How To Approach The Issue Of Fees When Enrolling Your Child In A Lake Ridge Virginia School

Posted on 21. Apr, 2012 by admin in Educational Resources

When enrolling your child in a Lake Ridge Virginia School, the issue of school fees is one that you always need to take seriously. Ideally, many parents should not have a problem paying fees for any Lake Ridge Virginia School. The fact that you have access to such financial details before enrolling the child means that by the time you decide to enroll them, you would be comfortable committing yourself to paying the fees. There are some things that you have to observe when selecting the Lake Ridge Virginia School you need to enroll your child in as far as fees is concerned.

The first of these is whether or not you can afford to pay the fees. If you find that a particular Lake Ridge Virginia School is not within your budget, it would be a better idea to find a school which is rather than enroll your child in such a school and then struggle to raise the fees. The other option would be to try to find a means of getting extra money to pay for fees in the new Lake Ridge Virginia School that you are interested in.

All parents would like their children to attend Lake Ridge Virginia School without any interruption. Of course, there are certain things that may not be within your power and could interrupt school for your child. These include natural calamities and illnesses. However, the issue of lack of fees should never be a cause for your child to drop out of Lake Ridge VA School or have to change to another school. This means that if you are planning on having your child attend a particular Lake Ridge VA School for the foreseeable future, you have to have in mind some plans to make sure that you do not have problems paying for them to attend school.

One thing that you cannot predict is when you will pass on. If you are the family’s sole breadwinner and pass on, your family may have some trouble raising fees for the Lake Ridge VA School. To avoid such situations, it is always a good idea to have some funds set aside in case this happens. You could decide to invest in some kind of education insurance for your child in case of your untimely demise.

You could also decide to put away a little money each month in an account specifically meant to address issues to do with education. This account should be separate from your regular savings account. The good thing about doing this is that in case you really need a lot of money for education such as when your child is going to college, you can use the funds you saved to pay for this if you are not able to raise it through other means. At the end of the day, the above are just a few of the tips you can use to ensure that your child’s source of school fees is virtually guaranteed.

Tips For Antarctic Expeditors & Researchers: Coping Cold

Posted on 15. Mar, 2012 by admin in Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environment & Ecology, Experiments & Research

According to Victoria Auld, physicist and electronic engineer with the British Antarctic Survey, there’s a lot more to the challenge of coping with cold weather than just the cold. Auld has spent the past two Austral winters at Halley’s base in Antarctica, braving temperatures lower than 50 degrees below.

How do you cope, working when it’s that cold? The answer, according to Auld, is one familiar to many Canadians: dress for it.”Snow boots, thick and thin pairs of socks, thermal underwear, t-shirt,” Auld lists as the normal first layer worn. “Light fleece, thick fleece (moleskin trousers were preferred to fleece tracksuit bottoms). The outer layer depended on the weather. A thick cotton ventile top and bottoms for windy weather, a thick protective VR jacket and trousers for manual work, or a duvet style ‘doo suit’ for cold skidoo trips. Hat, fleece headover, thin and thick pairs of gloves, goggles (clear lens for winter, dark for summer), and sunscreen.”

Auld was at Halley’s base as part of an atmospheric study, setting up experiments to look at atmospheric chemistry, glaciology and meteorology, collecting snow and air samples and recording the weather every three hours. Working in a team of three, Auld and her colleagues covered the 24-hour shift.

And it could get really cold.

“The coldest temperature recorded while I was south was negative 51.2 Celcius,” Auld recalls. “The only work I did at this temperature was a quick trip to the meteorological station to record the temperature and check all instruments were working! Below -40C I found it becomes painful to breathe as the moisture on the hairs of my nose and mouth froze instantly. To help avoid this I wore a neoprene face mask (very kinky!).”

So what’s negative 51.2 feel like with the windchill factored in? Warmer.

“Unlike more normal conditions where there is a decrease in temperature with height, in the Antarctic winter the opposite is true,” explains Auld. “It is colder at the surface than maybe 500 metres above it, [because] snow is, obviously, always cold and cools the surface air above it. Furthur away from the ground there is less cooling effect. So the coldest conditions are when it is calm and clear. When fronts or depressions pass over the base, they bring strong winds which mix up the atmosphere allowing the warmer air above to reach the surface. So even in the middle of winter, with 40 knots of wind, it may bring the temperature up to -10 celcius.”

Auld insists that on a sunny day, you could work in a T-shirt and shorts so long as you keep moving. But for three months out of the year the Sun never rises in Antarctica at all. During those cold, sunless months, the scientists would find their way by the light of the Moon and the stars — or torches on cloudy days.

“Base work was kept to an absolute minimum, with full preparation for the winter months completed in autumn,” Auld says. “Chefs and radio operators had little need to go outside, while the meteorologists, upper atmospheric engineers and vehicle mechanic were required to walk to work everyday. Other [people doing] jobs such as steel erector and field guide were occasionally required to complete grueling tasks in adverse conditions.”

However, their refuge stayed toasty. The heavily-insulated timber and steel living quarters were powered by generators, and kept at a comfortable 20 degrees C. It consisted of a kitchen, dining room, lounge (with TV, small bar and pool table!) library, dark room and computer room, and small pit bedrooms, and was built on stilts five meters off the ground, to prevent being buried in drifting snow.

But even though temperatures inside the rooms were usually a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius, the atmosphere could be frostier than outside.

“The daily challenge of living in isolation with the same 15 people for 10 months of the year, three of which are in darkness, is the biggest challenge I faced,” Auld says. “Coping with the frustrations of personality clashes, even if the clash is between others, and little personal space can leave you feeling surprisingly lonely. And yet I find I have met some of my best friends while ‘south.’”

And there were opportunities to “get away from it all” and visit the penguins.

“We had a small caboose that slept two or four, situated just one kilometre away from the base that people used for weekend retreats,” Auld explains. “On top of this our main relaxation was the field training trips where we would skidoo out to camp and then trek around the area looking for climbing areas, and visit the penguins. And darkroom photography development was also extremely popular.”

Sometimes nature itself was all it took to coax the staff out into the cold.

“The aurora could be guaranteed to get everyone outside, whatever the weather or time of night,” Auld says.

Could anyone survive work as an Antarctic researcher? Auld admits that she’s not too fussy about temperature, so long as it’s sunny, and she has the right gear to enjoy some type of sporting activity in whatever environment she’s in — so she may be more adaptable to the work.

“I found that walking to and from work every day reminded me just how fragile and quite frankly, odd, this world is,” says Auld. “The diversity of landscape and of people the world over is truly fantastic. I was constantly busy when working in the Antarctic and I enjoyed the reality of working to survive, having to think where you’re water is coming from daily, whether there’s enough fuel to last the cold spell.”

And for a scientist, it may be the most perfect of work spaces.

“I have heard numerous people say it, and I have to agree, that the Antarctic is the perfect laboratory,” Auld points out. “For my area of research it is about as controlled a situation as can be found. It is remote, flat, dark, and cold, with little if any anthropogenic impact. What more could anyone ask for?

Basic Principles of Jet Engine Operation

Posted on 01. Mar, 2012 by admin in Experiments & Research

Aeronautics is the science of flight. It is the science of designing an aeroplane as well as high-tech jet engines. There are four basic areas that aeronautical engineers must understand in order to be able to effective & efficient jet planes. These are:

Aerodynamics: Aerodynamics is the study of how air flows around the airplane. proper implementation of aerodynamics enable engineers can define the shape of the plane. The wings, the tail and the main body (fuselage) of the plane all affect the way the air will move around the plane.

Propulsion: Propulsion is the study of how to design an engine that will provide the thrust that is needed for a plane to take off and fly through the air. The main function of any aeroplane propulsion system is to provide a force to overcome the aircraft drag, this force is called thrust. Both propeller driven aircraft and jet engines derive their thrust from accelerating a stream of air – the main difference between the two is the amount of air accelerated. A propeller accelerates a large volume of air by a small amount, whereas a jet engine accelerates a small volume of air by a large amount. (more…)

Renewable Resources

Posted on 07. Mar, 2011 by admin in Additional Resources, Educational Resources, Scientific Communities & Organizations

Renewable Energy Associations

SolarHome NEW
PO BOX 1068
Ruston, Louisiana 71273
Phone: 866-786-7763
E-mail: admin@solarhome.org
Website: www.solarhome.org

Caddet
ETSU, Harwell, Oxfordshire
OX11 ORA, UK
Phone: +44 1235 432968
Fax: +44 1235 433595
E-mail: caddet.renew@aeat.co.uk
Website: www.caddet-re.org

British Wind Energy Association
26 Spring Street, London
W2 1JA, UK
Phone: 0171 402 7102.
Fax: 0171 402 7107
E-mail: bwea@gn.apc.org

American Solar Energy Society
2400 Central Avenue, Unit G-1
Boulder, CO 80301
Phone: 303-443-3130
Fax: 303-443-3212
E-mail: ases@ases.org
Website: www.ases.org

American Wind Energy Association
122 C Street, NW, 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20001
Phone: 202-383-2500
Fax: 202-383-2505
E-mail: windmail@awea.org
Website: www.awea.org

Common Purpose Institute
4514 Chamblee-Dunwoody Rd., Suite 327
Atlanta, GA 30338
Phone: 770-381-1995
Fax: 770-921-5945
E-mail: stevie2@ix.netcom.com
Website: www.treepower.org/mission.html

CREST
Renewable Energy Policy Project
1612 “K” Street NW #410
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 202-293-2898
Fax: 202-293-5857

Florida Solar Energy Center
1679 Clearlake Rd.
Cocoa, FL 32922
Phone: 407-638-1000
Fax: 407-638-1010
Website: www.fsec.ucf.edu

Energy Association
7558 Deer Park Rd.
Custer, WI 54423
Phone: 715-592-6595
Fax: 715-592-6596
Website: www.the-mrea.org

Minnesota Dept. of Public Service
200 Metro Square Bldg 121 – 7th Place E
St. Paul, MN 55101-2145
Phone: 651-296-5120
Fax: 651-297-1959
Website: www.state.mn.us

Minnesotans for an Energy Efficient Economy
Minnesota Building, Suite 600
46 East Fourth St.
St. Paul, MN 55101
Phone: 651-225-0878
Fax: 651-225-0870
E-mail: info@me3.org
Website: www.me3.org

Mr. Solar
DO IT HOMESTEAD Inc.
P.O. Box 852
La Verkin, UT 84745
Phone: 978-952-6726
Fax: 435-877-1070
E-mail: charliecollins@mrsolar.com
Website: www.mrsolar.com

Solar Energy Industries Association
122 C Street NW, 4th Floor
Washington, DC 20001-2109
Phone: 202-383-2600
Fax: 202-383-2670
E-mail: info@seia.org
Website: www.seia.org

United States Dept. of Energy
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Clearinghouse
P.O. Box 3048
Merrifeld, VA 22116
Phone: 800-363-3732
Fax: 703-893-0400
E-mail: doe.erec@nciinc.com
Website: www.eren.doe.gov

Magazines and Journals

Wind Power Monthly
Market: International
Subject: News magazine of wind energy development
Website: www.wpm.co.nz

Renewable Energy World
Market: International
Subject: Technological Developments in Renewable Energy

Sun World
Market: International
Subject: Technological Developments and Local Activities on Solar Power

Solar Energy
Market: International
Subject: Design, Construction, Utilization of Solar Energy Systems
Website: www.authors.elsevier.com

Home Power Magazine
Market: United States
Subject: Home-made power
Website: www.homepower.com

Backwoods Home Magazine
Market: United States
Subject: Self-reliant living
Website: www.backwoodshome.com

Wind Energy Weekly
Market: United States
Subject: Technical, policy and economic information on wind energy
Website: www.awea.org

Scientists Reference of First Global Earthquake Hazard Map

Posted on 01. Aug, 2010 by admin in Earth Sciences, Educational Resources, Environment & Ecology, Nanotechnology, Physics, Popular Science

It took more than 500 scientists and seven years of research, but the first global earthquake hazard map is now complete. How come it took seven whole years? Well, for starters, the scientists had to contend with forces much greater than earthquakes. Try politics.

The above image shows the pattern of major fault lines throughout the Americas.

Unveiled in San Francisco at the American Geophysical Union, the map shows that about 15 per cent of the Earth’s land is in zones of high or very high hazard – which the researchers define as a 10 per cent chance or greater of violent shaking over the next 50 years. Less than half of the planet’s land is considered a low hazard. But coming up with the numbers once the data were in was the easy part, explains the co-ordinator of the international effort, Domenico Giardini of the Swiss Seismological Service in Zurich.

“The standards by which hazard is done is completely different from country to country. It depends on when it was done, what philosophy they adopted, the quality of data that was available. It was this lack of standards that until now has stalled any effort to look at the global seismic risk in a homogenous way,” says Giardini.

Giardini recalls particular problems. “There were political boundary problems. For example in the Near East, the difficulty of having Syria, Israel and then Jordan and Egypt working together was very difficult,” says Giardini, who also remembers that India and China had never worked together, nor had Turkey, Iran and the former Soviet Union. He recalls the difficulty that grew from the international set of criteria that had to be used – which meant scientists from some countries, in order to comply with the new global standard, had to recalculate their seismological data. “It was very difficult originally, this is why the project lasted so long,” he says, adding that once a consensus was reached and once the scientists got used to working together, “things started to fly.”

Researchers were surprised to learn how high the hazard of earthquakes is throughout the African Rift.

Much as you would expect, the map – which specifically predicts the probability of peak ground acceleration, or an earthquake that most likely damages low-rise buildings – highlights some infamous ground-shaking hotspots, such as southern California, Hawaii and Turkey. But, since for some countries this was the first-ever seismological hazard assessment, the map highlights some new earthquake zones. In Africa, for example – for which there was little data – the hazard is much higher than researchers would have thought. And finding that data was a little harder than they might of thought as well.

In the eastern part of Africa, along the African Rift, much of the historic seismic activity had occurred in unpopulated and undeveloped places. Giardini explains that the hazards we are familiar with are a measure of our memory. Unlike in heavily populated cities, though, memory is short in these kinds of barren regions. In the end, researchers had to go as far away as England to find historic data on past earthquakes in the African Rift. Similarly, some researchers even looked in the Bible to find out the history of earthquakes in the Middle East.

With the new map, which was launched by the International Lithosphere Program with support from the United Nations’ International Decade for Natural Disasters, every country now has information on its own hazardous zones. According to Giardini, the map will be useful for engineers, urban planners and insurers to help regulate codes of design and construction. What the map does not measure, however, is risk from earthquakes.

Seismologists make a distinction between hazard, which is the probability of ground shaking, and risk, which is the probability of damage or of casualties – a multiplication of the hazard by the vulnerability of the building. So Giardini cautions that just because you may live in a high hazard region is no reason to start packing your bags – after all, he says, there are very few completely safe places to live. Instead, cities can limit the impact of an earthquake.

“Now a society can live with earthquakes as it can live with volcanoes, but it has to be prepared for that. So in itself, the hazard can be high, but not necessarily the risk. If you live in a well-built house and your infrastructure is up to standards, then you can live with earthquakes,” says Giardini, who adds, that the difficult part is getting the entire world to achieve this.

Global Warming & Its Double-sided Forecast

Posted on 30. Jul, 2010 by admin in Educational Resources, Environment & Ecology, Experiments & Research, Human Biology

Contrary to popular belief – the effects of moderate global warming may not be all bad. For the first time ever, a four year U.S. national assessment has examined the regional impacts of global warming revealing everything from potentially severe droughts to larger crop yields for some farmers.

The report, Climate Changes in the United States, predicts that as greenhouse gases continue to rise at their current rates and trigger extreme climate changes, average temperatures in the U.S. may rise 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the next century.

The report’s agricultural section projects yield increases for crops such as wheat, barley and most vegetables in regions like the northern plains. But on the downside, this would mean using more pesticides and an increase in the threat of nitrogen-fertilizer runoff into bays. And yes, on a positive note, the warming may take some of the chill out of winter in some areas, but when temperatures rise in the summer, the warming may lure disease-bearing mosquitoes and other animal sources of disease.

University of Toronto geography professor Danny Harvey says some of the report’s more positive projections should not detract from the many potential dangers of global warming. “A small amount of warming could have positive effects, but if we don’t take preventative action then we will end up not with a small amount of warming but a large amount of warming,” says Harvey. “A one or two degree of warming may have positive impacts in some areas but, a five to seven degree of warming could have very negative impacts.”

The report used computer climate models to predict the profound changes that may greatly transform regions, like the threat of drought in the Southeast and increased rainfall in parched areas of the Southwest. But some critics believe that computer models cannot accurately predict the impact of global warming on a regional basis.

Harvey thinks that these skeptics are missing the larger issue. “The things we’re most concerned about depend on very basic fundamental principals,” says Harvey. “We can say that drought risk will increase in the interior of continents and that does not depend on the details of any models. The point is that there is an overall risk.”

Although the U.S. report was the first that examined American regions on an in-depth scale, Environment Canada has been examining the regional impact of global warming for some time. Recent study by Canada Country Study (CCS) revealed many possible global warming consequences for Canada, including floods and droughts in southern British Columbia and coastal erosion in the Atlantic region. The six part national assessment examined the impacts of climate change on Canada as a whole and suggested modes of action as well as issues that need further research.

Roger Street, director of the adaptation and impacts research group for Environment Canada, says both the positive and negative issues that were uncovered in the Canadian study have to be put into context. “Having temperatures warm up in the winter cannot be all negative but even from this perspective we have to understand what could be positive for one community may be negative for another,” says Street, the study’s lead coordinator. “Warmer winters might be good for some but what happens to those communities that rely on snowfall or winter recreation?”

Street adds that many of the regional effects that are projected in the U.S. report were also stated in the CCS – one of the main concerns being a fresh water shortage. Both assessments also project that rain will fall heavily in some regions followed by long dry spells, bringing about flash flood weather patterns.

Street says that one of our hopes for dealing with global warming in Canada lies in the rate at which it is happening. “The slower the rate of change occurs and the less the rate of change occurs the more chance we have to adapt and develop coping technologies,” says Street. “Slow change will allow natural systems and human activities to adapt to changes.”

Velociraptor: tough peacock, dubious genius

Posted on 21. Jul, 2010 by admin in Experiments & Research, Life, Zoology

You remember Velociraptor: it’s the smallish, but deadly meat-eater featured prominently in Jurassic Park and its two sequels. In the movies, this predator is portrayed as fierce, and cunning — a dinosaur as smart as a dolphin or chimpanzee. But according a prominent paleontologist, you really can’t believe everything you see on the big screen. In fact, velociraptor probably couldn’t outwit a modern-day lap dog.

“If we compare its brain vs. body size, scaled for weight, to modern animals, it is at the very bottom level of modern birds and mammals,” he adds. “Velociraptors are comparable to an emu or an opossum.”

So where did the ‘raptor get its intellectual image? Well, says the scientist, it was something of a genius for its time (the late Cretaceous period), even compared to its contemporary mammals.

But being a genius of the late Cretaceous isn’t saying much.

“They were probably a lot smarter than modern reptiles or snakes,” the paleontologist says. “But a cat, dog or eagle would probably be smarter than a Velociraptor. Dolphins are way out, and chimpanzees are vastly smarter.”

That’s not to say Velociraptor wasn’t dangerous. As he points out, a crocodile is a lot dumber than a lion or tiger but it will kill you just as easily. The real Velociraptor was smaller than it’s portrayed in the movies, however. It was coyote-sized with its tail comprising half its two-meter length. And it had lots more feathers too, probably used for display, making it look something like a really tough peacock.

However, there’s indirect evidence Velociraptors made themselves more efficient killers by hunting in packs. Paleontologists have found multiple, individual fossils of Velociraptor’s close North American relative, Deinoychus, along with a prey dinosaur they were eating, a finding suggestive of predatory team-work.

“The prey dinosaur is a herbivore called Tenontosaurus, a primitive relative of the duck-bills that was about ten times as big as each Deinonychus,” he explains. “The thought is Deinoychus would be too small to take down one of these guys individually, but working as a team they could have, like a pack of wolves after a moose or lions after a water buffalo.”

So we could extrapolate pack-hunting-ability to other dromaeosaurs — the group that includes both Velociraptor and deinoychus — although the scientist is cautions that it’s not a sure thing.

“When you look at lions and tigers, it’s hard to tell their skeletons apart, their bones are almost identical,” he points out. “But lions have very sophisticated pack hunting while tigers are solitary – and we wouldn’t know that from individual skeletons. So it’s within their ability, but whether Velociraptor actually did it is not established.”

What is established is how Velociraptor killed: a Velociraptor fossil has been found with what was going to be its last meal, a primitive horned dinosaur called Protoceratops.

“The Velociraptor has the head of the Protoceratops gripped with one claw and the other hand’s sickle-shaped claw is stuck deep in it’s neck, just a few millimeters from the bone,” he concludes. “So it seems clear that it would grab its prey and rip out its throat and belly with the claw. Although in fairness, the Protoceratops had the Velociraptor’s other hand in its beak so its final move would probably be to close its jaws and snap off Velociraptor’s arm. They would have wound up killing each other.”

Cell Theory

Posted on 19. Jul, 2010 by admin in Educational Resources, Genetics, Human Biology

CONCEPT
This module investigates cell structure, function, processes and divisions. The microscope is introduced and used for investigation. Appropriate technology will be used to collect and analyze data. (more…)

Gravity in terms of space-time

Posted on 18. Jul, 2010 by admin in Experiments & Research, Space & Astronomy

 a complication in the relationship between strings and spacetime. String theory does not predict that the Einstein equations are obeyed exactly. String theory adds an infinite series of corrections to the theory of gravity. Under normal circumstances, if we only look at distance scales much larger than a string, then these corrections are not measurable. But as the distance scale gets smaller, these corrections become larger until the Einstein equation no longer adequately describes the result.
    In fact, when these correction terms become large, there is no spacetime geometry that is guaranteed to describe the result. The equations for determining the spacetime geometry become impossible to solve except under very strict symmetry conditions, such as unbroken supersymmetry, where the large correction terms can be made to vanish or cancel each other out.

On the Existence of Time – Philosophy of Time

Posted on 18. Jul, 2010 by in Experiments & Research, Featured, Space & Astronomy

John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart put forth a seemingly convincing argument proposing the non-existence of time. McTaggart purports that for time to exist, it must have contradictory properties. McTaggart makes improper interpretations, and his defence does not answer the challenges put forth by others. Thus McTaggart’s unsound argument does not stand up to internal inspection nor extrnal challenges. (more…)