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Week Two Assignments

This week your assignments are to read Chapter Three: Introduction to the Atmosphere and review the supplemental material posted on the chapter three page:http://schmidtphysicalgeography.wikispaces.com/Ch+3  and you have your first map study, North America, with the supplemental material posted here: http://schmidtphysicalgeography.wikispaces.com/North+America You have quizzes on Blackboard for this chapter and the map, and you have two posting assignments – one for chapter three and one for North America. These are located on the Week Two page, here: http://schmidtphysicalgeography.wikispaces.com/Week+Two+14+week at the bottom of the page.

One thing that is especially important for chapter three is the video The Antarctic Ozone Hole – From Discovery to Recovery. I show this in class and tell my students to take notes on it because it explains the ozone hole problem far better than I can. I highly recommend it for my online students as well. It is embedded in the Prezi, and also posted on the class web page.

I have a lot of supplemental material for this chapter. That is because our atmosphere here in Southern California has some serious problems with pollution. One of the articles I have posted to the page is about the diesel yard here in San Bernardino being sued because of the diesel soot. It is the second largest source of air pollution in Southern California, right here on the same street as San Bernardino Valley College.

The counties of San Bernardino and Riverside have THE worst air in the nation. Look it up if you don’t believe me… Often students don’t believe me and take me up on the look it up challenge. You will see… The cancer rate is very high for the city of San Bernardino. It is especially linked to the dirty air we are breathing right now.

This chapter is near and dear to my heart, it is one of the reasons I teach, so that I can help people understand our atmosphere and so that hopefully we can make the changes in society to clean this problem up. It is NOT fair that people who live in San Bernardino should live shorter lives than people in other parts of the state or country just because the air is filthy. It could be clean, we have the technology to make the changes, but we do not seem to have the political or social will to do it. I hope you are all a little mad when you are done with the chapter and that you will think differently when you are done.

Climate change is also introduced in this chapter. It is another reason why I teach, so I hope that you will have a good understanding of what the atmosphere is made of, and what it’s components do, like carbon dioxide which traps the heat from the sun and water vapor, which basically does the same.

There is another short video in the Prezi about Carbon Dioxide – it says 400 in big numbers on the video – I also always show this one in class because your textbooks are all out of date, even the newest ones, because they cannot keep up with the amount of carbon in the atmosphere because we just keep adding more and more. We are now at 0.040% or 400 Parts Per Million (PPM) and that will probably change and be 0.041 or 0.042 in May when we measure again sadly. I show this short video because I want you all to know where we stand with Carbon Dioxide, which is the biggest culprit for climate change.

I know that this is your fist map study and quiz, so I wanted to say a little bit about what is expected of you. On the North America map page, you will see first the North America map which is uploaded onto Slideshare. Directly below it, you will see the pdf of the map - you will need to print this out, or come and pick one up in the Physical Science office, unless you have purchased the Geography coloring book. The first page of the map packet is the cover page, the next page is the list of terms - this is what you need to learn - the page after that is the physical map of North America, that is the one that you will work with. There is also a political map, but this is just for reference - your map study is of the physical geography of North America. The political map is included because some of the descriptions may use states as a reference, and you have the political map with all of the states just in case you need it. So anyway, it is your assignment to learn where all of the map terms are and what their significance is. There is a Prezi of North America, it will walk you through the map study. It follows the terms in order, and there is a map, picture, and description of each map term.

I know that some of you may have some anxiety over this first map study and quiz, please relax, it will be OK. My last online class was able to find all of the terms and several of them had perfect scores on the quiz. Also there have been a number of times that onsite students have missed map studies and they are also able to find all of the terms and most are able to get A's too. North America is first because I am hoping since you live here, you may know where some of these place are. If there is a term you cannot locate, try doing a Google search because all of the places are well known. Of course you can ask me too if you need any help. Please have fun with your North America Post, you get the tell me about a place you would like to visit in North America. Please include pictures!

It is also time for you to start thinking about your presentation project for this class. Instructions have been posted for the presentation. Please read them over and let me know if you have any questions. I would like for you to pick your topics this week. A Padlet has been posted in the Presentations folder for you to post your topics on. You get 5 points for posting your topic. I have also included a discussion board so that if you want to work in groups for your presentation, you have a place to talk to your classmates. Group work is NOT required, this is a choice. Please let me know if you have any questions about your presentation projects.

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