Navajo Prep (93)

The Navajo Prep (93) team is from Farmington. This year they've submitted a project titled '''Save the Plants! Save the World!

Proposal
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_proposal1112.php?team_id=93

Team: 93

School: Navajo Preparatory

Area of Science: environmental

Proposal: With the increase in pollution becoming a worldwide problem, plant growth is starting to decrease. This is a problem because plants are essential for oxygen. Also because plants can be used for food, supplies, shelter, and other things.It is important that we find the maximum pollution point so that we can find ways to prevent this point from being reached. We will attempt to find the maximum amount of pollution that is needed to prevent plant growth. We will use the computer program, Netlogo, to run simulations and determine what the maximum pollution point is.

Team Members:

 * Anthony Jojola
 * Ivan Willeto
 * Kalvyn Etcitty

Sponsoring Teacher:

 * Mavis Yazzie

Interim Report
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/get_interim1112.php?team_id=93

Interim:

Problem Definition:
With the pollution increasing, it is becoming a worldwide problem. Plant growth is starting to decrease and this is a problem because plants are essential for oxygen. Plants are also vital because they are used for food, supplies, shelter, and other necessities. It is essential that we educate ourselves about the effects that pollution have on plants and their growth. We will research the vegetation areas that are nearby the power plants and how they are being affected by the pollution. We will use Netlogo to run simulations and study the effects. The goal of this project is to run simulations that will help to determine the effects of pollution on nearby vegetation. We will be using three local power plants in part of our testing. We will also account for the local farmlands in the area. The simulation will be a scale model of the local area.

Problem Solution:
Simulation will be conducted will be through Netlogo. We will create a scale size power plant that are in the local areas and have factors that will affect how pollution spreads. We will include factors such as wind, distance, plant reproduction, and also how much pollution a plant usually produces. These things will all be added to make the simulation as accurate as possible. The simulation will give us data on how the vegetation is affected.

Progress to Date:
We have created a scale of the three local power plants. With this, we incorporated the scale into the Netlogo program. We also studied the rate of air pollution of each power plant, and have created a virtual simulation. Each power plant would give off a certain amount of air pollution, which would make the simulation more realistic. We are also in the process of creating the death and growth rate of the nearby plants. Creating the wind simulation would be our next step and gets us closer to our finishing results.

Expected Results:
After running our test simulations, we expect to see the pollution will have a great affect on nearby plants. We also expect to see a greater affect on the closer vegetation. We also expect to see if the wind will play a role in the spreading of the pollution.

Interim Comments
Hi my name is Eleanor Walther and I have been asked to give you feedback on your interim report. I am a champion for Expanding Your Horizons, Project GUTS and the Challenge, being head judge of the EXPO in April. I am retired from Sandia National Laboratories, where I was the Principal Member of the Technical Staff, Emergent Threats. I having been working with the Challenge since 1998.

It sounds like you hve made progress on your Netlogo model. However I don't see any references in your interim report. So my question is how are you going to include the effect of the power plant effluents on plant life? What assumptions will you make in your computational model? How many plant types will you include? Do all the power plants emit the same effluents or are they different from power plant to power plant? Do you know what the power plants in the Four Corners emit?

How do you plan to incorporate the wind parameter in the model? Direction? Speed?

If my memory serves me correctly there have been projects similar to this in earlier Challenge years. You might want to take a look at the archives and see what other teams have done.

Congratulations on completing the milestones so far and keep up the hard work.