Room 613 Student Blogs - 2005/2006

Horses

Beautiful horses,

How wonderful and graceful

Highlight of my day

Tigers

Tigers, always free

Free to hunt and roam in peace

Until we hurt them

Home

My wonderful home

So welcoming and loving

My sanctuary

P.S. My tiger poem is about how tigers are endangered because of humans.

When the Three Gorges Dam is completed in 2009, it will be the largest dam/hydroelectric plant ever created. And, like many large projects, whether or not it should be built is controversial. But before you decide what side you’re on, you need to know a little more about the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.

The Three Gorges Dam project was started in 1994 and is expected to be complete in 2009. It will be 610 feet high and 1.3miles wide. Its main purposes will be to control flooding and to provide much needed clean electricity. The dam’s annual goal is to match 10 nuclear power plants. But though it sounds like it invites no arguments, the Three Gorges Dam has drawbacks.

The Three Gorges Dam will create a reservoir 370 miles long and 525 feet deep. This reservoir is the cause of a mass relocation of people. Over 1.2 million people will be relocated. Many of the people who have already been relocated are having trouble adjusting to their new jobs, homes, and lives. For example, one couple was placed on a plot of land 2/3 the size of their old property. In their old home they had an annual income of $1,200. Now though, their income has dropped to $240. The building of this dam puts stress on the people who live on the planned reservoir site.

The Three Gorges Dam reservoir will not only flood more than 320 villages, 140 towns, and close to 1,600 industries, it will also flood 16 important archeological sites. The archeologists are racing to uncover secrets of the past and ancient artifacts. They have even found evidence of an advanced early culture. All of this new knowledge of the past will be lost in the reservoir flooding.

When the Three Gorges Dam reservoir floods the many cities and industries, the pollution from those areas will be absorbed into the reservoir. This pollution will harm the many animals that live around that area, including the already endangered Siberian Crane, Chinese Tiger, and Yangtze River Dolphin. The Chinese government is working to help the people being relocated. But what about the animals, they can’t be relocated. Many people fear that the pollution that will be absorbed into the reservoir will lead endangered animals to extinction and lead regular animals to be endangered.

Think of this: people are angered, animals suffer, and money is wasted all because of something that won’t work. This scenario is what critics expect in the future for the Three Gorges Dam. Supporters may say that the benefits of clean electricity and flood control that they expect surpass the losses. But what if the dam fails? For example, the dam is supposed to create electricity and control flooding. But the conditions don’t match. To control flooding, water levels in the reservoir must be low to deal with oncoming water flow. But to create electricity, water levels must be high to maintain constant pressure on the turbines. The conditions just don’t match. Also, silt and bedrock carried by the river may eventually get into the dam, causing the turbines to clog and stop producing electricity. The silt and rocks may also pile up on the reservoir floor, causing floods.

What is the point of building a 32 billion dollar dam that causes people stress, dangers animals, floods important archeological sites, and destroys the scenic view of Three Gorges that might not even work?! Instead of building such a complicated dam, use the money to repair already built dikes and dams along the Yangtze, and build smaller hydroelectric plants on the Yangtze River. These smaller dikes, dams, and hydroelectric plants would not cause so much controversy and damage. These things would do all the things the Three Gorges Dam is supposed to and not cause so much damage. Why then, would you build the Three Gorges Dam, when you have such a promising alternative?

Gandi as a young lawyer.

Mohandas Gandhi was born on October 2,1896 in Porbandar, Gujarat, India into a Hindu family. Because of the influence of Gujarat and his Hindu family, Gandhi learned not to inflict any type of injury onto any living thing, thus becoming a vegetarian. Mohandas Gandhi married a girl named Kasturba at the age of thirteen (arranged by their parents) and had four children. He went to school in London to study law and in 1891, he went to South Africa in 1893 because of a one-year contract to do legal work. He stayed in South Africa for 21 years in order to obtain rights for Indians under British rule. He returned to India only after rights had been established in South Africa in 1914. He then set to work in India. Gandhi was abused many times by authorities because of his resistance, but he would not give up. He was no doubt the hardest working independence leader of India. He created a nonviolent “method of action based upon the principles of courage, nonviolence and truth “ called Satyagraha.Even using this nonviolent method, Gandhi was often punished. He spent a total of seven years in prison for his resistance to British rule. Determination eventually paid off in 1947. India gained independece. Because of the important work he did, Gandhi’s nickname for the people of India was Mahatma (Great Soul) and he was also known as The Father of the Indian Nation. This remarkable man was assassinated at the age of 78 on his way to a prayer meeting by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu fanatic who worked with a group of Hindu’s who opposed Gandhi’s nonviolent ways. The day was January 30, 1948.

This great man’s determined life motivated the famous Martin Luther King Jr. and many others who wanted freedom. And in my opinion, The Father of the Indian Nation is a perfect title for him.

Before I researched these things, I had almost no clue who Mohandas Gandhi was. But now I not only know who he is, but also what he did.

I found my information at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Gandhi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyagraha

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/gandhi_mohandas.shtml

I found my pictures at:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://poorwilliam.net/pix/gandhi-1947.jpg&imgrefurl=http://poorwilliam.net/al-100205.html&h=360&w=271&sz=62&tbnid=PvsPwAS6xKbyJM:&tbnh=117&tbnw=88&hl=en&start=45&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMohandas%2BGandhi%26start%3D40%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DN

http://www.thedailyinspiration.com/authors/images/gandhi.jpg

Gandhi as a dignified elderly man.

Dear Amy,
Hello. How are you? In my last letter I didn’t explain to you exactly how much my life has changed. Our dictator (he called himself a president), Kemal Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal), has died, and my parents are glad. They hated the rules he set. He made all men abandon their fez wearing tradition, and he made all women uncover their faces. He wanted us Turks to be modern. My parents say that giving up these traditions showed that you had abandoned the Muslim religion. I do want to be modern, but that would mean giving up tradition. I don’t like how he came in and changed all of our customs. I do like that he gave women the right to vote. Our capital is now Ankara, which doesn’t really matter to me. We do have a new alphabet though, and now, everything is written in the Roman alphabet! That really affected me, because I had to learn a new alphabet. I’m adapting though. There are elections, but only one political party. That’s okay, but not if there is only one person to vote for (I don’t know if that would ever happen)! Anyway, I don’t know when we’re going to get a new president (or dictator). I hope that our Muslim tradition will be restored. My parents will be happy if that happens.
Write soon,
Omyia

Imagine this, you’re in an exhibition hall in Poland and there is snow on the roof. Suddenly, because of the weight of 1 foot of snow, the roof collapses and you’re buried under metal and snow. Well, that is exactly what happened to about 500 people on Saturday in Katowice, Poland. Somewhere around 160 people are injured and 62 are confirmed dead. Of the 59 corpses that have been identified, 7 were foreigners. A search for bodies using dogs trained to find corpses failed and officials have basically given up hope for finding more survivors. A new law is being discussed that will compel large building owners to remove ice and snow from their roofs. Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewica states that “The changes in the law will be based on raising penalties, including the closure of buildings whose roofs are not cleared of ice or snow.” I think that the new law should go thorough in order to keep people safe. Don’t you?

For more information, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5581549,00.html

If I could go anywhere in the world,where would I go? I would probably go to Alaska. I would like to see what the terrian is like, and experience the cold weather. I’ve also always wanted to study wolves up close and personal. Plus, seeing the northern lights would be a blast. They would be so beautiful, both the wolves and the northern lights.