Biodiversity..."Never Wear Anything That Panics the Cat"

The destruction of ecosystems would eventually change all the organisms in the region thereby affecting five different ecological benefits normally gained from biodiversity. The first being the soil and its formation, its ability to cycle nutrients, and its stabilization involving flood and erosion. The second and third benefits being water and air and the ability for each of these to filter, purify, and stabilize the global climate. The fourth being decomposition and waste disposal as well as pest control. The final ecological benefit from biodiversity is energy transformation as a food source. These factors are important and all affect humans because each of these factors has the ability to change the climate, temperature, and therefore biome of an area.

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/09/26/world/europe/wildlife-photography-uk-awards-duplicate-2/index.html

These photographs not only capture beautiful organisms and landscapes but also raise awareness about how stellar biodiversity is. Booyah! for the UK and it's biodiversity. Check ooouuut thaat fox!

Just to keep you updated on what's happening...

Europe's Debt Crisis.

Here are five essential things you need to know about the debt crisis in Europe. I was wrong in my last post about the stability of Italy- it seems she isn't doing as well as I had initially thought!

We're brainstorming about some awesome things for J-Term. Bet you guys can't wait for December 28th! One of our better thought out plans is to visit a Peat Farm in Ireland. There is increasing research about the usage of peat as an alternate form of energy. We are really hoping that we can get a place that'll walk us through what it is that they do!

Getting Started.

Morgan here!

We've just gotten everything set up for our independent research project for J-Term 2012 at Hollins University!

And what exactly is it that we are doing, you may ask....?!
Well... we're going to Europe. More specifically, we're going to Greece, Italy, the UK and Ireland. In each of these countries, we plan to study their different environmental, political, economic, cultural and ecological aspects and to blog about them here. Pretty easy, right?

There are three of us going on this trip- myself, Brittany Hanavan and Emily Cook (we'll figure out how to add them on here so they can post and you can creep on them just as much as you'll be creeping on me). Each of us are studying different things at our little liberal arts college. I'm majoring in International Studies with a double minor in Biology and Economics, Brit is majoring and minoring in some combination of Environmental Studies, Political Science and Biology and Emily is simply a Bio major (or so she thinks... She's a Sophomore and hasn't had to declare yet...). We plan on blogging about what we observe and learn everyday on a rotating basis. This way, you won't have to hear it all from one point of view and you'll be privy to learning about the world through our different disciplines of study.

Right now, we're just doing the paperwork for all of this. Since we're already approved by our advisers, we've bought our plane tickets! We're leaving on December 28th for Athens and coming back January 30th from Dublin. We'll be sleeping on couches, hostel bunks, and if we're lucky, we might even score a bed every once in a while. And why are we suffering all of this hardship of getting to travel the world and see awesome things and meet great new people? To tell you what is really happening in Europe.

Greece's and Ireland's economies aren't in the best of shape (Greece has had some riots; the Irish just aren't the rioting type when they're sober). However, Italy and the UK, also members of the European Union, aren't declining as much as Greece and Ireland. By being in these four countries, we're hoping that we can produce a simplistic understanding of what is truly going down- and we hope to relate it back to you.

Here's some food for thought until our next post: 

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/15/markets/ecb_central_banks_liquidity/index.htm?hpt=hp_t2

Until next time! =]