From Snails to Whales: Catherine Zhang --Assigment 1: which way the water drains in the sink?

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Catherine Zhang --Assigment 1: which way the water drains in the sink?

I am Catherine Zhang from China, I love animals and all things related to them. I always want to go to science field trips, but since my parents have huge exception of business major from me, I always focus on the classes required to take. After struggling to consider which class I will choose in the next four weeks, I will stick with this fun class to the end. Because I like the subject and I finally can try something I love since high school.

This field trip is to observe which way (clockwise or counter-clockwise) the water in the school bathroom sink drains. The location of the field trip is in the female restroom on the basement of the Metropolitan College. To see how the sink water drains, my classmate used one hand to cover the drain to keep water. As he removed his hand, the water drains and small water waves showed up which is either clockwise or counter-clockwise.

What I did is to observe two sinks in the restroom and water in them. I think he water in my team showed the direction of clock-wise. But when I saw the other sink, I observed that it seemed water drained of the direction of counter clock-wise. Again when I got back to the previous sink and tried it again, the water still stained as clock-wise. When I got back home, I also tried the sink of my apartment, it showed the water drained clock-wise. So my hypothesis is that water in the Northern Hemisphere drains clockwise, but the water in the Southern Hemisphere drains counter-clockwise.

I first used my own language to search "Does the water flow the opposite direction in Northern and Southern Hemisphere?" It gives me one thing: Coriolis force. It says the rotation of the draining water relates with it, and Coriolis force is the result of Earth rotation. On University of Illinois’ web page, a direct image shows how Coriolis force works. (Coriolis Force: an artifact of the earth's rotation). So on the Northern Hemisphere, the water drains counter-clockwise and clockwise on the southern Hemisphere. In the article “Does Water Drain in Different Directions in Northern, Southern Hemispheres? (VIDEO)”, the Doctor Paul Doherty used an experiment to show on the Northern Hemisphere, the water does drain counter-clockwise.

What I like the most is a video I found on Youtube( Video “SchoolFreeware Science Video 11 - Science Down The Drain - Is The Rotation From The Coriolis Force?”). In the video, the speaker first declared that he is on the Northern Hemisphere, he also explained the Coriolis force , and then he did the same draining water experiment in several sinks with different directions of faucet which the water can come out in the middle, on the left and on the right. As the faucet was in the middle, the water drained counter-clockwise as he used ink to show water direction. But as he pulled water from the left side of the sink, the water drained counter-clockwise; he then did the same experiment with faucet on the right side as water came out. This time the water drained clockwise. I think it is because that as the speaker let water drain as soon as he fill the sink, at that time the water was still moving the direction as the water was filling the sink. If the water is steady, the result will be the same as the one with water coming out from the middle. Now I know I also flushed the toilet, with fast moving water; I finally can tell that the water did drain counter-clockwise.

PS: It reminds me that in the movie “Escape Plan” (It is about two people tried to find a way out in the world’s most secure prison, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone are both in it), sylvester Stallone found out he was on the Northern Hemisphere from the drain direction of toilet water. It is an awesome movie with two tough old men!

Coriolis Force: an artifact of the earth's rotation : http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/%28Gh%29/guides/mtr/fw/crls.rxml

Youtube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kekbR9kToj8

Does Water Drain In Different Directions In Northern, Southern Hemispheres? (VIDEO) : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/25/water-drain-equator_n_2010379.html

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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 12, 2014

Catherine Zhang --Assigment 1: which way the water drains in the sink?

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