February 2012 – Page 3 – Kristen Baumlier

Month: February 2012

Free Rice – A Game Where You Answer Questions and Help End Hunger

Posted on February 16, 2012February 15, 2012 by Kbaumlier

The World Food Programme is the largest humanitarian organization that is working to fight hunger worldwide, and is supported by the United Nations WTF works to prevent hunger, support emergency hunger situations, and work to reduce hunger and undernutrition. . In 2011, WFP aimed to bring food assistance to more than 90 million people in 73 countries through a variety of programs.

WTF has developed some online games where players can engage in online game activities and earn points that help create realworld change. One of the games, FreeRice is an online trivia game where for each correct answer played, ten grains of rice are donated to WFP to feed hungry people around the world, paid for by sponsored banners on the site.

Players can choose from 45,000 questions in a variety of subjects, including flags of the world, chemistry and literature. The game can be played in six languages. There are currently over one million registered players, who together have donated nearly 100 billion grains of rice to feed almost five million people since the game started in 2007.

WTF reports that, “1 in 7 people worldwide goes to bed hungry every night. And now, with nearly 7 billion people in the world, this means that almost 1 billion people are not getting the food they need today.”

Hunger seems like a far away problem for most of us. Earlier this month, WTF had a week with contests and promotions where it promoted the six degrees of separation idea in relation to hunger– in that we are all connected to people who are hungry through 6 levels of connections.

Today I spent some time creating my FreeRice account, and tried out two areas of trivia. I first tried the art area, and was able to identify most of the paintings ( I killed it!) I switched subjects and tried identifying flags of countries around the world, where I still won a few, but I did not do quite as well. All in all, in a couple of minutes I earned 140 grains of rice.

On the site, FreeRice states that it has two goals. One is to provide education to everyone for free. Second is to help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

Want to try FreeRice? You can join on the site, or on Facebook. Like most online games, you are able to ask friends to play, participate in contests, and read updates on the blog and site. I’m going to see if I can run the game on my phone, so that I can work to help end hunger when I am waiting or in a meeting, instead of just playing

Image Source:
freerice.com

Links:

freerice.com

wfp.org

Oranges and Figs in Ohio? – Plant Hardiness Zones Have Changed

Posted on February 15, 2012February 13, 2012 by Kbaumlier

A hardiness zone defines what kinds of plants can grow in a specific geographic area. The classification is defined by climatic conditions, especially the low temperatures that a plant can withstand. A plant might be labeled as “hardy to zone 10,” which means that the plant can withstand a minimum temperature of -1°C. Another type of plant labeled “hardy to zone 9” can handle a minimum temperature of -7°C.

The USDA recently released a new plant hardiness zone map. The updated map is based on the past twenty years of temperatures and conditions from 1976 to 2005. The temperatures in the U.S. are in general two-thirds of a degree higher than before.

The new updated map has rezoned many areas, generally one half-zone warmer than the last map in many areas of the United States. States such as Ohio, Texas, and Nebraska are now in a warmer zones.

Overall, the temperatures in Winter are not as cold as they used to be. The growing season is longer, and gardeners can grow and harvest plants for a longer period of time than 20 years ago.

Is this an indicator of climate change? Is the earth warming up and influencing our environment? There is no official report about this in relation to the updated map.

In Ohio, most of the state moved from zone 5 to zone 6 under the Department of Agriculture’s revised map.

I just looked at some gardening sites online, to see what can grow in Zone 6. Big news, there is one type of orange tree (Flying Dragon) and a few varieties of figs (Celeste, Chicago Hardy, LSU Gold, LSU Purple, and Magnolia) that can grow in Zone 6, which means that oranges and figs can now grow in Ohio.

Image Source:
Hidden Springs Nursury

Links:

2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Map

2012 Interactive Plant Zone Hardiness Map

Go Green Forever Stamps : Step by Step

Posted on February 14, 2012February 13, 2012 by Kbaumlier

I recently went to the Post Office for stamps, and purchased the USPS Go Green Forever stamps that were released last year for Earth Day. The stamps feature simple things that anyone can that can have a positive impact on the environment. Each of the fifteen stamps features a way to reduce our environmental footprint. Buy local produce, reuse bags, fix water leaks, share rides, recycle more ride a bike, plant trees, and other everyday actions are featured on the stamps. Since the stamps are forever stamps, each stamp has the word forever on it. “Reuse bags… forever,” “Buy local produce…forever,” is how the stamps read.

The stamps are made from materials that re biodegradable and recyclable and is part of the Post Office’s Go Green sustainability initiative. The stamps are intended to help promote the idea that doing daily things can make a difference. Examples are that recycling one aluminum can save enough energy to run a computer by three hours, or inflating your car tires properly will improve gas mileage by three percent.

The U.S. post office has been working to reduce its impact on the environment for some time. For over 100 years, the post office has owned electric vehicles. The USPS was the first federal agency to publicly report greenhouse gas emissions, and has eco-friendly mailing materials that meet the Cradle to Cradle Certification, which is earned by conserving natural resources.

I haven’t used any of my stamps yet. It’s hard to say what using the stamps will do to promote these ideas, but I can’t wait to use the “Ride a bike… forever” stamp on a letter.

Links:

Animation of GoGreen Stamps

USPS sustainability initiatives and the Go Green Forever stamps

Years – A Record Player That Can Read Tree Rings

Posted on February 13, 2012February 13, 2012 by Kbaumlier

Tree-rings can tell us stories about the lives of trees. Tree rings can be analyzed for strength, thickness and rate of growth. This information can give clues about the growth rate of the tree, and give information about droughts, fires, floods, or other natural events.

German artist Bartholomäus Traubeck has created a record-player which is capable of digitally reading tree-slices and translating them into piano music. This record-player, called “Years,” plays slices of woods and uses the program Arduino to transform the rings into sounds. For the piece, a camera takes an image of the tree ring and sends this to Arduino, a electronic programming and processing tool. Traubeck programmed Arudiono to interpret the tree ring in terms of thickness, strength, and rate of growth which is mapped to a scale of the overall appearance of the wood. This information is then mapped to piano sounds.

In the videos of the piece on Vimeo, you can see that the player plays various tree disks including a fir tree and an ash tree with a complex texture.

The resulting sounds piece is an interesting interpretation of trees and sound.

Image Source:
Years – on Vimeo

Links:

Years – See and Hear on Vimeo

Bartholomäus Traubeck Website

Years on Creative Applications.net

Environmentalism History: Rachel Carson’s Book Silent Spring 50 Years Later Podcast

Posted on February 12, 2012February 12, 2012 by Kbaumlier

2012 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring. This book which was first published in 1962 is credited with sparking the beginning of the modern environmental movement, especially in the United States. Silent Spring addressed the effects of pesticides on the environment, focusing primarily on birds. Carson critiqued the chemical industry of spreading incorrect information, and government officials of accepting industry reports that were inaccurate. The book supported the development of environmental consciousness and led to the regulation of pesticide use in North America and Europe.

Rachel Carson was a scientist, writer, and ecologist. She worked for the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and wrote radio scripts during the Depression. She also wrote feature articles on natural history for the Baltimore Sun. She was a scientist and eventually became Editor-in-Chief of all publications for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She did a variety of writing, which included pamphlets on conservation and natural resources, scientific articles, and also nonfiction articles in popular publications such as the Atlantic Monthly.

Carson was attacked by some individuals in government and in the chemical industry as being an alarmist, but her voice served to remind us that we are a vulnerable part of the natural world subject, and that we can experience the same damage as the rest of the ecosystem.

In order to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring Mark Wilson, a PhD candidate at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, England recorded a podcast that explores the significance of the book. Wilson has written a study which compares the response to Silent Spring in the US and Britain. The Podcast is on the Environmental History Resource Website and can be streamed from the site.

Image Source:
Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

Links:

Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

Silent Spring

Silent Spring at 50: a Comparison Perspective Podcast