Hierba Buena (Yerba Buena)

Hierba Buena (Yerba Buena)

Hierba Buena is an herb that is part of the mint family. It was used by the Native American Indians. They used it as a medicine herb to relive stomachaches, small bruises, and other small aches and pains. It is also used today, in the Philippines; Hierba Buena is one of the top ten herbs that are recommended as an alternative to medicine to relive aches and pains. If you put Hierba Buena in water for 30-40 minutes, you can use that water for mouthwash do to the fact that Hierba Buena is part of the mint family. It will also leave you with a fresh minted breath. Some people also drink Hierba Buena tea. You can do this by getting Hierba Buena and boiling it in water. This tea is good to relieve minor pains like headaches, toothaches, and joint pains. Be careful though because if consumed in large amount, Hierba Buena can be toxic.

Hierba Buena is not only used as a medicine herb, it can also be used in foods to add flavor. It is mainly used in soups because the soup can absorb all the Hierba Buena’s flavor and enhance the taste of the soup. It can also be used in beverages to add some extra flavor to it.

Annotated Bibliography

1.)Associated Press. "Pollution study targets cigarette waste in Tennessee - Kingsport Times-News Online." Kingsport Times News | Kingsport, Tennessee. Web. 09 Nov. 2009. .
This website talks about a study that the University of Tennessee made. It gives facts about cigarettes and how they are bad to the environment. One fact is that 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are tossed in the United States every year.

2.)Kaufman, Leslie. "The New York Times Log In." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Web. 09 Nov. 2009. .
This is a New York Times article that takes about how a little bit of littering can go a long way. There are being programs produced such as the Cigarette Litter Prevention Program that helps with these issues. What I found interesting about this article was that the mayor from San Francisco is putting 33 cents taxes on the cigarettes to cover the cost of 11 million dollars that the city spends annually to clean up cigarette litter.

3.)CigaretteLitter.Org - The Facts About Cigarette Butts and Litter - Cigarette Litter. Web. 09 Nov. 2009. .
This is just a website not an article but I really liked it. I liked it because it gives a lot of information about cigarettes. How they affect the environment, what you can do to help (like different programs that are cleaning the beach such as BUTTsOUT), gives you images of were cigarette butts are littered, and many other things. One fact that I found out was that cigarette butts are not biodegradable. I thought that the inside of a cigarette butt was made of cotton but it is actually made of acetate.

4.)Polito, Johon R. "Cigarette Butt Litter- Two Billion Littered Butts a Day." WhyQuit - the Internet's leading cold turkey quit smoking resource. Web. 09 Nov. 2009. .
It basically talks about why cigarettes are considered litter and what it does to the environment. I really liked it though because it gives really good information such as that annually there are about 1.7 billion pounds of cigarette butts littered worldwide. I also liked that he is passionate about the topic that he is writing about.

5.)"Cigarette Butt Litter." Homepage - Fairfax County, Virginia. Web. 09 Nov. 2009. .
This article is small but it gives a lot of good information, which I really liked. It tells you that under Section 10.1-1143 of the Forestry Code it is illegal to throw any lighted smoking material from a vehicle. It also gives you other laws about cigarette littering. It gives you some background information about cigarettes like the cigarette butts are made of a plastic called cellulose acetate.

Environmental Essay

Roberto
Sotelo
Environmental Science
GMO vs. Heirloom Seeds and World Hunger

Over the years we have been loosing our farmers. No one back then knew about GMOs or hybrid seeds. They just knew the seed and took care of them with their own two hands. Now everything is changed there are less and less farmers with their straw hats and there are more and more farmers with their suits and their GMOs. Heirloom seeds and GMOs are being used now a days and many people argue about using GMOs. One question is if they are safe to use, if by using them are we solving a problem or creating a far bigger one? Which is a better use to feed everyone in the world?
GMO is short for Genetically Modified Organism. One example could be that you are a scientist in a place where it is really cold for most of the year you would want a plant that is resistant to frost. Later you find a fish that lives in really cold temperatures so you get that fish and you find the gene that helps the fish be in really cold temperatures. Then you splice that gene into the plants DNA. Later you get a plant that can live in really low temperatures.
GMO started a really long time ago, in the 1973 by Herbert Boyer and Stanley Cohen (History of GMOs). Now scientists are trying to create crops that are resistant to certain bugs. This toxin is a natural toxin that plants produce. Some say that this method can kill bugs that are needed in order for healthy plants to grow and that it kills other non targeted insects (pest resistant crops). This topic is still in discussion. In 1980 the U.S. Supreme Court rules that GMOs can be patented (History of GMOs). This presents a big problem because say that you are a farmer that has heirloom seeds that your family has planted for centuries and an agricultural company is your neighbor. They, as opposed to you, use GMOs in their fields. The wind picks up and without you even knowing the pollen from their field lands on your crops and your crops have your neighbor’s crop DNA. One day you wake up and they are knocking on your door saying that you have stolen their GMO and threatened to sue you. You later go to court and find out that since they have patented their GMOs you lose your crops and much more, so patenting life should not be permitted. Still there are many uses for GMOs. Some uses can be that you can grow crops in really cold places, make crops that are more resistant to droughts, have the crops germinate faster, and many more.
An alternative to GMOs are heirloom seeds. Heirloom seeds are seeds that have been saved from generation to generation. Some say that in order for a type of seed to be considered heirloom they must be at least 50 years old. The seed doesn’t have to be 50 years old but the family of the seed needs to be old. Many prefer heirloom seeds because they taste better and they are all natural. They also have a lot of varieties. For example a hybrid seed has very little apple varieties compared to 10,000 different types of apples found using heirloom seeds (Why it Matters to Buy Heirloom Plants and Seeds | Healthy and Green Living). Heirloom seeds don’t really have a starting point like GMOs because traditional farmers normally saved the seeds that they really like and passed it on from generation to generation. Some people that sell heirloom seeds like to give background information of the seed like were it came from and how the seeds got to them.
Which methods are better heirlooms or GMOs? I think that the plan to create GMOs with vaccines in them or that have toxins inside them to kill insects is bad because the insects might just get extinct and because of that it creates a chain reaction killing other animals that are reliant on that insect such as small birds and lizards that eat insects. Another thing is that no one really knows what are the long term effects of GMOs (Genetically Modified Foods and Organisms --HGP Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues).
One issue that comes up with putting natural toxins in crops is how much we can take in because if we put toxins in everything, even though the amount is very low, there are going to be some complications because that amount builds up more and more each day you eat vegetables and fruits. Putting vaccines inside the seed doesn’t mean that everyone is going to be safe because maybe a super bacteria comes along because they need to survive somehow. I think that there should be a balance between heirloom seeds and GMOs because nature should not be altered to a point that every fruit and vegetable is considered a GMO. The people have the right to choose if they want to eat GM foods or organically grown foods. Say you have an heirloom tomato that grows big and juicy but can’t be grown in a really cold place then you can splice in a gene and make it so it can grow in a cold place. Another thing that should happened is that we shouldn’t be able to patented plants because we can’t control how they will pollinate. This is a problem because if the wind picks up the GMO crops might affect nearby farmers by mixing with their crops. I think that at the very end it depends were you are and how many people you are feeding. If you are feeding a large population I think we should go with GMOs but if it’s just a little town or just your back yard you should go with heirloom seeds, now for the last question.
Are we ever going to have enough food to feed everyone in the world? I believe that we can. One study shows that we have enough food right now to feed the whole world but the food is just not going around because of other issues such as financial problems and wrong people that have a lot of power over a whole town or city (World Hunger Notes--Global Issues: World Hunger Facts 2009 by World Hunger Education Service). We have enough food right now to feed the world but what about in 58 years? According to a study by the time we get to 2067 there are going to be 13 billion people in the world (Population Growth - Overview of Population Growth Rates). I think that if we change our current food distribution we will have enough even to feed 20 billion people. We need to change it so everyone in the world has food. If we reduce our food waste and just grow what we need and find a way to give food directly to the people instead of giving it to the government to distribute it we can feed a lot more people because some governments are really corrupt and they don’t really distribute it correctly. We also need to find the most efficient way to use the land that we have.
One example could be to make a farm in every city, each have one big farm. This way we can make it more of a closed system rather than an open system. What this means is that we are not going to get fertilizer and resources from other countries and waist more fuel by transporting the crops to other places half way around the world. I believe we have enough room to make a farm in every city. Using the golf course could be useful because you really don’t need that much space for a sport that involves hitting a little ball into a hole. We need to think about all our space we have and how we are using does spaces because we really aren’t using all the space in the city. Just drive around your block and you would probably see abandoned buildings and lots. If we don’t have enough space for the whole city we can always maybe make a big hole and build a parking lot structured building and have different types of crops in every section. We can also have room to teach the current generation how to plant in their back yards if they have space and how to eat right. This will also mean lowering the risk of someone contaminating our food supply that will harm everyone. This way we can make them more interested in farming and when they grow up they can find more efficient ways for farming. If we change all these things and have a mixture of heirloom and GMOs we can have health care go down, make more jobs, and solve the current problem of world hunger.

Bibliography

"Genetically Modified Foods and Organisms --HGP Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues." Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Web. 5 Oct. 2009. .
"HEIRLOOM SEEDS HISTORY - About our company." HEIRLOOM SEEDS - over 1100 varieties of non-hybrid seeds including heirloom vegetable seeds, heirloom flower seeds and heirloom herb seeds. Web. 10 Oct. 2009. .
"History of GMOS." American RadioWorks from American Public Media. Web. 14 Oct. 2009. .
"Pest resistant crops." GMO COMPASS - Information on genetically modified organisms. Web. 14 Oct. 2009. .

"Population Growth - Overview of Population Growth Rates." Geography Home Page - Geography at About.com. Web. 1 Oct. 2009. .
"Why it Matters to Buy Heirloom Plants and Seeds | Healthy and Green Living." Care2 - largest online community for healthy and green living, human rights and animal welfare. Web. 10 Oct. 2009. .
"World Hunger Notes--Global Issues: World Hunger Facts 2009 by World Hunger Education Service." World Hunger Notes Homepage. Web. 3 Oct. 2009. .

2 websites

Question: How does the extinction of an animal affect humans?
1.) Whitty, Julia. "Animal Extinction - The Greatest Threat to Mankind | CommonDreams.org." Common Dreams | News & Views. Web. 21 Oct. 2009. .
-Talks about the effects of animal extinction
-Gives statistics of how many animals may go in extinct in a certain amount of time
-Great source for overall animal extinction problems, causes, and how it is affecting humans
-Explains how the different species are linked together and why one depends on the other
2.)University of Exeter. "Humans Implicated In Prehistoric Animal Extinctions With New Evidence." ScienceDaily 12 August 2008. 21 October 2009 /releases/2008/08/080811200028.htm>.
-Explains about prehistoric animals and why they really went extinct
-Shows how humans were the real cause of their extinction not climate change
-Gives a lot of supporting information to back up their claims
-The source comes from Science daily (trustworthy site)
Question: How does the extinction of one animal affect the entire habitat it lives in?
1.)Lloyd, Robin. "Domino Effect of 'Co-extinction' Pinned Down | LiveScience." LiveScience | Science, Technology, Health & Environmental News. Web. 21 Oct. 2009. .
-Talks about how on animal extinction can have a domino effect on habitat and other animals
-How many animals are in the endangered species list
-How many percent of species are we expected to see go extinct by what year
-Gives quotes of different scientist talking about their findings of animal extinction
2.)Nelson, Bryan. "11 Extinct Animals That Have Been Photographed Alive |." The Best Article Every day. Web. 21 Oct. 2009. .
-Gives information about 11 different species that have gone extinct
-Every animal has a description
-Gives you a statistic about the rate of extinction

Propagation Research

Link 1:
"PLANT PROPAGATION." HCS. 9 Oct. 2009 .
-Explains cuttings, stem cuttings, leaf cuttings, root cuttings, softwood and hardwood cuttings, layering, divisions, bulbs and corms, grafting, budding or bud grafting, micro propagation or tissue culture, and plant patents.

Link 2:
"PLANT PROPAGATION." HCS. 9 Oct. 2009 .
-Same as link number one except this link basically talks about what is germination, what is the best way to plant, how to buy for seeds, and it also explains other terms.

Link 3:
"mygardenguide.com - Green Gardening Glossary." mygardenguide.com - Home. 9 Oct. 2009 .
-This link gives an exact definition on what exactly is a heirloom seed

Link 4:
Mendelson, Kathy. " What is an heirloom vegetable? ." Providing professional ISP internet solutions in the Seattle area since 1987. 9 Oct. 2009 .
-This link explains three different traits that heirloom seeds have. Does traits are age, Open-Pollinated (OP), and quality. I really like this link because it gives a really solid idea on the history of a heirloom seed, what is a heirloom seed, and why heirloom seeds are good. This link is the best link I came upon on so far that talks about heirloom seeds.

Farmer in Cheif

I found this article to be very interesting. It talked about our current food system, how that system is affecting us and the world, and he gives a solution to that problem. Today we had a seminar talking about the article. One issue that came up was that there is a lot of people that don't want to change but I think that there is a lot of people that would like to change. Some people gave a suggestion about having homeless people growing some of the crops and a lot people thought that that idea was gross but if you think about it we bathe our vegetables with chemicals, our food comes from the dirt and it is good for the plant if we added some cow crap. We have the resources to change our ways and create food without the need of chemicals, fertilizers that have fossil fuel in them, and make the food much much healthier.

One really good idea that I read in the article was that we can make compost out of the food that we throw away and I think that is enough to cover pretty much all the farms. This will make the food grow better because it can hold more water so the plants can survive droughts and the plant will be more healthy and this way the people that consume it will be healthier as well. I also believe that we should not give the animals so much antibiotics because the bacteria becomes super bacteria and if a person gets that bacteria into their system and spread it to other humans than they are pretty much screwed because that bacteria would be resistant to all the antibiotics out there.

After all this reading I had a question floating in my head for a very long time. Lets say we managed to pull this off and everyone goes green. That means that there would be more food to feed everyone in the world and the food would be really healthy so the person eating it would turn more healthy. That means that the person would live longer because they are healthier so they have more children because they are healthy and live for a longer period of time. That means that the population will continue to grow even faster than before because we are going to have people having more people having kids and people living longer. My question is Up to when can we keep this up? Because if the population grows that means we would need more food and if we get more food we will get more people so how many people can the world hold? And I don't think the answer is unlimited. I think that in order to succeed we need to look really far into the future and find out the answer to this question without actually hitting the point of no return.

Best Practices

For our special assignment groups we were supposed to write down the best practices of our group. My group was propagation. What we did was basically study how to plant the seeds, like what types of seeds could be planted at what time, how many seeds how far from each other and ll that good stuff.

I found out that the seeds needed to be planted at least 2 inches away from each other in order for them to grow big and healthy. Some plants need a certain pH level before you plant them you should check the pH level, the structure and the texture of the soil, it is also a good idea to add compose so your plant has warmth and nutrients to grow. Once that is all done and you are ready to plant you should make a little hole with your finger and plant the seed about two inches deep. After that you cover it and water it. Some seeds require special attention so you might want to do some research about the plant before you plant it.

28 day plant

The plant that we are going to grow is a bean plant because it grows fast and it is easy to grow.

Presentation thoughts

The presentation topic that really got me thinking was the water presentation because we only have so little fresh water. I also found out that if we can increase the use of ocean water by just a small percentage the water crisis could be gone. There are ways to clean ocean water but does ways are time consuming, will cost a lot of money to maintain, you would need a lot of space to keep the non filtered and the filtered water, and what were would all the salt and minerals filtered out be put at. Another presentation topic that I found interesting was the landscaping presentation because they made a rough estimate about how much land there is left. Another fact that was said that I found really interesting was when John showed us the history of human population. He said that it took a lot of years for humans to reach the one billion mark and then in the 80s to now we are at the 6 billion mark and growing. These presentations were really helpful and showed me a lot about the main topics of environmental science.

3 plants I want to grow

3 plants

The three things I want to grow in the garden are carrots, strawberries, and lettuce. I want to grow carrots because I actually had never seen carrots grow and I hear a lot of cool things about them. I heard that they are good for your eye sight and they look cool. Also because my rabbit eats carrots and I wonder why he likes carrots so much. I really don’t know how it is going to help the garden but since it grows down it won’t take up a lot of space. I also want to grow strawberries because of their shape and their taste. It is also interesting how they grow. They are all smashed up in a plant. The other thing I want to grow is lettuce. The type of lettuce I want to grow is Romaine lettuce. I really like this type of lettuce because it’s crunchy and it has a great taste. I think it looks really cool when it grows because when you grow a lot together it looks like a little twirling forest.

Facts about Carrots:

Carrots are a type of vegetable. It grows in all different types of temperatures, but it is better if they grow in a cool temperature. In order for the seeds to germinate they must be in a cooled place. If the soil is above or somewhere between 95 degrees it may be too hot for the seeds to germinate. They can germinate in as little as two weeks or as long as 4 weeks depending on how you plant them. It can take about 10 weeks for carrots to be ready to harvest. Carrots can be planted very close to each other because they grow directly downwards and since it is eatable the way it is you can probably give one or two carrots to every person that comes to exhibition night with a reasonable amount of room. Carrots grow better in loose soil and require a basic pH level because they do not grow well in an acidic pH leveled soil. They also grow well if you add organic matter. They need enough water so the soil is all wet. It only needs about an inch of rain per week. The water will need to be introduced little by little in order for the soil to be completely wet. Some good companion plants are alliums (leeks, shallots, etc), rosemary, wormwood, sage, beans, and flax. The carrot at first was used as a medicine plant.

Facts about strawberries:

The strawberry is a type of fruit. It is really easy to grow. It is better if it is planted in the spring so it can be ready to tackle the hot season. It takes about 2 weeks for the seeds to germinate. It takes about three months for strawberries to grow. Strawberries can be grown close together so there can be a reasonable amount of strawberries for a normal amount of space. There are not a lot of soil requirements just that the pH level is not too high or too low. It also needs the soil to be loose so water can get all the way into the roots and so the roots can grow healthy. Strawberries do not need a lot of water because if you put a lot of water you can drown it because it also needs air. It needs to be watered slowly and eater it when the top of the soil gets dry. Good companion plants for strawberries are dwarf beans, lettuce (border), onions, peas, spinach, and borage. Strawberries were also first used for medical uses.

The natural world

One thing I want to learn about the natural world is how volcanoes are form and how they erupt. I am curious about volcanoes because the magma that comes out of the volcano is really hot and can destroy anything in its path. I also wonder why volcanoes don't just pop up anywhere in the world.