Science 9

Energy Fluency Project

Elodie Science 9


Honourable George Heyman, 

I have been researching about the Mount Polley mine disaster and more in depth about what happened, including the cause of the occurrence and the long-lasting effects. I have learnt about how the disaster occurred and how the engineers played a part behind it in not using glacier slit underneath the tailing’s containment pod. This led to structural insufficiencies which was the main cause of the dam’s massive collapse, spilling around 25 billion litres of contaminated materials into Polley Lake, Hazeltine Creek and Quesnel Lake. Although it has been years since this disaster, the waters are still contaminated and Mount Polley is continuing to deposit remaining waste from the mine into the Quesnel Lake from a 10-kilometer pipeline. With all this spillage, it has a long-lasting effect on the salmon and their habitats since these areas were major spawning grounds. On top of this, although the mine only spilled into certain areas, the water continues to flow everywhere else, specifically the Quesnel Lake which connects to the Fraser River which ultimately leads to the Pacific Ocean. Now with the waste infecting these areas as well, it is having an impact on the trout fisheries and Fraser River salmon stocks, not to mention the Pacific Ocean is already the most polluted ocean. With all this damage and Mount Polley violating 15 rules under the B.C.’s environmental and mining laws, the engineers and anyone apart of this were not fined, leaving residents unhappy and in shock. I believe that there should have been a fine, but it is too late to do anything about it now, but I hope that we can prevent this from happening again by learning from past building mistakes and remembering all the risks of the lasting problems that still affect us to this day. 

1. ASK

  • What would happen if they remade the Mount Polley mine? 
  • Are there any future problems for the surrounding areas like lakes, rivers, and oceans? 
  • What led up to the Mount Polley disaster (how did it occur)? 
  • What were the people and resident’s reactions after no chargers were pressed? 
  • What does the future look like for the environment and others affected? 

       2. ACQUIRE

The only familiar digital tool I used to complete part of my research was google and YouTube, but for the other half, I tried out new websites such as Gale Engage and Pexels. I found that Gale Engage had very useful information for my topic so I will be using that one for future research projects.  

3. ANALYZE

To verify and investigate the websites that I used, I checked for the publish dates and when it has recently been edited, this gives a good indication to whether to information is still relevant and correct to this day. To cite the information I found, I either pressed one of the options that allows you to cite it, or I copied the link.  

4. ASSESS

I found parts of completing this challenge very smooth and easy, but others were a bit harder to overcome. I found it hard to use some of the new websites for researching my topic because I wasn’t completely used to it, and it was hard to find the right information. However, once I was able to get going and have all the information I needed, it was easy to format and put it into sway. One thing that I could have done better was coming up with more unique and successful guide questions because it would make the sway more interesting and educational.  

Electric House Project

Elodie Science 9

In this project, myself, Natalie, Paula and Rena made an electric house with 4 rooms which had a series circuit and a parallel circuit. Throughout this experience, we face many problems and obstacles but we mainly decided to focus on the wires and how we can find a way using technology to organise them.

This is the define, dream, deliver, and debrief process for our electric house problems :

Define

While me and my group were adding the wires around the house, we found that the wires would often get tangled together which made it very difficult to stay organised and keep on top of our work. This made it hard for us to follow the wires to the light bulbs because we frequently would get the wires mixed up with each other which held us back to finish this project efficiently and in an organised fashion. To solve this problem using technology, we worked together and used a 3d printer to create a wire holder. This was a great help for us since we could clearly see how to connect the light bulbs and wires so we were able to finish efficiently and use teamwork.

 

Dream 

Me and my group wanted to make something simplistic, easy to print, but also works great. We faced many problems with our light bulbs, wires and our circuits so we did some brainstorming to figure out what we should fix and how we should design it for the best outcome. I found that when we worked together and utilised each other’s opinions and ideas, it helped us to come up with a solution that would be great for our project so that is when we started to design it.

 

Deliver 

Once me and my group came to the decision that our wires were one of our main problems holding us back throughout this experience, we came up with a design of a long rectangle with two long holes that go all the way through to the top. The wires that are especially a problem will thread through the holes to create more space and help us to stay organised. Overall, I thought that our experience 3d printing our design was rather smooth apart from the fact that it was a bit hard to print at first and we faced some technical issues. Once we got that sorted, we were able to successfully 3d print it and pick it up later that day to connect it to our wires and add it to our project.

Debrief 

Overall, I believe that me and my group’s experience was great and fairly easy. We were successful in creating our tinkercad design and all of our circuits inside of our house. We all worked well as a group and we all were able to play a part in creating this project. I believe that we were very wise in our decisions especially our 3d printed wire holder because it helped us to stay organised and on top of our due date. However, there are some things that I would go back and change and one of them would be creating more of our wire holders and not only just one because there were more wires that had to be dealt with. Of course we faced many problems and obstacles but overall I had a great and educational experience.