[HW]

Alright readers! I'm back with another blog post! Just to update you a bit, I have been enjoying my science class so far. It's a bummer that it's a night class, so it's been a struggle to stay alert and engaged towards the end of the class. Regardless, I'm learning alot and I can hardly wait to share my next blog homework assignment with you!

This week's assignment was to go outside. Shocker there, huh?
Not only am I required to go outside, but examine the living and non-living things and analyzing their various types of interactions for 20 minutes while being as still and quiet as possible. - Challenge accepted.

So there I am outside, in my own backyard, anticipating my experience with nature. There was a slight issue - I decided to do this assignment sometime after 4 and I soon noticed that not alot of "things" were out or active at that time. It makes sense since the sun is setting and flowers were already folding in on themselves that it was probably the natural time to go sleep. So that was a slight disappointment, but I still noticed a few things that I'd like to share.

Here's a, sadly, small list of things I saw:
Biotic (Living):
            Fruit Fly
            3 Ants (Yes, so few ants were out, counting was capable!)
            1 Mosquito
            1 Cat (My own! She made quite the ruckus)
            1 Crow
            1 super duper tiny red spider (Possibly a Red Spider Mite)
            1 Gnat (I think?)
            Grass
            Willow tree and other shrubs
             Lemon Grass
             Dandelions and its seeds
             Winter blooming bulb plant

Abiotic (Non-Living):
                     Dead Leaves
                     Pebbles
                     Chilly wind (I observed too much of that!)
                     Solar heat
                   
Some of the things I have listed also shared a certain type of interaction. For example, Interspective Competition  is a type of interaction between two or more groups of species that interact to gain access to the same resources such as space, food, water, etc. I witness the very few ants and the super small flying bugs were interacting in such a way throughout the grassy space. Another type of interaction is Predation, which involves a predator and prey. I had the pleasure to witness my cat prey upon creatures that were unseen by me.

Unfortunately there weren't many interactions I noticed, but I would like to be able to do this exercise again in the future and at a better hour of the day. It was really interesting how I learned about certain species interactions and then witnessed it first-hand. I think I'll be able to remember alot of information from this class from that fact alone.

Can you see the Dandelion
 Seeds?

Afterward, I decided to look up some information about some of the things I saw. Here are some interesting facts/info about...

1. Sour Grass - Primarily called Oxalis pes-caprae, this plant is actually native to South Africa making it an invasive, or non-native species in California. It is referred to as a weed, but I grew up welcoming the growth of this plant because the stock was fun to chew on (apparently large amounts of this sour grass can be fatal if given the opportunity) and often making the mistake of calling it "Lemongrass" due to its sour taste.

2.  Mystery Spider! So if you refer to my previous list, I noted about a super duper small red spider. I found it going about its business within the grass. I am still wondering what it was, but the closest guess I can make is the Red Spider Mite. When I used to garden I researched some of the  bugs you really don't want in your garden and this was one of them. They puncture the plant cells and basically suck the life out of it, rendering it fruitless.

3. Lastly, in my backyard we have this bulb plant that only grows in the winter, i believe. I couldn't figure out what it is exactly, so if there's anyone that could figure this out for me feel free to comment on this post!

[HW] Ecological Footprint

Continuing from my last post, I mentioned that I will introduce my second part of my first assignment. This next assignment called for me to go onto Global Footprint Network to calculate many earths it would take if everyone in the world had the safe lifestyle as I.
The "game" started with having the player create their own avatar that would represent all of your future answers.

From there I was asked detailed questions. Some being questions I would never think would be of great significance:

After all of the questions my result was quite alarming. If everyone lived the way I live my results would be...

Almost four planets would be necessary to sustain my lifestyle!

I did think that the result would be more than one planet (though I was hoping otherwise!), but 4 planets is quite astounding to say the least. According to the pie chart, the largest aspect of my life that I depend on is services. I depend alot upon the middle man and processed materials. 

After this realization, I thought to myself "Gee. This is just awful. How can I reduce my huge footprint on my 4 planets?" Well - This site has it covered! What was next was to read through scenarios displaying options to practically reduce one's footprint. 

Specific scenarios that stood out to me were the ideas to take public transportation at least once a week and finding products that use less packaging. How simple is that! reducing your footprint can be so easy, one just has to made an effort and to be active in one's decisions.

If my four-world footprint could manage to heed all of the suggestions, I would be able to reduce my footprint by almost one planet! How crazy cool is that?

Anyway, that site has wonderful and helpful solutions for those who really want to make an effort to care for the world around us. You all should check it out! And let me know your footprint and what you decide to do to reduce it!

That's it for now! Tread Lightly!

[HW] Get to know the author

Welcome readers to my humble blog: 7 Billion Feet. Without further explanation of my objective for this blog, allow me to introduce myself and clue you into some of my history.

My name is Theresa Catanese. I am a born and raised Californian currently pursuing higher education at Riverside Community College. Currently I am in my last semester before completing my AA degrees. Though it is something to be very proud of, I plan on moving onto a 4-year to pursue a program for intercultural studies. I have a great desire to travel. With a trip to Africa already under my belt and a trip to Asia for a teaching opportunity fast approaching, it is of my top interests to experience other cultures and be able to invest my life into other people's lives from a variety of places. 

Freshly 20 years of age, I have often been mistaken to be a Sophomore..in high school, but that is more than always justified with the phrase "It'll be a good thing when you're older!" I honestly give no concern to such matters. Aging is something I would love to be blessed with and something I will treasure. Any life I receive is something to be treasured and used to the fullest!

There's a brief explanation of who you'll be following and reading from! Let me fill you in on the purpose of my little blog.

Being in college, I am often challenged to become a better being to my society and the professors from various subjects have given me the tools to understand the world and my place within it. One particular class I am in is environmental science and an ongoing project for the class is to keep a blog where we will submit various homework assignments onto. It's quite the assignment and I am looking forward to it. I'm sort of a blogging freak already, so I am all for my professor throwing more fuel onto the fire.
My first assignment, aside from setting up the blog, is to give an introduction of myself (CHECK!) and to write about an online exercise which I will inform you of momentarily. Other than homework assignments, If I find any information regarding environmental science outside of class I will most likely put it on this blog for anyone to check out (See "Helpful Green Sites" for any links to the sites I refer to). For anyone wondering, my blog is titled "7 Billion Feet: Treading Lightly On Our World" for the fact that there are now over 7 billion humans now living on the earth and how we need to be increasingly more aware of where we place our feet. In other words, we as humans should be more concerned with how we treat the world because there are consequences to all of our actions. So be careful where you tread! 

Taking care of the world is something I would like to interest myself in more and if that is the reason why you are now reading my blog, I hope to be of some help to you in how you can get practical and filled with knowledge about top environmental issues. 

For every blog entry I post, I will share a website(s) that have aided my understanding of various issues presented in each blog entry. For this entry I was rather curious of the world population (hence my blog title). A great site to check out if you happen to be curious is 7 Billion Actions. This site is funded by United Nations Population Fund for the purpose of making awareness of all that 7 billion people can accomplish for the end result of committing to care for the world around us. I highly suggest that you check the site out at some point!