Melrose High School (86)

The Melrose High School team (#86) is from Santa Fe. This year they've submitted a project titled Train Transportation Safety.

Proposal
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_proposal1112.php?team_id=86

Interim Report
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_interim1112.php?team_id=86

Project Title: Train Transportation Safety

Problem.
We are trying to solve how we can make train transportation safer to the environment by preventing problems caused by the release of hazardous cargoes during wrecks. We also plan to see how much it would cost to ship materials using a variety of containers with different safety characteristics. We plan to use StarLogoTNG to create a “space land” that involves railroad routes through various environments. We can then create a disaster, see its effects, compare containers actions, and make suggestions for improvements.

Description of Progress.
We have made a StarLogo map so we can run a basic train route through different environments representative of our area. However, we still need to do research on how disasters can cause contaminants to spread under various conditions. We have researched shipping and environmental problems involving: Class 1 Explosives, Class 2 Gases, and Class 6 Toxic substances. By concentrating on these three specific hazards, it will help us to complete a basic model that we can expand upon later.

Expected Results.
The results we hope to get involves how the train transportation industry can become safer by watching our model, seeing the results, and using our recommendations.

Citations:
• Post office – Shipping costs information. • BNSF transportation system - Interviews. • a map of our county – Curry County Roads Dept. • Melrose Schools Personnel (MSDS sheets and chemical storage information.) • School’s Ag Shop – Agricultural and Industrial Chemical references.

Team members:

 * Victoria Northrup
 * Delaney Kimberly
 * Adrianna Saiz
 * Ashley Hudson

Teachers:

 * Mr. Alan Daugherty
 * Mrs. Rebecca Raulie

Mentor:

 * Tracy Kimberly

Interim Comments
Sounds like a fun project, but it looks like there's a lot of work to do and a lot of questions to answer. Have you made any progress on modeling the behavior of explosions, gases, and toxic substances? How about the actors involved such as people and buildings? Are you going to model the behavior of materials exclusive of the train's behavior? For example, do you know what is the radius of an explosion given a certain volume of a certain material in a certain container at a certain location? What kind of spreading "conditions" are you planning to model? It's probably good that you limit your model to a few types of materials considering the work involved, but considering the number of specific materials in those categories, you might want to further limit the model to only a few commonly transported materials in each category. All in all, it sounds like you have a project with lots of fun and interesting research involved, and your progress looks good. Feel free to email me if you have any questions.

--James Wernicke 10:38, 5 February 2012 (PST)