http://northofthehotzone.com/

This blog http://northofthehotzone.com/ is aimed at providing information about the state of Washington's potential using geothermal energy. It explains that Washington State sits on the edge of the hot zone. There are 34 geothermal hot springs which would just begin to provide their geothermal potential. Even though Washington State has excellent potential, nothing had been planned or proposed when this blog was first created.

This blog could be beneficial because of its quantity of information on geothermal energy in general, not just specific to Washington State. It has wonderful maps, charts, and even a brochure explaining geothermal energy.

This blog has a plenitude of information available to those interested. It includes news articles, editorials, presentations, and even the Geothermal Study Bill from the Washington State Legislature. I enjoyed skimming the presentation given to the United States by the President of Iceland. It gave several benefits to geothermal energy. The United States is only using 12% of their total potential. This presentation also had wonderful maps and charts.

This blog had way more information that I ever wanted to know about geothermal energy. However, there is a great abundance of information if you are willing to search through and find it. I recommend starting with the "Start Here" links.

Emerging Technology Experiences

Last Thursday evening I had the opportunity to chat with my class while sitting on the floor in Charlotte’s airport. This truly was an accomplishment since I was having nothing but problems with my internet the rest of the week while on vacation. Thankfully, remembering what tech support had done on my computer and from the help of the digital native sitting on the floor next to me in the airport and my little brother over my phone, I was finally able to reset my LAN settings so I could connect to the internet.

I really enjoyed the numerous conversations regarding both the excitement and challenges of being in a chat room, conferencing over MeBeam, and also exploring Second Life. I am looking forward to these experiences also. The conversations I heard and from the blogs of fellow students got me thinking about digital natives and immigrants. I think eventually most of us will become immigrants, even if we are natives today. Technology changes so quickly and it is hard to keep up. I think we can postpone our change into an immigrant by attempting to stay current and by actively trying the new technologies in our life and our career. Ultimately, we will all need to help of natives, whether they are today’s natives or the natives of the future, to help us keep current.

I did a small amount of researching on Second Life today before I downloaded it and created my aviator. The wiki, http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/, gave me a quick way to look at some of the places you can go in Second Life, the educational uses, and resources for starting Second Life. One fact that I found very interesting was that $5 million USD are transacted each month in Second Life – Wow, I had no idea the uses of this virtual world.

The technical requirements of Second Life are going to be an issue when wanting to implement this in any classroom in my district. After downloading Second Life on my district laptop, I received the message that my system did not meet the minimum requirements of memory or the graphic card. I also got the message for my home computer about the memory, although it should be fine. I am hoping anyway. I know my district laptop is much better than any of the student computers in my building. I will continue to look for the educational opportunities available with Second Life, but unfortunately, my district would need to update their technology before I could use this in my classroom.

Geothermal Heat Pumps

Did you know that the earth's temperature is relatively constant everywhere in the world? Even though the air temperature is dramatically different in different parts of the world, the temperature about 10 feet under the earth is about 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit all over the world. This means geothermal heat pumps can be used almost anywhere in the world. In Iowa it means the earth's temperature is cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

Geothermal heat pumps use pipes with liquid in them to transfer heat from the earth to the building or from the building to the earth. The pipes are buried under the ground in a loop next to the building.

To heat a building, the liquid in the pipes is heated by the earth's temperature. Remember that the air temperature in the winter is cold but the earth's temperature remains around 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit. Then the heated liquid is transferred through the building providing use heat in the winter months.

To cool a building, the liquid in the pipes takes the heat from the building back to the earth. This makes or building cooler in the summer. This is much like how a refrigerator works.

Geothermal heat pumps are environmentally clean, cost effective, and energy-efficient according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

We are getting ready for Geothermal!

Today my class and I packed up our room and moved down the hall to a new classroom. Having 26 5th graders really makes things go much quicker:) They were a great help and did enjoy the process.

Part of the reason we moved classrooms is because we are getting geothermal installed in our school this summer. From what I have been told, installing geothermal is a very messy process inside and out of a building. Everything in our building needed to be moved away from interior walls and will be covered in plastic to be protected.

The word Geothermal comes from the Greek words "geo" and "therme". Geo means earth and therme means heat. Therefore, geothermal energy is using heat from within our earth. That heat from the earth is what is going to heat and cool our school next fall!