Friday, December 8. 2017

Today's schedule is A-B-C-D

B Block Physical Geography 12 - Today we'll continue our look at severe weather focusing on hurricanes. We'll look at the conditions necessary for hurricane development and then look at the Saffir-Simpson scale (wind speed, storm surge, and damage to structures). Your activity will be to track (plot out the path) of Hurricane Diana from 1984 and answer two questions (including question 18 from page 248 of your Geosystems text). For more on predicting Hurricane Landfall check out: Predicting Hurricanes and the NOAA Predicting Hurricanes site too.

While you are working on the questions I'll show you some footage of Hurricane Ike and the damage done to Galveston Island (on the Raging Planet Hurricane episode)


Raging Planet: Hurricane (2009) - Part 1 by bigcenterprises

The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina is very personal to me, although I was not directly impacted by the hurricane (I did not lose loved ones; nor did I lose property in the storm). In early August 2005, I spent time talking with the people of New Orleans and making friends there. I traveled the Gulf Shores road (Highway 90) through Pass Christian, Bay St. Louis, Long Beach, and Gulfport, Mississipi. Three weeks later after a clear warning from the director of the National Hurricane Center, Dr. Max Mayfield (someone who I met at a professional workshop five years earlier), Katrina made landfall along the border between Louisiana and Mississippi. Now it wasn't as if politicians didn't know about the potential disaster that could befall New Orleans if a major hurricane was to strike. Dr. Ivor van Heerden (from the Raging Planet video) ran a simulation called Hurricane Pam the previous year at Louisiana State University. His test results were provided to FEMA, state, and local officials. People knew. People in power knew. Heck, I even knew and I'm just a geography teacher living on the opposite end of the continent.

CNN Special: Hurricane Katrina
NOAA: Hurricane Katrina
BBC: Hurricane Katrina
NOLA: Hurricane Katrina
NOVA Science Now: Hurricane Katrina

Rolling Stone Magazine The Lasting Effects of Hurricane Katrina
Time Magazine 10 Essential Stories about Hurricane Katrina

The end of the walled border at Tijuana, Mx.

C Block Human Geography 11 - Today we'll look the the key question "Why Do Boundaries Cause Problems"? A boundary is an invisible line that marks the extent of a state’s territory. Boundaries completely surround an individual state to mark the outer limits of its territorial control and to give it a distinctive shape. Boundary locations may be the source of conflict, both within a country and with its neighbors. Boundaries may be classified into three categories:

1. Cultural boundaries follow the distribution of cultural features.
2. Geometric boundaries are based on human constructs, such as straight lines. 
3. Physical boundaries coincide with significant features of the natural landscape.

You'll have two charts and some questions to complete for me.




D Block Criminology 12 - Today we'll look at Colton Harris-Moore the "Barefoot Bandit" who was raised on Camano Island just north of Everett Washington in the Puget Sound.
Harris-Moore was sentenced in December 2011 to seven years in state prison for dozens of crimes, including burglary and identity theft, stemming from his two-year run from the law in stolen boats, cars and airplanes. A self-taught pilot, he was finally apprehended in a hail of bullets in the Bahamas in 2010, after he crash-landed a plane stolen from an Indiana airport. He has a "Fan Club" and many many articles have been written on him including Time, and Outside Magazine...Twice! He also has agreed to sell his life story to 20th Century Fox movie studio for $1.3 million... So Today we'll watch "Chasing the Barefoot Bandit"