they can take a warning well. The people must know where to look for information, and must know where to go. Think about what would happen without the warning systems, tsunamis would obliterate everything and nobody would expect it.

All in all, tsunamis kill thousands and thousands of people every year, and our warning systems save the same amounts of numbers. With time out systems for helping those people are getting better but it is still a big issue. I believe seismographs are the best way of foreseeing tsunamis and if they were put in more places they would be a great help. Tsunamis are no joke and need to be taken seriously. the best way that people can get to safety before a tsunami hits and it is being used all around the world.

http://www.stopdisastersgame.org/en/playgame.html

Natural disaster simulator. This game is really cool. Try the tsunami out and write your score in the comments.

Lab Reflection

In this lab we had the freedom to try out anything we wanted which allowed bigger discoveries and better observations. At first we observed the shapes of waves when they are uneffected by outside forces, they created circular shapes. When a barrier is put the wave stops in the line of the barrier but continues around the barrier also in a circular motion. A very interesting observation we made is that when a wave is powerful enough to take shape of the barrier, we first saw this when the waves came out as straight lines after encountering the barrier, to test our theory we used a long strip of curly clay too see if the wave would come out squiggly and it did. From this lab I can confidently say i learnt alot. I also really enjoyed this lab.

No Barriers

When conducting our tests with no barriers we saw that the wave travelled until it naturally lost all speed. We couldnt see if it would bounce of the edges of the pan because it was to week to get to the end.

When we tried with one barrier we saw that the wave got cut off in areas it was being blocked and continued on around it.

Offset your carbon footprint!

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/

Current Events: Pea Sized Frog!?

Aleksej Janicijevic

7B

Science 21/9/2010

Current Events

“Pea sized frogs?!”

This article is about new-found specie of amphibians. The new species of amphibians is a frog called 'Microhyla nepenthicola'. The Microhyla nepenthicola would not be such an amazing discovery if not for its size the average size of the frog is 12 millimeters long. The tiny frog was first found on the edge of a paved road, close to the peak of the Gunung Serapi Mountain in Kupah national park. The frog was named after a flower, but not just any flower, it was named after the flower it lives off, which is named 'Nepenthes ampullariais'. When people say this frog is tiny, they aren’t joking around, in fact they aren’t joking around even when they say it’s the size of a pea, adult microhyla nepenthicola don’t grow over 12 milimeters which is around the size of a pea. What made this frog a difficult discovery is the tiny size, imagine searching for a pea?. Dr.Indraneil Das and Alexander have did not set out in search of a pea sized frog; they came across it by accident. The two scientists wanted to find out whether this specie can be found in other countries and continents so they made teams in 5 continents to try locating the frog.

To sum up I think this article has much more meaning than just a new frog, I think this article tells us about how much we still have to find out about and how much information and new things there are in the world waiting to be discovered. Other than that I am also quite fascinated that a frog could get so small. You never know what could go next we might find carrot sized lions?

Video Reflection

I learnt a lot about survival from this video, I learnt the main ways of survival are camouflage, attack, defense, deception and adaptation. Take the turtle for example, it does not deceive, camouflage all it does is defend itself with its shell. Other animals survive my going in groups, so that their chance of success is bigger, but then the food must be shared. Other animals feed of deception, for instance the fox, it pretends to be dead and when birds jump on it to eat it, it grabs one and feeds away. Sometimes survival is hard, vouchers must fly up to 60 miles for 1 meal. In order to attack, animals are taught from a young age, the mother fox teaches its children to fight. Many animals have unique ways of defending themselves, for instance the puffer fish, when it gets attacked it bloats up and poisons its enemy. There are also unique ways of attacking, the snapping turtle deceives its enemy's by sticking its tongue out which looks like a worm then when the prey arrives it just snaps his mouth close and enjoys its food. All in all, from this video i learnt how unique each animal is and how each animal adapts in a different way and develops its own survival technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YX8VQIJVpTg&feature=related