The Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico

On April 27, 2010, there was a major oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico! As of last Monday, the spill has covered over 1,800 square miles of water! The oil is expected to remain about 30 miles offshore. The oil spill is coming from a leak in a well that was drilled by the Transocean Deepwater Horizon. They say that the tank is spitting out about 42,000 gallons a day!! BP is spending at least six to seven million dollars per day to clean up the mess. Just last week the prices in gas have increased. I think the gas prices will continue to rise until the situation is fixed. Especially since BP is paying for the whole damage anyway. I don't think that offshore drilling should be continued or even permitted anywhere! Just think about all of the animals that are dying because of someones stupid mistake. There are probably animals that are drinking and swimming in that contaminated water, and the bad thing is, the probably don't even know that they're swimming in oil! If this mess would continue to last about another 260 days, it would be known as the U.S's worst oil spill in time! Right now, the worst oil spill happened in 1989 in Alaska's Prince William from the Exxon Valdez. There was more than 11 million gallons of oil that flueded out in the water. Therefore, I think that anyone with a right mind would chose to have offshore welling discontinued.

Blogger Tools

Mrs. Forinash posts our blogging assignments on her blog.

I am learning how to upload an image/picture.

I can also change the color of my text.

A Solar Powered Home

There are ten different types of energy: biomass, coal, geothermal, hydropower, natural gas, petroleum, propane, solar, uranium, and wind! Now, if I decide to move away from West Virginia, I would want to stay in either Florida or South Carolina. If I had to chose an energy source to build my dream house in Florida, it would be solar energy. I think that solar energy is a very good energy source. Especially since I will be living in Florida, where all the sun shines and it rarely gets cold. One really good thing about this source is that it does not pollute the air. Also, it is free and it's a renewable source. I know that some people disagree with me when I say that I think that solar energy is the best because I also agree with thim in some way. Solar energy may be good for the environment, but not always will the sun be shining, so it's harder to capture. So, that means when the sun isn't shining, not much energy is being released! Their is a solution to this and it is that we could use the plants that store the suns energy! You also need a solar panel installed into your house before you can actually use the source. That may be a bad thing because solar panels are very expensive and take up alot of space, but I'm sure that scientists will some day be able to fix that problem by making smaller solar panels and solar sysyems. So, whenever I do decide to build my dream house, I will decide to use solar energy. Even though it has some disadvantages, I would still love to try it out and see how it goes. I could always change it if I wanted, because my dream house is also going to be located beside a river or lake, so I could use hydropower if I needed to!

Energy Sources

Should our cars be required to get better gasoline mileage? In a way, I agree with yes and no but I am going to go with yes! It really makes a difference if you can save more mileage by buying a less expensive car, if you think about it their are Hummers out there that get only like 7 or 8 MPG, but the Jeep Liberty or a small truck would get about 15 to 20 MPG. So, you would actually be buying a less expensive car if you wanted to save mileage, but people are only liking the way the car looks and the better looking cars are gas hogs. The gas prices have went have went up a little, and if you had a vehicle that only got 7 miles to a gallon compared to a vehicle that gets at least 18 miles to the gallon, you would have to pay more for the gas of the less miles per gallon vehicle.You are most likley paying less for the car that has more mileage and more for the gas guzzling car. If you were buying gas for the good milaged car, you would probably be able to buy gas for 1 or 2 years and that amount would probably add up to that one big, expensive, and bad mileaged car. At www.fueleconomy.gov it says if we don't choose are car carefully, we could possibly be putting the climate change into more problems. It is taking away our natural gas when we make stupid choices in buying bad mileaged cars and natural gas is nonrenewable energy. Which means once its gone, it will take millions of years for it to reaccure. If cars don't get better gas mileage we are going to run out of natural gas!! I was reading on www.naturalgas.org that it is unknown when natural gas will no longer exist, but if the gas prices keep going up and there are being more and more gas guzzling cars out their, that it won't be maybe 100 years that we will begin to notice a very very little amount of natural gas left! So, if you have a vehicle that is gas guzzling- trade it in or buy a new one because half of you people that own them are not thinking about losing the natural gas and I really don't think everyone is going to walk or ride their bikes! For those who haven't bought a car, make sure you do the earth and natural gas a favor-PLEASE buy a car that at the minimum has at least 14 MPG!

Genetics/Heredity

My dad has more recessive traits than dominant traits. My dad's traits: free ear lobes(dominant), hair on fingers(dominant), no widow's peak(recessive), straight hair(recessive), smooth chin(recessive), and no dimples(recessive.)

My mom has more dominant traits than recessive traits. My mom's traits: free ear lobes(dominant), hair on fingers(dominant), widow's peak (dominant), curly hair(dominant), smooth chin(recessive), and dimples(dominant.)

I have more dominant traits than recessive traits. My traits: attached ear lobes(recessive)- I didn't get this trait from either of my parents, so the gene must of been given to one of my parents by their parents and then they gave it to me. I have hair on my fingers(dominant)-I got this this trait from both of my parents since they both have hair on their fingers. I have a widow's peak(dominant)- I got this trait from my mom because she has a widow's peak and a widow's peak is more dominant. I have curly hair(dominant)-which I inherited it from my mom because curly hair is more dominant over straight. I have a smooth chin(recessive)- I inherited this trait from both of my parents, even though it it recessive, both of my parents have a smooth chin. I also have dimples(dominant)-I inherited this trait from my mom because it is more dominant over no dimples. People say that I look alot like my dad, but I think I look more like my mom. This just shows that I actually look more like my mom than my dad.

My First Blog

My favorite section we did in science class was the section on heredity and genes! I liked learning about it and we did a really nice activity along with it. I learned alot about alleles, heredity and Punnett squares. I never knew Punnett squares existed until we recently learned about them. I enjoyed learning about how you inherit traits from your parents. We did a nice project to go along with the chapter and I learned alot from that too. I also like learning about cells when we did our Tech Steps. Even though the tech steps were not fun, I liked learning about how each part of the cell functions and what its main job was. Actually, science class is one of my favorite subjects, so I pretty much enjoy all the stuff we do in their!