♥ Tuesday, February 3, 2009 ♥

Yesterday's (monday 02/02/09) lesson was mainly about the question we were given: How severe is the impact of man on the carbon cycle?

We learnt during the lesson that the carbon cycle is like a system, and with systems, balance/equlibrium is tried to be achieved. Mr Heah gave an example of the human body whereas when it is cold, our body would shiver to gain heat. And when it is hot, our body would perspire to lose heat. Either negative or positive feedback occurs when the system is not in an equilibrium and the system would try to discourage change during negative feedback, and would encourage change during positive feedback. An example Mr Heah gave for positive feedback is labour contractions. When the womb (is it the womb? Oops not sure!) muscles contract, postive feedback is sent to the muscles, producing a substance. The substance causes the muscles to contract even more, causing more pain.

After Mr Heah talked about the systems, he talked about the question in our assignment paper. How severe is the impact of man on the carbon cycle? He mentioned that most people would just Google/Wiki the term carbon cycle, and talk about it in the essay. But in the end, they'd get a B grade. Instead, what we should do is to break down the question and question the terms in it (for an A grade essay!).

The carbon cycle is actually a balanced system, but with the inteference of man, the amount of carbon increased greatly. Instead of solving the problems, man is making it worse. Within the cycle, man are adding on to the amount of carbon by burning up fossil fuels, as well as producers. Plants, the only producers, are being burned down to make more space for man, and this is causing deforestation. Not only that, plants actually remove CO2, but without them, not only would CO2 be unable to be removed, it is added on. All this extra carbon dioxide is being added on to the atmostphere, causing many implications, like on the weather. Now the main thing is to solve this problem and stop adding on carbon dioxide to the atmostphere. Solutions should not be making things worse and should be effective. So what should they be? We'd have to think about it.

Overall I think yesterday's lesson was very enriching because what was taught to us would aid us a lot in our assignment. From how systems work, to how we should break down the question to answer them part by part. These pointers would help us analyze the assignment better and guide us along better as well.

Crapped at 9:00 AM -

10 Comments:

At February 3, 2009 at 11:24 PM, Unknown said…

Omg the song! The song! *covers ears*

Lurve the pink tho. :) Hello Kitty has no mouth but I still like her haha.

Ms Raaha
At February 3, 2009 at 11:25 PM, Unknown said…

Oh, and, er, well done on the newfound geographical knowledge... Haha. Keep it up, my muppets!! :)

Ms Raaha
At February 4, 2009 at 6:20 AM, ~*Sakura*~ said…

Hey!!
Haha I think that the most important thing I've gotten from that lesson and this blog post is that we must break the question down and look at the different key words so that our essays would be A grade essays. If this was not mentioned, I'm very sure that I would have just gone to wikipedia to check on the meaning and write my entire essay just on that particular meaning that I got which would have been maybe much worse than a B grade essay. At least now I know that I have a few points to take note just from that simple question itself.
Yay! Now I think I have more motivation to start doing my essay!
Tabitha
At February 4, 2009 at 8:04 PM, Nguyen Hai Nam said…

I'm quite stunning that MAN is also a keyword in the question, which we can actually compare different KINDS of MAN in order to have an original essay. When I read the question, I only concentrate on the word IMPACT and I think many others too, which make us to have the similar answers for the same question. Being original is something that you need to think diffently for the question.
I am still researching now, the more research, the more information we get, so good luck to all for this assignment.
At February 4, 2009 at 9:53 PM, Anonymous said…

YESSS !!! i agree with Nam. At first, i also just concentrated on searching for the impact of human activities on the carbon cycle. Basically, all that i can find are DEFORESTATION and BURNING FUELS. However, there are no evaluation or clear explanation. I was very impressed when just by drawing the carbon cycle diagram and evaluating it, Mr.Heah made everything become very clear with all the essential points and the relationship between plants, animals, atmosphere and ocean...And that plant is the only source that use up CO2 and give out O2 for life. Those links explain how severe the impact of human on the carbon cycle is.
Vi (8)
At February 5, 2009 at 4:26 AM, liqin said…

Firstly, like many others, after attending mr. heah's lesson. I have gained a better understanding of the question, how severe is the impact of man on the carbon cycle? Usually, i will just see the question plainly, and will just name the few conventional causes of the increase in the release of carbon into the atmosphere. However, after analysing the question with the class, i have gained a better understanding of the question. In order to fully grasp and answer the question wholly, i'll have to break the question down into smaller questions. A question can itself pose many other (hidden or not) questions too. Hence, by recognising these "smaller questions" , we will be able to cover all aspects of the big question. I am also amazed by how the positive/negative feedback works in the carbon cycle. Even though there has been sufficient carbon dioxide for greenhouse effect, the negative feedback somehow is not "effective" anymore as the destructing actions by humans have resulted in excessive carbon dioxide emission, thus disrupting the balance in the carbon cycle itself.
At February 5, 2009 at 5:15 AM, YUAN! said…

Talk about our essay, I think the main point of the question might be what makes a good solution to a problem. Also, we have to see the deeper problem lying under the fact that we are having global warming. Why do we want to produce and release more carbon dioxide into the atomosphere even though we already know it's harmful? etc.
I think, well, analyzing the question is a good way of improving your essay, however,it doesn't help that much for me, since I can only find more unsolvable quesitons after that. And I have so many ideas that i cannot find my main points to write. Sometimes, I even jump from points to points, leaving a lot of them unexplained. I'm still looking for a more suitable way for me to write an A-grade essay. Hopefully i can get some ideas from u guys! *-*
At February 5, 2009 at 5:22 AM, Unknown said…

Enough Hello Kitty! I feel like logging on and taking it off! But I'm a 'nice' guy (NOT), so I won't.

To Nam - If you look at it this way, every single word in the question (and others) is a keyword. For example, in Li Qin's post, 'lesson' is a keyword, 'feedback' is a keyword, 'negative' is a keyword, 'Mr Heah' is a keyword... never mind. Anyway, just keep looking and you'll find a lot of angles to view things from.

Also, try to add infomation, people. From what I see, people are just stating, "Oh, from this lesson I learned XYZ." We should ask questions and answer them as best as we can. At least, that's my viewpoint. On the plus side, more S'poreans here.

My question: Are plants really the only producers? Are there bacteria that can also produce? Can we use chemicals to do the same? Answer that, Chun Wai...

Final non-geog. related note: Don't jump down from a fence. Your foot may snag, and you may fall on another part of your body. I speak from first-hand experience. My poor knee probably won't survive PE tomorrow...

Calvin (10011)
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At February 5, 2009 at 5:39 AM, Anonymous said…

really appreciate the breaking down and analysing of the question that way

creativity and open mindedness ftw

away with textbook answers!
or as Mr Heah calls it, memorization
At February 5, 2009 at 5:43 AM, Unknown said…

News flash, people.

http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20090127/tts-us-warming-environment-climate-972e412.html

This is actually quite alarming. I would post this on our LA blog but... we don't have one.

Keep saving energy. See if we can prove them wrong.

08IP03! (:

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