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Kataka Seed
Kataka Seed. What is it? It comes from the Clearing Nut Tree and is sometimes used in India as a coagulant. What does that all mean? Coagulation can be compared to ion solvation in water. Essentially, the coagulant will bond to the suspended particles in the water that cause it to be muddy, and settle out the particles at the…
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Water from Air
Lima, Peru is said to have nearly one hundred percent humidity. That means that this major city located in a desert with less than one inch of rain per year has air that is completely saturated on the most humid days. Still, over 18 percent of the Peruvian population lacks safe water, and around 32…
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Forbidden Seafood
While this post will have more to do with wildlife than water treatment, it is a topic relevant to the environment and therefore is significant in environmental consciousness. Recently, while traveling to Maine I learned about the history of the waterfront. Native Americans and settlers lived along the Piscataqua river waterfront that serves as a…
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Sunflowers for Change
Phytoremediation is the use of plants to save the environment, a method which Bridget Llanes and Bernadette Hardy from the University of New Mexico are highly involved in. Not far from their hometowns lies a major source of contamination to the surrounding neighborhood known as the Kirtland Air Force Base (KAFB) Jet Fuel Spill. Twenty…
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Solar Cooking
Solar cooking is a method of purifying water that allows people to be empowered by disinfecting it at home. It is affordable, safe, and efficient. This past summer I tested my own handmade solar cookers to see how much water they could truly disinfect – if they were up to the task at all. The…
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SODIS
According to the World Health Organization, “Globally, there are nearly 1.7 billion cases of diarrhoeal disease every year”. Diarrhea is the number one cause of malnutrition in children under 5. It kills 760,000 children under five years old each year. Diarrheal illness can be caused by contaminated food or water, or lack of sanitation practices.…
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Shoutout to Sarah Pieklik
My middle school math teacher went somewhere amazing for her summer break last month. She was selected for a Space Academy Program in Alabama sponsored by Honeywell Educators! While learning some peculiar things about surviving in space flight, Ms. Pieklik also got tips from the experts on how to create captivating curriculum. Here’s the article…
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Green Lakes and Pratts Falls
At my school, geology is a vastly different subject than environmental engineering. It is a subject that I still have a lot to learn about. Aside from a small fossil collection that has mostly transferred into my algae covered fish tank, I couldn’t tell you much about geology. What I can tell you is that I went…
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Walk in the Park
I recently found out about this blog by an environmental educator in New York State called walkinpark. He had the most modern and clever idea to create minute long clips of each park that he’s been to in New York State. I thought, for the people who can’t get to see all of the falls…
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Advice from a Tree
There are lots of lovely tree poems like this on the interwebs. This one caught my eye in my environmental engineering professors office. Isn’t it calming?
definearth
writing about the environmental issues nobody is writing about.
definearth 