IHSS A 2021-22

 Ellie Roddy IHSS 1/25/22 "Free Parking Issue"     As I was reading the article "Free parking is killing cities" by Dayna Evans it stated that there are several reasons why free parking is such a hassle in the cities of the US. This issue is causing people to be late to their work offices and appointments and is also causing the citizens of the city great anger. Some major issues that make parking in free spaces include traffic congestion, people having to drive around for parking spaces and wasting the needed time, and street parking. The traffic congestion is the biggest issue because the fact that people are trying to pull into a parking space and pull out of a parking space disturbs the drivers that are stuck behind the car that is in the middle of that process and the majority of the time they can't even get around that car. This issue mostly happens in parking lots and garages because you can see that sometimes there will be a whole line of cars stuck in o...

Super Trees Harper Young IHSS Mr. Roddy January 25, 2022 Houston Texas is home to many factories. Most factories are oil and gas-related. Houston has seen a rise in pollution especially closer to Galveston. Due to the Houston ship channel and Galveston major port, most factories tend to be by the water. the ocean and the area around are getting much worse day by day.  In some areas of Houston if you were to wipe your hand on a tree leaf your hands would be covered in white dust that is polluted into the air from the local concrete plants. The pollution is also very bad for your health. Pollution is known to increase the risk of asthma and cardiac arrest. The issues also take a major toll on lower-income citizens that tend to populate most of these areas. A local non-profit Houston Wilderness is now trying to change that. Houston wilderness has tested different trees to see what kinds are the most effective. After studying the American sycamore seems to be the most effective at...

 Natalie Gross IHSS Mr. Roddy January 19, 2022 Vertical Gardens                         Vertical farming is where you grow plants in buildings vertically instead of on farms. While it is seemingly very expensive, the amount of food grown and the money saved on pesticides adds up to more than cover the initial cost. Because these gardens are basically just greenhouses stacked on top of each other, they are able to carefully control the climate of each section,  enabling them to grow foods that aren't regularly grown in that place without worrying that a heatwave or cold front will kill the plants. It also helps to control the pests and therefore eliminates a lot of food waste. This also both makes the food healthier for you to eat and no longer contaminates people's water sources with runoff pesticides.  The farms are in buildings, so naturally, they take up less land, about 97% less. They also use up 95...

Yazzie Stein Mr. Roddy IHSS Jan 24, 2022   Why Should We Stop Focusing on T rash Clean-Up  in the Ocean?      When reading the Gizmodo article, 'Why Trying to Clean Up All the Ocean Plastic is Pointless', I learned that perhaps all our efforts to clear up the debris in the ocean is actually non-beneficial, and how to actually help save the ocean. According to this article, rather than working on picking up trash already in the ocean, we should be focusing more on stopping the problem at the source -- in this case, the production and usage of plastic on such an immense scale. Essentially, if we continue to focus on clearing all the plastic out of the ocean but continue to mass-produce it and regurgitate it back into the sea, the initial clearing of it will be useless. No matter what, if we continue plastic manufacturing at this rate, the ocean will  be filled with plastic. Even if we cleared all the plastic from the ocean and put it in landfills, sea levels ...

Max Barger Mr. Roddy IHSS 23 January 2022 The Colorado River Crisis               The Colorado River has been becoming concerningly dry. This river hydrates over 40 million people, therefore the drought of the almost 2,000-mile-long river, can be extremely dangerous for so many reasons. This past summer it got extremely low, and scientists began tracking it to hopefully make room for a better future. Over half the shortage in water is simply due to climate change, which is sadly at this point close to irreversible. Climate change has been the originating cause of a ginormous drought over Colorado and the Mid-West. Not only will the declination of water in the Colorado River bear heavily towards the surrounding states, but evidently all of America. Climate change was the original cause of many of the topics we discussed in class; Trash Clean-up, Fresh Food Quality, The Price of Trees, and numerous other devastating topics. I believe that when peopl...

Owen Siegel Mr. Roddy IHSS 1/23/22      The article that I read was about the disparity between the safety and quality of produce in low-income areas and high-income areas. I was drawn to this article as I was curious how large the difference between safety would be, and how the problem is caused. The University of Houston conducted a study that focused on loose leaf romaine lettuce. Scholars purchased lettuce from 10 different stores, 5 in low-income areas, and 5 in higher-income areas. They scanned each sample for dangerous microorganisms/pathogens. Their results found that 87% of the lettuce from lower-income stores had dangerous bacteria that wasn’t found in any of the lettuce from higher-income stores. The results also showed that around 505 of the lettuce from higher-income stores had salmonella in it. The University of Houston couldn’t find conclusive reasoning for this disparity, but some theories were crafted. One belief was that employees in lower-income areas ...

       The first article I read was about how 'super trees' can help Houston (and other parts of the world) reduce pollution and other issues. Houston's health department partnered with a nonprofit called Houston Wilderness to plant these super trees. These trees were found using a study that rated trees based on their ability to help the climate. The top super tree was the live oak, which is the best at reducing carbon emissions, mitigating flooding effects, reducing heat, and reducing air pollution. The runners-up were American Sycamores, River Birches, Slippery Elms, Water Oaks, and Red Maples. These trees are now being planted in Houston's most polluted and flood-prone areas - some of which are near the ship channels in the Port of Houston. Right now, the program has planted around 10,000 trees around the ship channels so far, and it hopes to reach a total of 1 million trees planted by 2030. The government obviously does have a hand in this, since Houston's ...

Khadijah Ahmed Mr. Roddy IHSS 1/24/22 The article I read was titled, "University of Houston study finds disparity in quality and safety produce in low vs. high-income communities"; this title pretty effectively summarizes what the article was about. Researchers from the University of Houston conducted a study to test the quality and safety of romaine lettuce in high and low income areas. They purchased lettuce from stores in a high-income neighborhood, and lettuce from stores in a low-income neighborhood. Their testing revealed that the lettuce purchased from low-income areas tested positive for multiple harmful microorganisms. The findings showed that 87% of lettuce bought at the low-income stores tested positive for staphylococcus aureus, 53% for salmonella, 13% for listeria monocytogenes, and 4% of samples for E. coli. Meanwhile, none of the high-income area lettuce tested positive for any of these, with the exception of 38% testing positive for (non-deadly) staph. These a...

Chiara Abel Mr. Roddy IHSS January 24, 2022 Cleaning Up Ocean Plastic is Not Useful The article I read was about how trying to clean up the plastic in the ocean is useless. About 17.6 billion pounds of new plastic is going into the ocean each year. The rate that we are cleaning up this plastic in the ocean has made it basically impossible to ever clean up all the plastic in the ocean. The article included a transcript from an interview with Max Liboiron. In the interview, he talks about an analogy which is, if the bathtub was overflowing would you a) turn off the tap, or b) get a mop. The answer is to turn off the tap and then proceed to get a mop. By using this analogy Max Liboiron tells us that to effectively clean up the ocean plastic you would need to stop the production of plastic. Although, at this point, it would be very hard to stop the production of plastic because it is used for everything now. Another reason why trying to clean up the plastic in the ocean is useless is becau...

  Niko Cantu Mr.Roddy IHSS 24 January 2021 An advancement in Concrete and Pavement Concrete is currently the second most used material in the world only second to water, with an esteemed 3 tones per person every year. Concrete being the main material used in architectural designs and infrastructure used for buildings, streets and bridges is responsible for 8% of the world's carbon emitted. As concrete has become a necessity in buildings it has become the mission of researchers at the University of Tokyo to develop a new chemical build up of concrete to make it more suitable for our environment. They have an idea of using calcium from concrete waste and then using carbon dioxide from either industrial exhaust or directly from the air to create a calcium carbonate concrete material. The  issue with concrete carbon emission has been a known problem for a long time now and even the concrete industry is searching for solutions to this problem. With this new concrete idea of usi...

India Riley Mr.Roddy IHSS January 19, 2022 The article I read was about pollution and our oceans, and how our main focus at the moment may be irrelevant. The name of my article was what caught my eye, seeing as there's so many organizations working to get the plastic out of the oceans, I wouldn't expect someone to say not to. The article went into depth about how pointless it is to continue to pick up the plastics from our oceans, because we are creating much more than we are picking up. The author uses a very helpful analogy, "OK, you walk into your bathroom and your bathtub is overflowing. Do you, a) turn off the tap, or b) get a mop? I mean, eventually you’ll do both, but you better turn off that tap before you start mopping up or you will never stop mopping up and you will never catch up to the water spilling out.", the tap in the metaphor is the pollution going into he ocean, and the mop is us trying to pick it out. The author, Molly Taft, had stated that the...

    Shakira, a refugee woman has lived a long and tumultuous life, with hurdles left and right. Couldn't get a break. Living a life of constant migration, and hiding from the Taliban and the Mujahideen, her life is a tale to be told. Shakira grew up in Sangin valley, a small riverside town in The Helmand province of Afghanistan, though her lineage dates back to the village of Pan Killay further into Afghanistan. Shakira's childhood was sadly cut short as Sangin valley was destroyed in 1979 while Shakira was still a child, due to her village fighting for women’s rights and education. Sangin valley was destroyed but The Mujahideen. The mujahideen is an army of gunned men who kidnapped all schoolteachers in the entirety of the valley who supported girls’ education and slit their throats in front of the whole village. Community leaders who opposed the mujahideen were kidnapped and never heard from again     The Taliban had reigned over Afghanistan and terrorized much of ...

  I think that the government could get involved with plastics in the ocean by possibly creating a division specifically meant for cleaning the ocean. Tighter restrictions could be put on fishing equipment, which is a major part of the amount of trash in the ocean. More restrictions could also be put on single use plastics, and more multi use plastics are sold everywhere. Recycling could also be offered everywhere, but I know that some people don’t accept it. For example, when I was visiting my grandma in Louisiana, I had to recycle a can, and I asked where the recycling was. My mom and grandma both told me that they tried it out, but nobody put any effort into actually recycling things. Even though the area that my grandma lives in has a recycling plant. Once, I had to volunteer for school to clean up around Galveston bay. We were cleaning up crab traps and trash around the beach. The problem is that the fact the program wasn’t offered by the government but was offered by the Hous...

 supertrees are trees used for specific things around Houston. when you see a tree usually you think that it is for decor, or for a bit of nature in a park, but now you might see a greater variety of trees around Houston, more in specific areas than others. some of them are for helping prevent floods, and others take a lot of carbon dioxide out of the air. but one of the main reasons that they are doing this is for heat control, trees with a significant width make an area a lot cooler, and not just under it, it blows the cooled air around and cools down a large area around it. while there is still research being done, the project has already planted 10,000 trees, and they are still doing more research into cross-breeding trees to make the ultimate tree. what do you think is a good solution to the heat crisis in cities, and do you think that this will help more than a little bit?

  The article that I read was about how we should stop focusing on spending time and money on cleaning plastic out of the oceans. This article caught my eye because it's the first time I heard someone say this. Usually, I always hear people talking about cleaning the oceans and taking plastic out of them. After reading through the article I could understand what they were talking about. Most of the plastics in the oceans are microplastics that can barely be seen by the human eye. Instead of cleaning a small percentage of plastics in the ocean which would barely make a difference, we should focus on stopping the production of plastics. After reading the article I looked into what the Texas government was doing. Some parts of the government which focus on pollution have been helping clean up the beaches and rivers, but nothing to stop the production of plastics. There was an interactive article that showed what states are working on the reduction of plastic use. None of the states in...