Case Study #2 – Aral Sea

Note: You must be logged-in as a student today. Admin will not work.

Clip – The Aral Sea

Questions

1. Why is the Aral Sea drying up?

2. How is the shrinking of the Aral Sea affecting the people who live nearby?

Background• The Soviet Union did not have enough food

or industries for its population.

• How would you use farms to fix both?

Collective Farms

• The Soviet Union created collective farms to increase food production and clothing production.

– Food production grow wheat– Clothing production grow cotton

Cause - Irrigation Program

The Aral Sea• The government

started diverting water from the Amu Dayra and Syr Dayra Rivers to irrigate wheat and cotton fields.

Effects - #1 Desertification• The rivers dried up so

the Aral Sea began to shrink.

• Land that used to be underwater turned to desert.

• This left behind massive salt residue and caused desertification.

• Directions: In your notebook, complete the Frayer Model below.

DESERTIFICATION 2. Definition spread of the desert.

3. How does desertification affect the people living near the Aral Sea?

4. Sketch

Effects #2 – Health Effects

• Wind blows the salt mixed with chemicals creating many health problems.

Effect #2 – Health Effects

• Answer the questions below using the article.

1. How has the shrinking Aral Sea caused health problems?

2. What are the health problems?

3. What are the effects of the increase in the salt content of the Aral Sea?

Case Study #3 – Chernobyl

Note: You must be logged-in as a student today. Admin will not work.

Background

• During the Cold War the US and Soviet Union had an arms race.

• Both sides rapidly built nuclear power plants for energy and weapons.

Causes

• In 1986 the power plant at Chernobyl in the Ukraine exploded.

• Dangerous nuclear radiation contaminated the environment.

Effects

• Radiation spread throughout Europe. – Had to abandon land, farmland – Major health effects

Chernobyl - Pictures

READ ONLY

This is an aerial photo of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant taken two or three days after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion which spread clouds of radioactive dust across the western part of the Soviet Union and Europe.

READ ONLY

The power station, which rendered the town uninhabitable for centuries, looms on the horizon, two-and-half kilometers away.

READ ONLY

Nature has been reclaiming the abandoned town. Wild boars roam the streets at night. Birch trees have been shooting up at random, even inside some apartment blocks .

READ ONLY

A cemetery of radioactive vehicles is seen near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in this Nov.10, 2000 nuclear accident at Chernobyl.

READ ONLY

Map Showing Contaminated AreasThe Chernobyl nuclear accident affected a huge area. This map shows areas that have elevated levels of cesium 137 in Northern Europe area, in the years after the Chernobyl accident.

READ ONLY

Then five-year-old Alec Zhloba, suffering from leukemia, looks on in a children cancer unit at a hospital in Gomel, Belarus, in this March 19, 1996 file photo. Some 70 percent of the fallout from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster fell on Belarus.

Health Effects

READ ONLY

Ukrainian biology professor Vyacheslav Konovalov demonstrates a foal horse mutant in his laboratory in Zhytomyr, 120 km west of Kiev, Ukraine on March 11, 1996. He collected plant and animal mutants and human embryos and planned to create a warning museum.

Effects on Nature

READ ONLY

Google Earth Pictures

• Click on the Novell window at the bottom by the start button.

• Open Google Earth

• Type in Prypiat, Ukraine in the Search box and hit enter.

• Click the blue buttons to check out the pictures. You must have the Geographic Web layer clicked.

Conclusion

Issue Causes (draw 3 pictures)

Effects (draw 3 pictures)

Solutions

Aral

Sea

Chernobyl

Use your notes and the textbook to complete the 3 columns.