Ballgames and Drought

It's been a few weeks! I have no excuse really, just playing in the amazing sun, we've had some great weeks and weekends lately here in the great state of Washington! To sum up the past few weeks, I've done a few cool things in Anthropology which I will discuss later, I started my second (short) class of the quarter, Intro to Hand and Power tools! Also, Jeff and I have been garage sale-ing a lot lately, and gotten tons of new things for my shop, I currently have about 10 items waiting to be finished to put up for sale! And finally, my dad just bought a fixer upper house, and has given me permission for the interior design of the place in the near future (2012-?)!!! I am so incredibly excited to flip this house into amazing, and I can't wait to share it with you!


Back to school,  I'll make it short and sweet.
I believe we left off in the week I learned about the Mesoamerican Ballgame called Ulama. We read about it in this article:

( I can't upload the whole thing, but you get the idea, also sorry it's so large and awkward but otherwise it would be unreadable!)

You can play an internet version of the game here:  

http://www.ballgame.org/main.asp

The next week we learned about food preservation around the world, and how global warming is effecting us right under our noses (or at least right under mine!)  We were assigned to find a current article about worldwide food preservation and summarize the article as a post in the class discussion. Here's mine!:

Than, K. (2012, May 2). Scientists Race to Save World’s Rice Bowl From Climate Change for National Geographic News

Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/05/120502-southeast-asia-climate-change/

South and Southeast Asia, home of 30 percent of the world’s population is an agriculturally based area relying mostly on rice. Global warming’s effects of rising temperatures, sporadic rainfall causing flooding, and increased salinity in soils, are taking a toll on the area’s crops. According to World Bank, global warming could wipe out 10 to 50 percent of the crops within the next 30 years. Local farmers are at such losses that some have changed directions from the farming of rice to the farming of shrimp. While some farmers are doing well, even better than when they had farmed rice, others are not so lucky. Scientists at  CGIAR (Consultive Group on International Agricultural Research) are thinking of ideas to help solve the problem. MAR (Managed Aquifer Recharge) is an idea that involves storing the rainwater and flood overflow in underground aquifers to be used by farmers during a dryspell. Though this may seem to be a problem solver, scientists question the quality of the water after this recharge process, because research has shown that repeated injection of water into the aquifers could contaminate the water with arsenic and other toxic chemicals. Another idea is to control the wetting of the rice fields. Usually, the fields are wet throughout the season, creating excess methane and greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere. By reducing the wetting times, less gases will be released, and the crops will not suffer. While these technologies seem promising, Wolfgang Grabs of the United Nations World Meteorological Organizations says that long-term management of the system is the only way to save the area. Structural and non-structural methods need to be harnessed including the use of, “dykes, levees, land use planning, storage facilities for water, improved forcasting and management of water resources, as well as sustainable climate change adaptation approaches.”

This article is significant because it demonstrates the adaptions the farmers have to make because of the changes in climate, and environment. They had to either move to shores and fish for shrimp, or suffer through the floods and droughts with their rice fields. 

This week, we're doing a field study, but I'll post about it after it's all the way complete!

Until next time,