Monday, February 19, 2007

Day 5- Mt. Everest

Problem:
Too many people are dying on Mt. Everest.
Evidence:
according to http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hatt0047/everestarticles/LATimes, climber-guide Rob Hall, was one of nine mountaineers who died all in one day during a freak storm in the Death Zone in 1996

http://ask.yahoo.com/20041102.html, as of 2002 about 175 people were said to have died on Mt. everest.
most of which are still on the mountain now. also there are around 41 bodies located on the north side of the mountain.

(http://classic.mountainzone.com/climbing/fischer/)
"May 10, 1996, a severe and sudden storm trapped several climbers high on Mt. Everest as they were descending from the summit. In what has become the deadliest single tragedy in the mountain's climbing history, a total of eight people perished. One of them is renowned Seattle climbing guide Scott Fischer."


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5433982
"More than 1,500 climbers have reached the summit of Mount Everest in the last 53 years and some 190 have died trying."

Contributing factors:
according to http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hatt0047/everestarticles/LATimes, by overcrowding and by the people helping you up the mountain having a "summit-or-bust" attitude to make the high fees they charge clients who, in some cases, lack adequate climbing experience justifiable.
also, conditions are really bad in the "Death Zone", which is above 25,000 feet, where there is little oxygen, the winds are freezing and temperatures reach 100 below. an attempt to rescue someone can be deadly.

in the article "Deadly Peak" (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~hatt0047/everestarticles/deadly), these things have claimed many lives
- Triple-digit wind chills, sudden blizzards, avalanches, mile-deep crevasses, teetering 12-story ice chunks, sheer terrain.
- Potentially fatal mountain sickness, including pulmonary edema, in which the lungs fill with fluid, or cerebral edema, in which the brain does.
- An oxygen content that is one-third of that at sea level, requiring climbers to breathe four times as fast, or about 50 times a minute.
- Air so dry it causes the water content in the blood to drop from 50 percent to 15 percent, making it sluggish and the body prone to frostbite.
- A parched throat that often produces a hacking cough violent enough to crack ribs.
- Insomnia, due in part to a subconscious fear of suffocating.
- Impaired decision-making ability. (Climbers tested at high altitude have been found to take twice as long as the average 6-year-old to understand a simple sentence.)
- Hypothermia. Exhaustion. Hallucinations.
- And then there is the "Death Zone," the area above 25,000 feet where bottled oxygen is necessary to sustain life, and every other hazard is exacerbated.

it used to be for the professionals who could endure climbing without a certain amount of oxygen, but now anyone who has money can go up there witch increases the danger they are putting themselves in.

Solution:
my solution to this problem would be not allowing people to go up the mountain without excessive amounts of training for this climb. no one should be able to go up there by just paying a certain amount of money. Money doesn't replace training.

Thursday, February 8, 2007

Day 3

State the problem:
Too many people at tartan


Give evidence:
-The hallways at tartan are PACKED with kids, so much that people can barely walk.

-siblings have to share lockers

-class sizes are bigger than they have ever been

-parking lot is overflowing to the streets

-there is not enough supplies in the school for every student

-teachers are bringing in couches or chairs to fit the extra students in their classrooms


Examine contributing factors:
-there have been a lot of open enrollment students coming to tartan

-there are a lot more freshmen than other years

-there have been a lot of people transferring to tartan


Propose a solution:
Either make the school bigger or have the school district give schools more money to
do what they need to do to make the school able to accommodate all of the students.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Day 1

One of my friends is having trouble with keeping up with class. Ive noticed that her studying habits are a bit poor. I was thinking that i could help her out with that. All she really needs to do is go to a spot in her house where there are no distractions. I was also thinking that we could get a group of friends from our class and have a little study group. It would have to be with people who actually want to do well in that class. We could hold it at each house once a week. That would be a good way to get her study habits up to speed.