Background Summary: Common
Core is a set standard for students in the United States through grades Kindergarten
through 12th grade. Common core is used to prepare students for
college and the workforce. There are only two areas covered by the common core:
math and English. Common Core is sponsored by the National Governors
Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.
Click on the links below to learn about the pros and cons of
Common Core, as well as the standards of Common Core.
Now that you have learned what it is, what its standards are
and the pros and cons, what is your opinion on Common Core. Use the information
in the readings to support your answer and do not forget to add your own
opinion!
The Endangered Species Act of 1973 was to protect those
animals who were close to or becoming extinct. Signed by Richard Nixon, it was
just one of the set of environmental laws. Gray wolves became one of the first
species to be added to the endangered species list. The gray wolves have been
under the protection of the Federal government, but the gray wolf population
will now be handed to the states.
What caused the gray wolf to have a decline
in population were the sheep ranchers and hunters. Ranches would kill the
wolves in order to protect their farms and hunters and government agents would
eliminate gray wolves in order to eliminate competition.
Now that the gray wolf
is being removed from the endangered species list, many are worried that under
states management plans, too many wolves will be killed off. States are taking
management plans very serious by reducing wolf-hunting quotas. When gray wolves
were no longer considered endangered but rather threatened in the western
states, 17 environmental groups filed suit. Although gray wolves have been
given a bad reputation, there were some actions taken into place in order to
protect these animals. Such as habitat restorations, wolf introduction in many
areas, compensation of ranchers for any livestock killed by the gray wolf, and
most importantly, public education. There are many benefits when it comes to
the gray wolf, such as keeping deer and elk populations in check. Also, the
carcasses left by the wolves replenish the nutrients and possibly provide food
of grizzly bears and scavengers. This is one of a few success stories in the past years, lets just hope there are many more to come in the future.
International Adoption has existed for about 100 years and
the leading country to this new trend in America. American’s started to adopt
children orphaned by the Greek Civil War and World War II in the mid-1940. American’s
then expanded to adopting children in Asia, mostly Japanese, in the late 1940’s
early 1950’s and adopted several thousand Asian Children. American couples
continued adopting children during the Korean War and till today. In 1976,
Americans adopted over 30,000 foreign-born children. Between the years of 1970
to 1978, Republic of Korea was responsible for the majority of adoptions. In
2008, two countries were responsible for the majority of adoptions, Guatemala
and China. These two countries comprise twenty three percent the total number
of children adopted by Americans. The third leading country is Russia with ten
percent and the other forty-five percent being comprised by other countries
such as Vietnam, India, Ethiopia, Haiti, and Kazakhstan.
International adoption has been under quite some criticism
throughout the years. When a couple or person adopts, they are expecting to
adopt a healthy child. The problem is that there are less healthy children than
the demand. Children are put up for adoptions due to poverty, illness or death
of parents or severe family dysfunction. I believe people are oblivious to the
fact that these factors have an effect on the children and may result in health
issues. I believe that with the correct medical treatment and support from the child’s
new family, it can help solve these health problems. So what if the child you
adopted develops a health problem, are you going to send the child you adopted
back to Russia with a note stating that they are “mentally unstable?” If you think this
is crazy, an American women did just that and now has to pay $150,000 in child
support.
Would you give away a child you adopted for no apparent reason? This happened to
Nora, a Chinese orphan, after a year living with her adoptive family. She was re-homed in a Tennessee with 17 other overseas adopted children.
International adoption fees are also under scrutiny because
it may be stimulating greed. The large amount of money given to countries for
adoption services is outrageous. When Guatemala closed its doors to
international adoption, Ethiopia became the second largest country that Americans
were adopting foreign-born children. The agencies in Ethiopia skyrocketed from
five to fifty in a few years. Those who source children to these agencies can
earn as much as $5,000 per children. The influence of money can lead to
partnering with children launderers and traffickers.
A story involving Tarikuwa Lemma (pictured below) from Ethiopia displays the
type of problems involved with international adoption. An Arizona family
adopted Tarikuwa and her two sisters given the information that both parent
died of AIDS. The truth was that their mother died due to complications during
childbirth and their father was alive and well. Tarikuwa’s family believed the
girls were going to the United States on a study program, when they were
scammed and instead adopted. Its stories like these that are unfortunately not so rare.
I believe the safest way of adopting a foreign-born child is
through the Hague adoption process. Through this process, there is a lot of
protection to the children, the birth parents and prospective adoptive parents. This
process prevents abduction, sale and trafficking. The first and I think most
important step is to “Choose a U.S. accredited or approved adoption service
provider.” If the adoptive parents have the right intentions of
adopting, which I hope all do, then they should follow the government
guidelines.
Even though, I have been stating a lot of
negatives regarding International adoption there are a lot of benefits
regarding international adoption. If done correctly and for the right intentions,
it can have a lot of positive outcomes. International adoption has given homes
to hundreds of thousands children who would have grown up on the streets or in
an orphanage. These children receive love and care from their new family, as
well as a new opportunity at life with a loving family.
Thorium energy is not a new discovery that
scientists have stumbled upon all of a sudden. Thorium energy was used for 4
years between 1965-1969 when Nixon withdrawals his pledge to the Liquid Metal
Fast Breeder Reactor, which is used by to create energy with the element
Thorium.
Thorium was discovered by John Berzelius in
1829. Thorium is a radioactive metal, which naturally occurs in the
environment. Thorium is used for the thorium fuel cycle to create nuclear fuel. Thorium engrosses neutrons which
will eventually produce Uranium-233.
Thorium in the earth exists as thorium-232, but
in order for it to be used as fuel, it has to become fissile. Fissile means
able to undergo nuclear fission. Thorium-232 must become Thorium-233, which is
a fertile material, created by absorbing neutrons. There is a unique type of
reactor, Molten Salt Reactor, needed to complete this procedure. Then
Thorium-233 decays into protactinium-233, then producing Uranium-233. This then proceeds the Uranium process to create energy.
Some side effects to take into consideration is
the waste left behind by this procedure. The waste is radioactive for 500
years, which is lower than from Uranium-235 waste. If this waste were to get
into the environment, it could lead to many serious health consequences.
There will have to a lot of government
investments to build the reactors needed to turn Thorium-232 into Uranium-233.
The money will also go into getting Thorium-232, but I do not believe a lot of
it will go towards this part of the process because it is abundant. Most of the
money will go towards transforming Thorium-232 into Uranium-233, the technology
and facility needed to carry out this action. As well as how to dispose of the
waste produced. This must be disposed of carefully because it is still
radioactive and is not allowed to be dumped in a landfill. The government may
also want to impose a tax break in order to extract Thorium.
This energy would be distributed by transmission
lines. This would carry out the same motion as using Uranium-235 transmission
lines. Thorium energy is a centralized system. Thorium is used on the grid, but
may also be used off the grid. Thorium may be used for transportation. There
are a few cars that have been produced that run on Thorium. In one case, a Thorium fueled car could run on eight grams of Thorium for 100 years. It works by a laser
heating up water, which produces steam and powers a mini turbine in the car. I
think this is quite amazing because not only are there little to no Thorium
power plants and Thorium powered cars is crazy. Although I do not see the possibility of this alternative fueled car to go on the market anytime soon.
The fact that most scientists do not have a lot
of experience with Thorium is quite troubling. Since there is not a lot of
experience with Thorium, errors may occur. The process of transforming Thorium-232
into Uranium-233 is quite complicated.
Thorium as an alternative energy source is
safer, cleaner, efficient and cheaper in the long run. Safer- Thorium is not
fissile, which means it will not split apart or explode on by themselves. The
person also has the power to stop a reaction by simply stopping the source of
neutrons. The waste left behind by Thorium does not have the capacity to be
used in a nuclear weapon as the waste produced by Uranium-235. A Thorium
nuclear power plant would not depend on on a human to check up on the reactors
but rather on physics and machines. Cleaner- does not create as much waste as
the Uranium-235, which is used today. Uranium produces 1,000-10,000 times less
waste and is only radioactive for 500 rather than 10,000 years with Uranium-235.
Efficient- A ton of Thorium can produce as much energy as 10 tons of Uranium-235
or 3, 500, 000 tons of coal. Cheaper- A gigawatt (GW) would cost about $780
million in a thorium power plant rather than $1.1 billion in a Uranium power
plant.
There are many countries using Thorium as an
energy source in many ways. Some of these countries include: China, Canada, Germany, India,
Israel, Japan, Norway, the U.K and eve here in the U.S. China is leading the
way when they stated in 2011, that they were going to begin researching and
developing thorium molten-salt reactor technology. China is expected to build
two molten salt reactor prototypes in 2015. India is following as well and designed
the “next-generation nuclear reactor”, which is aimed to be completed in 2016.
The U.S., in my opinion, is still quite skeptical about Thorium nuclear power
plants because we are accustomed to Uranium based nuclear power. Why can’t we
change our energy forms, it will not only benefit the environment, but us as
well.
terminus of the
trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Many tankers go
to this port and it handles more than 1.5 million barrels of crude oil. Port
small boat harbor is an economic resource for the community. The harbor
stimulates tourism and maritime industries. At Prince William Sound there are
facilities measuring incoming oil, two loading berths and a power plant. It is inhabited
by salmon, sea otters, seals and sea birds.
The state of Alaska or the federal government was not
prepared to deal with an oil spill. Since neither the state nor federal
government had an idea how to deal with the problem, they did not have proper
ways of dealing with the problem. They did not have adequate equipment,
personnel to handle major spills, or knowledge to remove the oil.
On March 24, 1989, the most devastating human caused
disaster occurred. An oil tanker belonging to Exxon named Exxon Valdez was
carrying about 53 million gallons of crude oil. The captain of the tanker
changed before the accident occurred. When Captain Hazelwood took charge and ran
aground on Blight Reef. This accident released 11 million gallons of crude oil
into the Gulf of Alaska. The oil could not be isolated and moved down Alaska,
approximately traveling 1,300 miles. This is quite a disaster because it
affected a lot of marine life. There were many dead bird, sea otters, harbor
seals, bald eagles, and killer whales found, but there is no clear death toll
of animals because their carcasses would sink. The oil spill would also affected
the people living in the community. Those who relied on fishing for their
income were unable to fish and tourism in the area decreased.
There were many safety precautions to avoid tanker crashes
like the Raytheon Collision Avoidance System radar, which indicates an
impending collision. Those in the oil industry promised to install
state-of-the-art iceberg monitoring equipment but they never did. Exxon Valdez
was sailing sailing outside the normal sea land, which then would have avoided
small icebergs in the area. The crew was over worked and they would work 12-14
hour shift.The coast guard tanker inspection was not done to Exxon Valdez.
The Exxon Valdez oil spill is still not fully cleaned up,
even after 25 years. Exxon set up a program to compensate oil spill victims.
The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council was established to develop research,
restoration and habitat conservation plans for the areas affected by the oil
spill. Those who survey the land, still find oil that is almost as toxic as the
first few weeks after the spill. The spill cleanup had 10,000 workers, 1,000
boats, and about 100 airplanes and helicopters. They were named Exxon’s army,
navy and air force. It took more than
four summers of cleanup efforts before it was called off. Even after 25 years,
there is an estimated 16,000-25,000 gallons remain on the beaches and extend up
to 450 miles. Many techniques were used to clean the shore, such as hot water, high-pressure
cold-water treatment, mechanical clean up, and solvents and chemical agents.
Exxon has spent up to $4.3 billion in cleanup costs, legal
damages, settlements and fines. In a class-action lawsuit, Exxon was to pay
$507 million plus interest, which was reduced from the initial amount of $5
billion.
In 1990, the U.S. Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of
1990. This act would improve the nation’s ability to prevent and respond to oil
spills by establishing provisions. This would expand the government’s capacity
to provide money and necessary resources to tackle to oil spills. Alaska also
took matters into their own hands by requiring two tugboats to accompany every
loaded tanker from Valdez out through Prince William Sound to Hinchinbrook
Entrance. Congress as well took matters into their own hand by requiring all
tankers to be double-hulled by 2015.
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