Haiti History-Why is it so poor?

Haiti was a poor country even before the earthquake, and since the quake hit them, it made them even poorer.



Haiti was controlled bay France, and there was a big slave revolt, and 150,000 people died, that was a very very big loss.



Another reason is because they were also attacked by H.I.V (aids). And aids can kill, so people started dying.



Also after independence, haiti was struggling with corruption, and that was very hard for them to go through.



Haiti also had to pay to a foriegn country for its liberty, they had to pay 60m francs in gold, and Haiti coudnt afford that, so they had to pay the debt slowly.



Also Haitians started cutting down tress, using them as charcoal, and almost 98 percent of the country's forests were gone, that leaves 2 percent of forests.



Before the 1960's, haiti was exporting coffee, and then the coffee prices around the world fell so low that they had find something else to plant. So people started to plant corn, peanuts and bannanas to feed their family, until some person came up and tought them how to make charcoal, and then there started to be loss of trees, no forests, no water or food, all because of the charcoal.



Soil erosion had killed all the mangroves, and coral reefs. And for people to fish for food, they needed to go far away, but they didnt have enough money for boats.



Haiti never had much resources, they didnt have much to plant, so how would they live, they had to find a way to live and they had to find something to plant.



The united states also took over them, and they were also racist to the Haitians, and that brought up alot of problems.



Haiti also had to go through the civil war, and many people started dying because of that, and then people started having less families, and less people that can plant resources.

Haiti Update

Haiti was hit badly by an earthquake last week, and they were expecting help, but nobody came last week, but now help is on the way. Many countries are trying to help such as America, France, Norway and others. There are also many websites made that are for donations to Port-Au-Prince, but there is one that senator Obama recommended in a speech, that is http://clintonbushhaitifund.org/index.php, and the maximum donation for that is $1000. People are trying to give aid, such as medicine, toileteries, food, and more stuff. There is also another problem, so many people are rushing to help, so there has been a big crowd at the airports, so only a few people can get through, others have to wait. This is a photo of a guy from the US that is trying to help.

Haiti Earthquake

A few days ago there was a huge earthquake in Haiti, it was a 7.3 magnitude earthquake, which is pretty strong. This image shows a woman buried by bricks, and a corpse next to her. It was about for 30 seconds, but it was very strong. Tens of thousands of people died, and a lot are injured. Most of the buildings and houses have broken down or have been left ramshackle.

Bintaro Lama Movie

Water Questions 2

1. List the main reasons for water scarcity

The main reasons for water scarcity are variations in climate, land degradation, water pollution, and population growth.


1. What is drought? What type of hardships do you think that a drought could cause if you were living in a village in a poor country such as Etheopia?

Drought is a time when it doesn't rain, if you live in Etheopia in a small village where a drought occurred, so they might not have mush water with them , so people can die.

3.How does land degradation affect the supply of fresh water?

Land degradation decreases infiltration, so we cant store water down at the aquifer.

4. a.) What is El Nino?

When a warming in temperature occurs

b.) Why does Eil Nino often cause drought in Australia?

Because Austrailia is in the pacific ocean

5. Observe the map showing the global effects of El Nino in 1982-83

a.) What effects does El Nino have on the availability of fresh water?

It causes drought.

b.) Name the countries and describe the problems that arose from decreased rainfall caused by El Nino.

Drought

Water Treatment Plant

Last Thursday, we went to a water treatment plant, there we learnt how people clean water. There were 6 stages, after we went to the stages we watched a movie made by the water treatment plant people.

The first stage was called Garbage Removal, where they take all the some dirty water from the river and they put it in a little area, then they take this scoop thing and put it to the bottom of the water and scoop out all the plastic, leaves, papers, etc. And if the garbage is not all taken out then they continue to push the water to a different are, and do the same thing with another scoop.

Stage 2 was to add alum to the water, and mix it, so the flock coagulates, and it is done because they want all the flock to stick together.

Stage three was to let the flow into another pool, and to let the flock settle to the bottom, once it has settled, it can be called sediment.

Once stage 3 happens, they start stage 4, and that is to let the water filtrate through sand, but they don't use the same sand you get at the beach or the playground, they have to use this very special and small type o sand, to set the trap for the remaining bad things.

Stage 5 was about adding chlorine, which is a disinfectant so they can kill the bad bacteria. The chlorine is not seen underwater.

The final stage was to test again if the water is OK. They need to test to make sure the water is safe to drink!

The movie was about this kid named Jali, who has club fair at his school, and he joins a water cleaning club, the captain of the club is Bondol. He goes underwater with Bondol and learns how to clean water. The field trip was fun!

Water Questions

1.What percentage of the world's supply of water is fresh water?

2.5% of the Earth's water is fresh.

2.Where is the world's supply of fresh water found?
Ice bergs and groundwater and the atmosphere.

3.Even though the supply of fresh water is abundant it is sitll a problem. Why?
It is but 97.5 percent is salt water.

4.Observe the map of world average annual precipitation.

A: Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the southern to the northern tip of Africa? At the southern part of Africa, it really doesn't rain much, but as you move to the north, it shows that it rains more.

B: Describe the changes in rainfall that occur as you move from the western tip of Australia along the Tropic of Capricorn. At the west side, rain doesn't happen mush but as you move along to the east, it rains more.

5.Observe the map above of water availability per person.

A: Which parts of the world appear to have a large amount of water available per person?

Russia, Papua New Guinea, Costa Rica, some of Australia, and Canada.

B: Which parts of the world appear to have a small amount of water per person?

UAE, Oman, Iraq, most of the middle east.


6.Observe the diagram of water use.

A: What are the main uses of water?

With the reservoir.

B: Which uses have increased the most over the last century?

Reservoir losses from evaporation and seepage.

Bintaro Lama

Last Thursday Mr. Hughes and Mrs. Whitely's class went to the Bintaro Lama kampung to learn more about how people in the villages clean and drink their water. There were groups divided and each group had to go to 3 different stations.

My first station was about how the people get sick while eating their food or by drinking water. The reason the get sick is when people excrete and don't wash their hands, they touch food and water and people get sick. And another reason is also because the flies and bugs get into food and make the food dirty and people get sick by drinking water with the fly that came in.

The next station is about how to use alum to clean water and to get all the flock down. They put this solute called pur to get all the flock down. They mix the pur and wait for 5 minutes and then they put this cloth over the water so the dirt stays and the water, and then they put the water in this ceramic filter and then it takes time to stay there and get clean and then next morning it is ready to drink.

The final station was also about cleaning water. This is not exactly like the last station. They use this things called AirRahmat and Aquatabs. You need at least 20 liters for the aquatab to put in, and then they wait for like 35 minutes, and then the water is okay to drink. For the AirRahmat, you put the AirRahmat liquid in a measuring cup into the water and then you have to shake it for 30 seconds. After you shake, you wait half-an-hour and then the water is potable

We learned a lot at the Kampung and for the people who are going on Thursday, have fun, and there are a lot of flies so it is irritating.

WATER 4 PICTURES AND EXPLENATIONS

This is evaporation, evaporation is when water turns into a gas. As you see, the water in the river is becoming into a gas and going into the air.

This is condensation, it is when steam (or water vapor) turns back into water.

This is underground filled with water because of infiltration, the rain gets into the ground and goes underground in places like this.

This is a hailstorm, otherwise known as precipitation, precipitation is when forms of water fall from the sky, and hail is one form. Other forms are snowfall, rain, sleet and other forms.

The Earthquake in Jakarta

Yesterday, 2nd semtember 2009, there was an earthquaike in Jakarta, nobody expected or knew about it, but a few animals did. Animals can sense things before humans can, and yesterday a snake came out into JIS with all of us nice kids. But all the people were very freaked out and scared about that creature, but that snake had come out about 2 and a half hours before the earthquake came. That animal sensed the earthquake and was trying to go somewhere, so it went to one of the drains underground. When earthquakes hit the environment, animals come out and things like trees and buildings start shaking. When people are in the environment, people freak out. If you are in a tall building and you are under a chandelier, and the earthquake strikes then.....BOOM. about 38 people had died, probably because something had fall on them or maybe something else happened. It is predicted that more will happen soon, but nothing happened yet. There has also been a tsunami warning here. We are in the ring of fire, which is a place that has natural disasters. That is what happened yesterday.

Taiwan Flooding

Typhoon Morakot, it is the worst storm since 50 years! It hit Taiwan and many people, houses, buildings were destroyed. Taiwan has a lot of mountains, and because of all the mountains, it will cause mudslides in the hills in the low-lying areas. Goverment has annouced school holidays and office holidays for everyone. A reporter had said it had blown and tore off roofs of many buildings. Nasa had just confirmed that the typhoon had double-sized. Typhoon Morakot is predicted to hit China very soon. It started with alot of rain, then the rain went into the ground, and since it rained 2 meters, it went through the ground and reached the stone under the mountains, and it started running down the mountains, and the people who were farming and living near the mountains, are now dead. We are supposed to learn texting skills on the comuter, how to post a blog and what exactly happened in Taiwan. Now we also learned about the enviornment of places not very near the equator, places not near the equator have more typhoons and storms. This picture is a building falling, we are supposed to learn that the people inside, (if there were any) could have died and many things were destroyed.