Thursday, October 20, 2011

My Favorite Lake: Lake Lanier

Lake Lanier


Lake Lanier is one of my favorite lakes because it is a lake that I live very near to and visit a lot. A lot of my friends live on this lake or have homes on this lake so I have spent many summers out on Lake Lanier. It is a reservoir in the northern part of Georgia.  It was created by the completion of the Buford Dam (which is right by my house!) on the Chattahoochee River (which runs through my neighborhood) in 1956.  It was named after the Poet Sidney Lanier. he lake encompasses 38,000 acres (150 km2) of water, and 692 miles (1,114 km) of shoreline at normal level. One of the main purposes of the lake is flood control down stream of the lake. Although there was a recent flooding incident in 2009. Lake Lanier receives approximately eight million visits per year and has a recreation economic impact of $5.5 billion. Lake levels have been impacted by the Tri-States Water Wars have been going on for 13+ years, without agreement between Georgia, Florida and Alabama.
Over view of lake Lanier


Lake Lanier during the drought.
A few summers ago Atlanta had a huge drought and it caused the water level to go down severely on Lake Lanier. It got so bad that we couldn’t go out in the boats and play water sports because it was so shallow. In some parts of the lake you could see old homes emerging from the water that were there in the 1950’s before the area was flooded by the creation of the lake. 

Before the drought and the during the drought on lake lanier.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

My Sunflower!

My Sunflower Daisy
This is my sunflower whom I have named Daisy. I have come close to losing Daisy a few times now due to the cold weather and my forgetful pattern of watering her (its a girl). I keep her on my window sill in my room but I am concerned for Daisy's well being because it is beginning to get very cold outside and I am worried my window sill will be too cold for her. I may have to find her a new home.

This is a brief idea of how Daisy will grow.

This is what Daisy strives to be one day.

This is a time lapse of a dwarf sunflower growing.



Here are some gardening tips on growing sunflowers.


Here is a website that is completely dedicated to sunflowers: Sunflower NSA

Sunday, October 16, 2011

My Happy place

Ok I thought I posted this a long time ago but evidently not.


My happy place is bench by the chattahoochee river along a nature trail in my neighborhood. This google map shows the way I would take to get to my happy place from my house. I would go here to read, paint and draw. It was a perfect place to get away from everything and just relax. The yellow shaded area shows where an old bridge is that crosses the River. This was a popular spot for my friends and I to hang out and climb and jump off the bridge into the river (the police did not like this). The blue shaded area is a soccer field in my neighborhood where I would go to release frustration and kick around the ball. I love where I grew up, it is close to atlanta but also very close to north georgia, which has lots of hiking trails and offers great activities to do outside.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Lab #5: Creek Bed

It was really cool to see the creek bed at the Ocmulgee Memorial. The creek bed almost looked like a miniature Grand Canyon. It was quite pretty with the rock painted so many different colors by nature.  It was also really cool to see all the layers of soil development in the creek bed. It gave us a first hand view of exactly what is below our feet when we walk in nature. It was cool to get a better look at how nature works.

The creek bed is very similar to Providence Canyon, which is much larger, but still not as big as the Grand Canyon, though it has been called "Georgia's Little Grand Canyon." While the creek i saw was formed, I believe, from a river and erosion the Providence Canyon gullies were formed from poor farming practices back in the 1800s. The poor farming practices sure did create a piece of art. The poor farming practices actually caused erosion of the soft, multicolored soils.  What makes Providence Canyon different is that unlike the Grand Canyon, which was formed by being cut out by a river, is that is that it was sculpted of soil by runoff from farm fields.

Providence Canyon

Providence Canyon, how B E A utiful!

I really found Olcmulgee Memorial interesting because of all the history the place had. So much has happened in Macon, Indians, European Settlers, Civil War, etc, yet this place has been preserved through it all. Its really cool that nature has grown over and with all this history.


Olcmulgee Memorial, Indian Mounds



Videos about leaf litter decomposition
It was also cool to see how the decomposition of the leaves and even the trees is what creates nutrient rich soil. "Decomposition of leaf litter is a major source of nutrients in forest ecosystems. As leaves are broken down by insect and microbial decomposers, organically-bound nutrients are released as free ions to the soil solution which are then available for uptake by plants. In this exercise students will measure the rate of decomposition of leaf litter during winter, spring, and summer at contrasting sites using the litter bag technique."Resource

Leaf Litter to Soil!