From Snails to Whales: Karissa Vincent

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Karissa Vincent - Day 1

Hello!

My name is Karissa Vincent. I am currently a student at Wheaton College in Norton, MA. I am double majoring in Geochemistry and Music and double minoring in Arabic and Theatre. I am planning (and hoping) to go to Graduate school for a PhD in oceanographic research. The ocean is my thing. But, I have a wide variety of interests and do lots more than just study and swim.
I am originally from a tiny town in New Hampshire that I am fairly certain no one has heard of it's that small. Though I am from a small town, I still love the big city too. When I was young I went to Boston quite often, so I am familiar with the Boston streets.
I am taking this class because frankly, it looks like a lot of fun. I mean who wouldn't want to do an intensive oceanographic course in the Massachusetts Bay? It also gave me something constructive to do this summer besides work.

I have always loved water. I grew up on a lake, so ever since I was a baby I was in the water. Being launchind into the air out of the water by my parents is among my earliest memories. And as soon as I could walk, I was jumping in that lake myself. I was fascinated with everything that went on under the water's surface. The animals that live the under the surface, the different life cycles and processes that are going on, it all fascinated me. I remember the first time I went to the ocean with my parents I fell in love. It was something I'd only read about in books and it was so much better in real life. Running across the beach to jump into the waves and hearing the gulls and the waves crash just filled me with a joy that few things in life can duplicate. Since that first day of jumping in the ocean, I have seen that being under it and SCUBA diving is even more amazing than I could ever have imagined. Ever since then, the ocean has become one of my passions and one that I plan on pursuing for the rest of my life. I want to help save this amazing and fleeting resource that we have. The ocean is an amazing place, full of mysteries, and few people truly realize this. I hope that I can help the populous see the breathtaking commodity we have in front of us, and the necessity for preservation and conservation. In short, I love the ocean. It's where I feel at peace. Being under those waves, 30 meters down, I just feel at home. With the wonders that will never cease to amaze me and the comfort of the ocean around me, there's nowhere else I'd rather be.

The task today was to perform an experiment to see if water drains clockwise or counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. To do this, we broke off into groups and gathered around a sink. There, one person put his/her hand over the drain (as there are no stoppers), filled the sink up with water, and then removed his/her hand to watch the water drain out. In my group, we did this experiment twice. The first time, we did not fill up the sink as much as we did the second time. After the first initial fill, we all thought the water looked to be going clockwise. We then repeated the process, filling the sink up higher and again determined that the water flowed clockwise.
In reality, there is no one specific way that water will rotate when it is drained out of a sink. There are a lot of factors that go into determining which direction the water will flow. As stated on snopes.com "Toilets and sinks drain in the direction they do because of the way water is directed into them or pulled from them. If water enters in a swirling motion (as it does when a toilet is flushed, for example), the water will exit in that same swirling pattern; as well, most basins have irregular surfaces and are not perfectly level, factors that influence the direction in which water spirals down their drains." This is because of something called the Coriolis effect. The Coriolis effect basically makes it look like the water is going down the drain in a rotated manner, when in fact it is going down straight, just the Earth's rotation and gravitational pull make it look different. Now, does this mean that water in the Southern Hemisphere (Australia for instance) flows the same? Seasons are flipped, so one might think that the water would drain opposite as well. This is not the case. As mentioned in Scientific American by Thomas Humphrey, water will drain the same just north of the equator as well as just south of the equator. So, there is no difference. Also, water doesn't always drain clockwise or counterclockwise. It depends on the size and shape of the vessel (be that sink or toilet) as well as the water's motion and other outside factors.

Sources:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-somebody-finally-sett
http://www.snopes.com/science/coriolis.asp
http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/coriolis.html
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/coriolis_effect.html

1 comment:

Bruce Berman said...: Karissa - what is the Coriolis effect?; July 13, 2013 at 6:46 AM

From Snails to Whales

Welcome to Snails to Whales, Bruce Berman's blog focused on both the little and the big things that make Boston Harbor such an interesting and extraordinary place to live, work and play.

With 50 miles of protected water, four sheltered bays, seven river systems, 34 islands and a nine-foot average tide, Boston Harbor is one of the most diverse urban ecosystems in America.

This blog focuses on the flora and fauna of Boston Harbor and Massachusetts Bay - on the beach, the shore, and the harbor islands, and in the cleaner waters of Boston Harbor and Mass Bay - including this ecosystems most important species - people.

During the summer, it is also a place for my Boston University Students and my colleagues at Save the Harbor / Save the Bay to share their work and experiences.

Where I am coming from...

Love that clean(er) water
Learning about the Boston Harbor Cleanup from the waterway’s eyes, ears, and mouthpiece

By Brian Fitzgerald, BU Bridge

On Georges Island, Bruce Berman talks with his students about the history of the Boston Harbor Cleanup,
which is largely complete. Photo by Vernon Doucette

Bruce Berman, aboard a ferry from Boston’s Long Wharf to Georges Island, poses a question to his students: “How clean is clean enough?”

He’s talking about the water below.

It’s a brilliant July day, with the smell of salt spray in the air. The sky is clear, and so is the ocean. But there was a time when Boston Harbor wasn’t so clean, when the stench of sewage assaulted the nostrils of anyone who went near it.

Berman is the communications director for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a public-interest environmental advocacy organization whose mission is to help restore and protect the harbor and Massachusetts Bay. He also teaches a Metropolitan College summer course called Politics, Public Relations, and Public Policy: The Boston Harbor Cleanup.

“The Boston Harbor Cleanup is an amazing success story, and I just love to share it with students,” says Berman, noting that the harbor’s “bad old days” weren’t that long ago. Those were the days when untreated human waste, syringes, condoms, and tampon applicators routinely washed ashore. The antiquated sewage treatment plants on Deer Island and Nut Island were so poorly designed and maintained that they flooded during even mild rainstorms, sending millions of gallons of untreated waste directly into the harbor.

Since then, bacteria counts in the water have decreased by more than two-thirds. Now the harbor teems with plants and animals, and people can legally dig for clams on Carson Beach in South Boston, which was unheard of in the 1980s.

“It was one of the filthiest harbors in America, and now it’s one of the cleanest,” says Berman. “What I’m trying to impress upon students is how this incredible comeback occurred, and how business, advocacy groups, environmentalists, and government can affect the outcome of large projects such as the Boston Harbor Cleanup through negotiation.”

Paradise regained

Berman points to the left as the boat cruises by the cleanup’s centerpiece: the gargantuan white egglike tanks of the Deer Island waste treatment plant, which in 1995 replaced the antiquated facility. The plant treats an average of 350 million gallons of sewage a day.

“And what comes out of the Deer Island treatment plant?” he asks. Berman, his booming baritone competing with the roar of planes taking off from Logan Airport, has a habit of putting students on the spot to see if they’re paying attention.

“The outfall pipe,” say several simultaneously. “Treated water,” chime in a few more.

“That’s right,” he says with a smile. “The plant separates the solid and liquid waste, and it pumps the treated water through the 9.5-mile outfall pipe, which empties into Massachusetts Bay. The resulting sludge is converted to high-grade fertilizer.”

Now Berman returns to his original question: “How clean is clean enough?” There’s no quick and clear answer to this one. “It’s a question that at the end of the day the federal courts had to decide.”

In 1985, a landmark federal court case required that the harbor’s beaches be made swimmable and fishable by 2000. Save the Harbor/Save the Bay was formed the next year to raise public awareness of the $4.5 billion Boston Harbor Cleanup. Sewer ratepayers in the 43 cities and towns financing the project cried foul over the prospect of astronomically rising bills, but because of the determination of environmental advocacy groups such as Berman’s, the cleanup was largely completed on schedule.

Berman says it isn’t finished, however. There are still frequent beach closures because the counts of Enterococcus bacteria exceed the federal and state standard for swimming. The culprit: filthy storm water and sewage, much of it from leaky pipes and illegal hookups emptying into storm sewers, and then into the harbor.

“So is the harbor clean enough,” the Springfield native asks his students, “when you can’t swim in it one out of five days in the summer?”

Work to be done

Berman and his class look out from Georges Island to Gallops Island (left) and the white tanks of the waste treatment plant on Deer Island (right). Photo by Vernon Doucette

This summer the state approved one of the last parts of the cleanup: the construction, by 2011, of a 2.1-mile tunnel near the Dorchester and South Boston shorelines that will hold sewage and storm water during bad weather. It then will be pumped to Deer Island for treatment.

Berman is ecstatic over this development, the result of “tireless negotiation and consensus-building,” he says. “After 2011, we’re looking at beach closings once every five years, when there is a major storm, instead of once every five days.”

But he is not about to let his guard down. To say that he is a man obsessed with the harbor cleanup would be an understatement. Berman is also Save the Harbor/Save the Bay’s “Baywatcher,” and he lives on his 40-foot trawler Verandah. Polluters beware: if you’re discharging oil or sewage into Boston Harbor, the Baywatcher just might be watching.

He is quick to point out that his zealotry is not just on behalf of the harbor’s flora and fauna. “The harbor is for everyone,” he says. “If you’re from a working class or poor family in Boston, and you can’t afford a Cape Cod getaway in the summer, a clean harbor is important. The same is true if you’re a tourist vacationing in Boston or you happen to live in a pricey waterfront condo.”

Accordingly, Berman, who was a political consultant and contributing editor to the Phoenix newspaper before joining Save the Harbor/Save the Bay nearly 10 years ago, also teaches his students about the harbor’s role in the city’s economy. He points out that in the early 1990s, just a few ferries cruised the harbor’s waters. Today, more than 100,000 people visit its islands each summer, discovering their ecological and historic treasures.

“The best way to protect the harbor cleanup,” Berman tells his students, “is to make sure that the public has access to the resources and can see a return on its investment.”

Trevor Kosmolsick (MET’05) has lived in Boston for seven years, but until taking Berman’s course, he had never been to the waterfront. “I’ve also wanted to go camping in the area, but I never knew that you could camp on a few of the islands,” he says. “Bruce Berman is not only a great professor, but the ultimate tour guide.”

He also backs up his words with actions. Sometimes he takes off his shirt and dives in the water to demonstrate to passing boaters that it’s safe to swim. To show people on ferries that fishing is safe, he’s been known to grab one of the bluefish or striped bass he’s caught and (very carefully) plant a wet kiss on it.

“What I want everyone to understand is that investment in the environment really does pay off,” says Berman. “We’re willing to pay for a clean Boston Harbor, so we should enjoy it.”

From Snails to Whales

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Karissa Vincent - Day 1

1 comment:

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