Author: pel17336

Patrick Leonard Tailgate Cleanup

The morning after the Missouri game, I went with a group to clean up litter around Ohouse and Tanyard Creek, since the cleaning crews removed all of the tailgating garbage before we had a chance to. I had never been to the area of campus where we focused much of our cleaning, so I enjoyed having a positive impact on the area the first time I was there. I had a trash bag to collect small items, such as wrappers and cans, but I focused most of my efforts on removing larger items, such as the ones pictured above. These items were more difficult to remove, which is probably why they were still there. These items often had vines or roots growing around them, demonstrating that these items were not meant to be where they were. My primary reaction when finding these items was confusion as to how they got there, since I did not expect to find a tire and ironing board above the creek bed. It felt good to improve the health of the UGA ecosystem by removing items that could have harmed it. Doing work like this helped me understand the importance of cleaning up after myself around campus. Ideally, work like this would not be necessary, but I was happy to help maintain the cleanliness of the campus.

Climate Simulation Patrick Leonard

When I played my role in the policy exercise, I felt that I had a direct influence on the cooperation of nations that set aside some economic well being to do what was best for the world. As China, I felt that we had a responsibility as one of the world’s largest populations and economies to make changes that would be beneficial to the environment. After our initial proposal, which I felt good about, calls from other nations and nation blocs to cooperate allowed us to give more to the cause than we would have been willing to on our own. By making our goal to cap emissions 10 years sooner than our initial plan and increasing our rate of decreasing emissions, we joined other nations in making bigger changes sooner. While our plan looks admirable on paper, carrying it out in reality may prove difficult, especially in China. Since China is both developed in many areas and developing in others, the developing areas may begin increasing CO2 emissions as modern conveniences become more available to them. This puts more pressure on the developed areas to begin enacting environmentally friendly changes sooner, and developing technology that would allow the developing areas to enact sustainable growth policies. The cost would be large, but due to the size of the economy, it would not be impossible to commit the necessary funds to protect the environment. Catalyzing change in the United States may prove difficult due to the difficulty of motivated individuals to have much of an effect on the environment. However, companies and governments must lead the changes with technologies and policies that protect the environment and decrease CO2 emissions.

Patrick Leonard Watershed Reflection

This picture shows an exit point for water traveling underground under the campus into the stream. On a hot, dry day such as this one, there is little water flowing through it. However, this reminded me of the stream under the bridge near Bolton when it was raining heavily a couple weeks ago. The volume of water passing through at that time must have been hundreds of times greater than what do on a day with no rain. This pipe was smaller than the ones under the bridge near Bolton, which leads me to believe that this area collects less water than the Bolton one, possibly due to the size of the watershed in this area. Seeing that water travels above ground after being underground makes me question the cleanliness of the pipe system, as any contaminants underground would be brought into the stream. I believe that the community should have a better understanding of the pollutants that they could be allowing into streams here on campus.

Patrick Leonard

In high school I took biology and physics for one year and chemistry for two years. I enjoyed chemistry the most because I like the way math connects to things in the physical world. I hope I can learn useful and interesting information in this course that may be helpful later in life. I think I would like to be involved with either the outfall inspections or the watershed clean up. I enjoy spending time outdoors, and I feel that these projects could end up making a noticeable difference around the campus. These projects also seem team oriented, so it will probably be fun to do the projects with my classmates. I think I may learn more about the organizations that work in these fields to make a difference in the environment around UGA. I think I would like to learn about how bacteria behaves in relation to humans and other large organisms.