Tuesday, October 22. 2019

Today's schedule is CDAB

C & D Blocks Environmental and Social Sciences - To start today we are back in the learning commons/library to continue our work on palm oil. Remember, you need to look through the Guardian Interactive on Palm Oil and work through a handout (courtesy of Geographypods) that I gave you yesterday. At 10 am we'll be in Benton's room to meet Allan Chamberlain and Caroline Heim, who are going to share with you what the Tsolum River Restoration Society have done in the past with Towhee Creek. After we'll walk outside along Towhee Creek to see what we can find.

A Block Physical Geography - Today we finish Dante's Peak and don't forget that you have a series of questions to answer about the volcanology of the movie (you got the hand out with the questions last Friday). Today we'll get to the main portion of the volcanic eruption and the effects that Dante's Peak takes on the small town that sits in a valley near its base. Dante's Peak produces a Plinian eruption (lots of material ejected and very active). The order of eruption at Dante's Peak is:

1. Tectonic Earthquakes 
2. Harmonic Tremors 
3. Vertical Eruptive Cloud 
4. Spreading of the Eruptive Cloud and Ash Fall
5. Lava Flow 
6. Relative Calm...cue the slasher movie music 
7. Lahars 
8. Pyroclastic Cloud 
9. End of Eruptive activity - relative calm
10. USGS Vulcanologist Harry Dalton hooks up with Mayor Rachel Wando and presumably live happily ever after

So it's bad...not as bad as the scientific premise behind Volcano (with Tommy Lee Jones) but bad. From Erik Klemetti at WIRED

Now, here is what I think: I hate Dante’s Peak. It isn’t really the lack of much scientific basics – sure, they mostly understand how volcanic monitoring works but they miss the boat on how volcanoes actually work. It isn’t the acting – Linda and Pierce are good and believable. It isn’t the coffee-loving USGS geolackeys (that is accurate). However, it is the combination of everything – the over-the-top response from Harry about the volcanic rumblings, the resistance from his boss, the recalcitrant grandmother, the deus ex machina mine shelter. The damn dog jumping in the truck as they drive over an ACTIVE LAVA FLOW. The film is, at the same time, trying to be realistic while being wildly unrealistic, and in most cases, there was no need to be unrealistic when it comes to an eruption in the Cascades threatening a town. But no, we can’t take the time to actually portray real events (“Dante’s Peak” lacked a scientific adviser). Sure, it can be exciting but, for me, it was so frustrating that I couldn’t get over it.

My friend I agree, wholeheartedly.

B Block Human Geography - Today we continue with our Key Question, "Where are Folk and Popular Material Culture Distributed?" I'm hoping that you are seeing some consistent themes in Human Geography this year. Remember that folk culture is traditionally practiced primarily by small, homogeneous groups living in isolated rural areas while popular culture is found in large, heterogeneous societies. Folk culture is influenced heavily by the environment that it develops in while popular culture depends less on the environment because it diffuses on a larger scale (globalization). With the larger globalized scale of popular culture (becoming more dominant), the survival of unique folk cultures is threatened...This is one of the themes I hope you are starting to see.

So...Customs in folk culture (such as provision of food, clothing, and shelter) are clearly influenced by the prevailing climate, soil, and vegetation (utilizing localized resources). Today we'll look at food and you'll have some questions to work on for me