The Horse 2020/21

Environment & Technology

Step 5: Reflection

At first we didn't have a good project idea, but later we quickly found a topic (tree diseases and neophytes).

We searched up a lot of information and made pictures. Kevin had even conducted an interview and I created a survey for the teams from abroad.
Unfortunately, no one filled out the survey and it was a little difficult for the people from our class to understand.

We realized before our IDAF presentation that our topic was too big. We then limited ourselves to the neophytes because the topic is very current.
I then came across the topic of guerrilla gardeners and we then conducted an interview with one of the first guerrilla gardeners in Switzerland.

We learned a lot about neophytes and we hope that our contribution on DWME will bring the topic closer to others.


Kevin and Tamara

Step 4 - Shape and Create

We have completed an interview with a farmer in Kerala. After a good study of the topic made us feel that we should promote Organic Farming.

Kerala depends on the neighbouring states for most of the resources including food items. The changing pattern of resource consumption in Kerala during the past 50 years has promoted the state as one among the top most consumer states of the nation.

We shall do our best to mould our men to lead a healthy life.

 

Step 4: Shape and Create - To Do List

To do list: 

  • Finish our text for publishing
    • Check Spelling & Grammar

    • Add pictures, color and different textformat
      - Asked Mr Schumacher if we can use his pictures from polyloft.com

    • Catagorize Post

    • Specify/Indicatesources (Copyright)

More...

Step 5: Reflection

We both think that climate and especially the climate in big cities is a very important topic. We already knew that it looked quite bad and climate change is a concerning problem in the modern world but we have to admit that we were shocked when we found out how bad the situation really is.


We could learn a lot from making this project and most of the time it was quite interesting and fun. I think that our time-management was good and our cooperation went very well.

Step 3 Experience

It's was a bit difficult because we haven't found any collaboration with another team. So we couldn't include other countries in our work.

Luckily we have found a good expert which helped us very much and answered our questions in a interview. 

overall, we are quite satisfied with how the work has gone so far. The cooperation between me an Leandro is going also very well.

Interview - Responses (Step 3: Experience)

Interview with Peter de Haan, Partner, EBP Schweiz AG

1. Was sind Ihrer Meinung nach die besten Methoden um das Klima einer Grossstadt zu verbessern?

Es gibt zwei Gruppen von Methoden, die erste sind Massnahmen zur Vermeidung von Treibhausgasemissionen (z.B. Elektroautos statt Autos mit Verbrennungsmotor; z.B. sehr gute thermische Isolation der Gebäude, so dass auf Heizung mit Öl oder Gas verzichtet werden kann; z.B. Elektrobusse statt Dieselbusse), so dass der gegenwärtige Zuwachs des Treibhauseffekts und damit der Klimawandel reduziert wird.

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2. Wie stellen Sie sich eine Grossstadt in der Zukunft betreffend grünen Flächen (Bäume) und Solarenegie vor? Wird das ein bedeutendes Thema sein?

Grünflächen ja, Solarenergie siehe Frage 4. Zusätzlich sind die Massnahmen (a), (b), (c) und (e) aus Frage 1 wichtig.

3. Inwiefern trägt die Begrünung von Stadtflächen zur Verbesserung des Stadtklimas bei?

Neben der Begrünung von «Stadtflächen» können auch Häuserdächer und Fassaden begrünt werden. Die Kühlung durch Evaporation funktioniert aber nur, solange die Pflanzen Wasser zur Verfügung haben. Die Bereitstellung von Trinkwasser benötigt erstaunlich viel Energie für das Pumpen, Reinigen und Transportieren. Deshalb sollte das Regenwasser aufgefangen und für die Grünflächen verwendet werden.

4. Inwiefern tragen Solarpanels zur Verbesserung des Stadtklimas bei?

Wenn mit Solarpanels Photovoltaik (oder auch Solarthermie) gemeint ist: Wenn man Solarpanels als lokale Massnahme zur Kühlung versteht: Nur wenig. Sie wandeln zwar einen Teil der einfallenden Sonnenenergie in Strom um. Damit werden Photovoltaikpanels in der Sonne etwas wenig warm als gleich schwarze «normale» Fassadenpanels.

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5. Haben Sie Statistiken zu diesen Themen, welche Sie uns zur Verfügung stellen könnten?

Es geht um zukünftige Massnahmen, dazu gibt es noch keine Statistiken (welche ja immer nur die Vergangenheit abbilden). Relevante Berichte finden Sie im neusten BAFU-Klimaindikatorenbericht sowie namentlich auch in Deutschland (Berichte für das UBA, Berichte des PIK); die Stadt Frankfurt am Main ist die «Hochhausstadt» Deutschlands und dazu finden Sie viele Berichte mit Grundsätzen und Überlegungen zur Durchlüftung, Strassenschluchteneffekten, Kaltluftzufuhr usw.

6. Wie genau würde die Realisierung dieser Projekte (Begrünung von Stadtflächen und Solarenergie) aussehen?

Siehe dazu auch Frage 7 und Frage 8: (a) Bei Neubau-Vorhaben könnte Städte entsprechende Auflagen bei der Baubewilligung machen. Aber die meisten Gebäude sind schon gebaut: Für Grünflächen auf Privatgrund (in Hinterhöfen usw.) kann die Stadt lokal informieren, Workshops organisieren, Beratung anbieten, damit Gebäudebesitzer freiwillig zusammenarbeiten. 

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7. Wie kann der Einzelne zur Verbesserung des Stadtklimas beitragen und wie bedeutend wären diese Anpassungen?

Wer kein Auto besitzt, beansprucht keinen Parkplatz und weniger Verkehrsfläche. Wer nur eine geringe Wohnfläche nutzt, vereinfacht die Verdichtung der Städte so, dass auch Stadtklima-Aspekte berücksichtigt werden können.

8. Was hindert die Bevölkerung daran, diese Projekte grossflächig umzusetzen und zur Verbesserung des Stadtklimas beizutragen?

Der grösste Teil der Bevölkerung sind Mieter/innen. Die erwähnten Anpassungen müssten durch die Gebäudebesitzer und durch die Gemeinde umgesetzt werden. Wo kommunale Bau- und Zonen-Ordnungen oder Sondergestaltungspläne sowie Beeinträchtigungen von Kantonsstrassen zu bewilligen sind, ist auch der Kanton involviert.

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Reflection - Coral Reefs

We have chosen the topic coral Reefs. This because corals are an important part of our lives and almost nobody knows that they are dying out. Our goal for this project is to create awareness. We all need oxygen to live, but most of us don't even know where we get our clean air from, not to mention how to keep up this standard of living. So, what we want to do is inform. So that afterwards we know how to keep our air clean.

At first, we wanted to calculate how much oxygen is produced by the coral reefs and how much by a normal tree to do a comparison. However, this has proven to be quite difficult. 

In the beginning Naomi and Me had difficulties to divide the work, in order to make faster progress. But in the last weeks we have improved more and more.

Altogether on a scale from 1 to 10 we would say that we are on a 7.

But we think next time it would be helpful to organize everything more properly in the beginning.

Survey on climate-changing measures - Reflection

At the beginning we had some difficulties to decide which topic we're going to choose. However, we decided on the topic of climate-changing measures because it was the only thing that we all agreed on.

Unfortunately, no one wanted to coorperate with us. But we also think, that it would have been much more complicated to do a collaboration, because our project is based on a survey.

We didn't have any struggles to decide who's going to do what. It was also very interesting to do such a project in English. 

A bit sad was, that we didn't get as much answers from our survey as we expected to. Even though we spread it in many different ways.

Although everything worked out, we couldn't get much knowledge out of our project and would choose something different next time.

But in the end, we're happy with our final result.

Lukas, Julian, Livia

Research - Coral Reefs

A city tree, in our example a full-grown oak tree, absorbs 5-6 tons of carbon dioxide per year and produces about 4 tons of oxygen through photosynthesis. This is the amount of oxygen absorbed by 4 people in a year.

We are still thinking about how we can compare this data with corals, as they are different in size from trees.

What we do know is that all the coral reefs produce more oxygen than all trees. The Reefs produce up to 70% of the oxygen on earth.

 

But what exactly is a Coral?

The coral is a unique and complex creature. It belongs to the family of jellyfish and anemones.

 

Reefs in general

Now I want to talk about the reefs in general. But first how did we proceed with our research? First of all, we visited many different websites. We looked for as much information about coral reefs as possible. After that we collected all the information we could find and decided on the most important one to mention quickly in our presentation. Above all we wanted to show what the problems are and how we can change them.

Now to the found information:

  • Why are Coral reefs so important?

70% of the oxygen you breathe comes from the ocean. Reefs are the foundation of ocean health and without them, marine life would stop to exist. No coral reefs, means no oxygen from the ocean. And you can think about what that would lead us to…

  • How are we destroying coral reefs?

Threats are caused by human activity, including pollution, sedimentation, unsustainable fishing methods, single-use plastic, chemicals in sunscreens and climate change. All those factors increase the ocean temperatures and leads to ocean acidification. Many of these threats can stress corals, resulting in coral bleaching and possible death, while others cause physical damage to these sensitive ecosystems.

Corals can recover from bleaching events when conditions improve before they die, although it can take many years for ecosystems to heal completely.

  • How can we help the reefs?

There are already charities that dedicate their lives to saving the reefs. You can donate directly to them or volunteer and help to save the reefs.

Support renewable energy, eliminate all one-way plastics, switch to reef safe sun protection and don't buy pesticides for your grass!

Ultimately, as consumers, we must stop supporting companies that produce harmful products or chemicals that contribute to the death of our reefs. There are healthy alternatives to all things.

Attached you can also find a video of how the world would look like in 50 years if we dont change anything right now. 

A city tree, in our example a full-grown oak tree, absorbs 5-6 tons of carbon dioxide per year and produces about 4 tons of oxygen through photosynthesis. This is the amount of oxygen absorbed by 4 people in a year.

We are still thinking about how we can compare this data with corals, as they are different in size from trees.

What we do know is that all the coral reefs produce more oxygen than all trees. The Reefs produce up to 70% of the oxygen on earth.

 

But what exactly is a Coral?

The coral is a unique and complex creature. It belongs to the family of jellyfish and anemones.

Reefs in general

Now I want to talk about the reefs in general. But first how did we proceed with our research? First of all, we visited many different websites. We looked for as much information about coral reefs as possible. After that we collected all the information we could find and decided on the most important one to mention quickly in our presentation. Above all we wanted to show what the problems are and how we can change them.

Now to the found information:

  • Why are Coral reefs so important?

70% of the oxygen you breathe comes from the ocean. Reefs are the foundation of ocean health and without them, marine life would stop to exist. No coral reefs, means no oxygen from the ocean. And you can think about what that would lead us to…

  • How are we destroying coral reefs?

Threats are caused by human activity, including pollution, sedimentation, unsustainable fishing methods, single-use plastic, chemicals in sunscreens and climate change. All those factors increase the ocean temperatures and leads to ocean acidification. Many of these threats can stress corals, resulting in coral bleaching and possible death, while others cause physical damage to these sensitive ecosystems.

Corals can recover from bleaching events when conditions improve before they die, although it can take many years for ecosystems to heal completely.

  • How can we help the reefs?

There are already charities that dedicate their lives to saving the reefs. You can donate directly to them or volunteer and help to save the reefs.

Support renewable energy, eliminate all one-way plastics, switch to reef safe sun protection and don't buy pesticides for your grass!

Ultimately, as consumers, we must stop supporting companies that produce harmful products or chemicals that contribute to the death of our reefs. There are healthy alternatives to all things.

Attached you can find a video that shows how the world would look like if we don't change anything right now.