plant motion

Nutrition: Basil has lots of nutritional value. It is a great source of Protein, Vitamin E , Riboflavin and Niacin, a Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin B6, Folate, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Zinc, Copper and Manganese. Many of these nutrients are very healthy for the body, This is why Basil is a many used ingredient in many foods. Not only does it taste great but it is very nutritious.

Basil originated from Italy and traveled and then traveled to England from the crusaders and from then on began to travel the world to everywhere.

Fun Fact:Thai Basil's name means "Won't be exchanged even with gold" in Chinese.

Artist Statement

Through seemly random images and a creepy soundtrack, we will attempt to get the viewer to feel empathy for the destruction of our environment.. All of the scenes symbolize something different that has to do with deforestation and how the world will is affected. Our project relates to environmental science because trees are a big part of the environment and as people are tearing them down for raw goods and to make farmland, we as a planet are losing habitats and oxygen. We wanted to show that humans are doing damage to the planet and to themselves through a video with no dialogue. This topic is so powerful it doesn’t even need dialogue. Through different images we will show that younger generations are affected by a problem they didn’t create, and that people will ultimately suffer from their destructive behavior.

Our visual shots include:
a. Girl in white (younger generation) running through forest to symbolize the younger generations wanting to reverse time and run away from their problems. There will be a man in a business suit (corporations) running past the younger girl trying to run away from the crisis at hand.
b. Show light coming through the leaves of the trees which symbolizes there is hope left if people could see it and stop cutting down trees.
c. A woman (Mother Nature) sitting in front of a projector where images of burning trees are projected on her crying face. This symbolizes that Mother Nature is unhappy that her trees are dying.
d. Overlooking 163 on bridge to show the trees in the middle of the moving car lights. This symbolizes the merging of industrial urban life and the forest.

Our audio includes:
a. Breathing symbolizing that trees give us oxygen
b. Leaves moving
c. Falling Trees
d. Fire
e. In the forest noises
f. Strange deep synth beats to give an eerie vibe
g. Discordant melody

Sources
Fearnside, Philip, M. "Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: The Effect of Population and Land Tenure." JSTOR Dec. 1993: 9. JSTOR. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

Joanne, Burgess. "Timber Production, Timber Trade and Tropical Deforestation." JSTOR May 1993: 8. JSTOR. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

Houghton, R.A.."Tropical Deforestation as a source for greenhouse gas emissions." Tropical Deforestation and Climate Change 11 Nov. 2009: 13. Tropical Deforestation as a souce for greenhouse gas emissions. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

Nelson, Gerald. "Deforestation, Land Use, and Property Rights: Empirical Evidence from Darién, Panama." Land Economics 1 Jan. 2001: 2. Land Economics. Web. 10 Nov. 2009.

Moran, Emilio. "Deforestation and land use in the Brazilian Amazon." SpringerLink 21.1 (2009): 21. Springerlink. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

"8 Basic Ways of Preventing Deforestation". Ezine Articles. Fiset, Nathalie. 2007. http://ezinearticles.com/?8-Basic-Ways-of-Preventing-Deforestation&id=508793 (Visited 10-21-09)

"Five Tips for Preventing Deforestation". Education Articles. 2008. http://edu.udym.com/five-tips-for-preventing-deforestation/ (Visited 10-21-09)

Borade, Gaynor. "Facts about Deforestation." Buzzle Web Portal: Intelligent Life on the Web. Buzzle.com, 21 Apr. 2009. Web. 6 Nov. 2009. .

Rogge, Daniel. "Deforestation and Landslides in Southwestern Washington." University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. University of Wisconsin, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2009. .

Taylor, Leslie. "Rainforest Facts." Wealth of the Rainforest - Pharmacy to the World from Raintree Nutrition, Inc.. Raintree, n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2009. .

Wilson, E.O.. "The Future of Life." World Book Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2009. .

annotated sources

Most of my sources had only their abstracts to display. In order to access more amounts of information, I am considering creating accounts on these different sites.

Fearnside, Philip, M. "Deforestation in Brazilian Amazonia: The Effect of Population and Land Tenure." JSTOR Dec. 1993: 9. JSTOR. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

This is an article about the forestland lost in Brazil. Lots of Brazil is made up of the Amazon rainforest. The actual site wasn’t able to give enough useful information, but I took down its information in order to later access it through other means. Its abstract mentioned interesting statistics that got way deeper into how Amazonion land is deforested. I learned that about 70% of deforested land is attributed to medium sized and large ranches.

Joanne, Burgess. "Timber Production, Timber Trade and Tropical Deforestation." JSTOR May 1993: 8. JSTOR. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

I found this article at the same website as the previous citation. I think it would be an investment to create an account with JSTOR, so that I would have easier access to these articles. This piece specially talked about the cause of deforestation, like the timber industry, and what the deforested land is used for.

Houghton, R.A.."Tropical Deforestation as a source for greenhouse gas emissions." Tropical Deforestation and Climate Change 11 Nov. 2009: 13. Tropical Deforestation as a souce for greenhouse gas emissions. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

This site actually took me to a 137 page pdf of different articles. Each article focused on a negative impact of deforestation. Just scanning through the article, I could see lots of statistics, which will provide some nice concrete resources.

Nelson, Gerald. "Deforestation, Land Use, and Property Rights: Empirical Evidence from Darién, Panama." Land Economics 1 Jan. 2001: 2. Land Economics. Web. 10 Nov. 2009.

This article suggested an interesting point, in the rights of indigenous population of deforested land. How can land in the Amazon and other areas of South America be purchased, when there have been people living on that land for years?

Moran, Emilio. "Deforestation and land use in the Brazilian Amazon." SpringerLink 21.1 (2009): 21. Springerlink. Web. 9 Nov. 2009.

It is nice to collect data of a similar subject on a geographical variance. Earlier, I researched deforestation in the Panama, and here I found some great information on the Brazilian Amazon.

Senior Project Annotated Sources

What percentage of the Earth has been taken over by industry and people?

Source: http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/050311_urban_living.html


I found this website very helpful and interesting because the facts they put out were defended by evidence based on test by scientist. They said that within the first test they found that 3 percent of the earth's land mass is covered by urban areas. Though with and enhancement in their equipment that percent has raised up to 50 percent. I also found this very true because the website provided a map showing the areas that are covered. They determined these facts by taking satellite photos at night seeing the amount of light on the surface.




Who would we say is responsible for much of the deforestation today?

Source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15744218/Technology-and-Development-A-Discourse-on-Urban-Life-and-Modernization

Though this website shows a pdf of an actual article on the subject and it a but hard to read to provided very interesting thoughts what or who is responsible. One idea that it provided was that the invention of technology is the cause of this urban life we live today. Why, because when you have technology life enhances in speed and productivity. Places that once grew there own food or built their own homes now have technology to do that for them, in return of money, So when people resort to this urban lifestyle we need a plot to develop and resources causing deforestation.

Response to Class Critique

The critique we conducted today I feel were helpful because eventually we will be exhibiting our final products to an audience so it was nice have an audience (of the sort) before hand to gather their opinions. Some feedback that i feel was helpful was getting questions on how we were going to illustrate the severity of deforestation without of scenes of actual deforestation itself. This question definitely gave myself my group things to think about. We don't have it all figured out quite yet though we now know what an audience would be expecting to gain for our film.

essay

Travel Through Time

Soil, a matter that is one of the most important things on our planet. Why, because it is the base of all living things that grow. Without soil there would be no plants therefore no animals and in all, none of us would survive. That’s why it is very important to take notice of that and of the way we are treating our soil today .

Lets go back in time about 60-70 years ago when we still flowed in our natural ways of farming. The soil was rich in quality, filled with many nutrients vital for a healthy growth. Those nutrients didn’t arrive from artificial fertilizers, pesticides and many other chemicals used in the agricultural system today. The methods used in the past was a natural cycle, this cycle included the matters of seasonal rotation, fertilizing the crops with a organic compost, and letting nature take its toll. By sticking with this cycle, soil would then enrich itself with the natural nutrients left by growing crops on the farm.

By growing crops corresponding with the season this would keep the soil at flow with the different nutrients of the various seasonal plants. So with every season came new crops, that brought different nutrients to the soil. By having a variety of crops growing on the same plots of land, this would then keep the nutrient levels balanced with a flow. This left little need for fertilizers because the cycle was taking care of that factor on its own. Though if so needed, the fertilizers were an organic based compost of other plants and organic matter decomposed to create a nutriently rich compost that is then spread about the crops.

How pleasantly simple and natural does this all sound, so why have things changed we now ask ourselves. Things have changed with the introduction of industrialized chemical farming. Chemical farming was introduced around the time of when World War 2 was coming to an end. During that time our knowledge of chemical use highly increased. We created many chemicals that we then found illuminated many of the difficult factors of natural farming. Things such as insect invasions, hard labor, keeping the soil cycle at flow, and the harvest. By the use of these chemicals things became much more convenient for the farmer.

By the rapid use of these chemicals, we also created a new method, monocultures. Monocultures was a method to produce a mass amount of the same crop. By growing a mass amount of the same crop, this crop will absorb much of the same nutrient needed for that plant, that then would be sucking the soil dry. As we seen before all plants give off different nutrients into the soil that then keeps the soil rich, but by having the same crop growing next to each other across a large plot of land, that then closes the nutrient cycle. This is a huge problem in the soil cycle because it is not in a flow, so this then calls for chemical fertilization.

Chemical fertilization is an artificial way of keeping the soil rich of nutrients. The chemicals substitute the nutrients that would have been there from other plants if we didn’t farm in monocultures but since we do those nutrients are not there so chemicals fill in that gap. They act as the nutrient. Though these chemicals help produce mass amounts of crops they are also producing a mass amount of problems we are continuing to ignore. Those problems such as soil erosion, toxic pollution through the water system and through our bodies because the plants absorb those chemicals and we then eat those plants.

Another highly used chemical in farming today is pesticides. Pesticides were one of the new inventions coming out of the war. Since we plant our crops within monocultures there is always a high amount of the same insect eating away the crop so this calls for pesticides. Pesticides protect the plant by killing off any specimen attacking the plant. This method is not only harming to the insects directly affected by it but it is also harming to ourselves and the soil. Pesticides erode the soil of its natural nutrients it kills off all of the FBIS and just leaves the artificial fertilizers to do the job. With continuing to use pesticides the soil will eventually get striped of all its natural nutrients and we will then turn to chemicals to fill in the gaps.

These problems are only going to continue to grow if we don’t look at our systems of agriculture and begin converting back to our old natural ways of farming. We need to take this issue as a top priority and change. We would not only be helping our environment but helping ourselves. We wouldn’t be injecting these toxins into our bodies, and we wouldn’t be abandoning the soil cycle, we would be bringing back to be therefore bringing everything back to its natural cycle of life.

Annotated Bibliography

#1. url: http://www.boisystemsolutoin.com/learn/what_makes_goodcompost.html

Question asked: What makes a good compost?
There are many factors in creating a high quality compost. Things such as "oxygen, humidity, temperature are essential to producing a premium, stable & nutrient rich compost."
If the compost isn't consistently turned and obtained things will begin to rotten & toxic odors will be released into the atmosphere.
#2. url: http://www.ehow.com/how_2319112_create_nutrientrichcompost.html

Question asked: How to create a nutrient rich compost?
What you want to do first is create a sort of contained area out of either wood frames, baskets, chicken cage wire etc. Don't make it to large it will then be to difficult to rotate.

Things you can fill your compost with:
- fruits -veggies -eggshells -newspaper clipping -drier lint
-animal and human hair -grass -twigs -leaves -coffee grounds
-other organic material - and air

Use a shovel or pitch fork to turn your compost once a week. Earth worms help decomposition and create nutrient rich fertilizer. Compost can take up to 2 weeks or 2 years to be ready for use, depending on how you tend to it. The result should be dark brown and smell earthy (like dirt).

#3. url: http://www.organicgardeninfo.com/making-compost.html

Question asked: Whats works best in compost?

Compost Requirments:
-Compost size
-Air
-Water
-Heat
-dry matter
-green matter