The Independent Center for Integrative Education: Learning without Limits

11/23/2010

Our second class was devoted to choosing a project for further work. The class started on time but ended earlier because we forgot to take a break in the middle. Thank you all for excellent presentations and defense of your projects.

Dan argued that the BFs are real, he saw them with his own eyes somewhere in Massachusetts, so the project looks quite realistic. If successful, it will open for us a whole new world of potentially sapient species. The technology we will need to develop - special cameras, sensors,  tracking devices - will be invaluable for furthering our hunt for new species and possibly other purposes. The project is multi-disciplinary by its nature, it will require excursions into technology, geography, forest biology, potentially - ethnography and sociology, group psychology, and more. The project would provide Dan with a chance to prove to others what he knew for a long time: that BF is real. Dan kindly provided us with excellent drawings of BF individually and surrounded by a family.

Caoilin envisioned a colony on the Moon, which would pave a way to move part of the population from the overcrowded Earth and provide the colonists with the resources that we are running out of on Earth. By planning and building the colony, we will have to learn a lot about the Moon, as well as how various things are made such as clothes,furniture, etc. She suggested we will need to employ genetic engineering to create plants and animals suitable to the Moon’s conditions. We will need to use astronomy and other sciences to survive and prosper. Caoilin also noted that she likes another idea, about the underwater colony. It is similar to the colony on the Moon in many respects: the lack of oxygen defines similar life support issues, we will need to come up with special vehicles and living quarters, the colony will have limited ability to move people and cargo to and from other countries, etc. Eventually, Caoilin said that even thought she likes her idea about the Moon, she would rather support the underwater colony project.

Eugene proposed to build a colony deep under water, so that even in the case of a global catastrophe, such as nuclear war, global warming, collision with a comet, or the end of the world forecasted by some to happen in 2012 due to the planets lining up, the colony will survive. Such a colony will provide many other benefits and opportunities. For example, at the depth of 10-12 km, the Earth’s oceanic crust would be thin enough to drill through to the mantle (see, for example, http://geology.com/nsta/earth-internal-structure.shtml). The colonists will also be able to study how life can survive without sunlight. We will need to use various sciences and technologies, including architecture, materials science, medical sciences, communication, computers, psychology (to avoid conflicts living closely together) -- virtually any science and technology. For financing, Eugene suggested to use the colony as an attraction for rich tourists, with a luxurious hotel and deep water excursions.

Emma’s project was probably the most pragmatic and even urgent. She agitated for building an ecologically clean energy source. According to Emma, currently, energy comes mainly from burning gas, coal, and oil. This leads to pollution, global warming and related catastrophic events. To design such a technology, we will need to use physics, chemistry, biology, ecology, and more. Emma always wanted to understand the process of coming up with new things from scratch.

Akiva noticed that as none of our projects can actually be fulfilled for lack of time and resources, we may as well consider something that apparently cannot be done, at least with the knowledge we possess today. He suggested to build a time machine and travel to the past, so that we could save JFK, stop WWI and altogether make the world a better place. We could find out how historical events really were, for example whether the dinosaurs actually existed. He believes that even if we won’t find a way to actually design the machine, we will need a lot of math, physics, biology, etc. to understand how it works or why it does not. We will also have a unique opportunity to learn history. Getting ahead of myself, I will note that this project almost won the vote.

Adina’s presentation was the longest and highly founded on “research.” She suggested to build a colony under water. In contrast with Eugene’s deep water project, she suggested to build a colony in proximity of the surface where many people can live off sea products. A motivation for such a project is the looming overpopulation of Earth: according to Adina, in mere hundred thousand years, there will be just a few square feet per person left. At the same time, water constitutes over 2/3 of the Earth’s surface and can accommodate billions of people. Of course, we will only build one colony, but that could be a head start for mass underwater living. Side effects of such a project would be a boom in oceanology, and we will learn more about fish and mermaids. The project is intrinsically multi-disciplinary. We will need to use oceanography, geology, and political science just to choose the right place for the colony; materials science, architecture and physics to build the facilities and discover energy sources, such as underwater currents or geothermal heat; marine biology for food; chemistry, medicine, biochemistry and mass production of goods to avoid dependency on the outside world (or humans, as Adina nicely put it). We will need psychology because we will live in an extreme environment and experience much stress; sociology and economy to develop a perfect society; marketing to raise funds; archeology to dig out Atlantis, and much more. Personally, Adina was always fascinated by scuba diving since she tried it a year and a half ago, and wants to know how it is like to live under water and how new countries and governments are born.

Zach also suggested to build a colony. His location of choice would be another planet such as Mars or the Moon. This would require deep research about Mars (or the Moon) to know exactly the conditions in which we will have to survive; finding a way to get water, air, food, energy; what to do with garbage; what to do during spare time. We will need to design the suitable means of transportation, introduce new currency and build an economy from scratch, and learn more about what human body needs to survive and flourish. We may need to build a three-dimensional model of the colony, an idea that was met with much enthusiasm by everybody. In conclusion, Zach said that he considers Mars a more interesting destination but as the Moon is closer, it would be easier and less expensive to build the colony there.

John’s presentation was the shortest but no less informative. He is also a proponent of an underwater colony, and his presentation was short because much of what he was going to say was already covered by other people. His motivation for the project was based on the fact that only 29% of the planet’s surface is land, and therefore people should colonize the ocean. We will need some serious physics and materials engineering to deal with high water pressure, as well as biology and everything else other people had mentioned. Working on this project will give us an opportunity to learn about life and creatures “over there.”

After two rounds of voting, the underwater colony (we called it wide-water to distinguish it from Eugene’s deep-water project) won.

 

HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT:

1.      We need to choose a location for our underwater colony. Please make suggestions and prepare a short (up to 5 min) presentation to defend your case. Making your choices, you may use the following questions as guidelines:

●        How deep should the colony be located? Take into account the water pressure, temperature, oxygen amount, vegetation, presence of plankton, and other parameters important for our survival. Think about architecture, transportation, and other infrastructure.

●        How far from the continents should the colony be? You may consider political stability of different world regions, whether or not we want to be a part of a country (and build a colony in its territorial waters) or we want to be independent and find a location in international waters. In other words, are we going to be a separate state or an American territory?

●        How are we going to interact with the rest of the world? Shall we import things, or should we produce everything we need ourselves? Will there be anything we can export?

●        How are we going to connect to information networks,  such as the Internet, cable TV, phone, etc.?

●        Does the region you suggest provide a safe environment for the colony? Are there earthquakes? Would surface storms disturb our activities? Would marine life bother us?

●        Are we planning to travel to land and host guests from land?

 

2.      For our colony, we need national symbolics. Try to come up with the ideas for

●        the name

●        the flag

●        the anthem

●        the motto

●        the national emblem, or Great Seal

Please feel free to use all the available resources. You can talk to friends, parents, and teachers (including me, you can reach me at edu@fradkov.com), read books and magazines, watch YouTube or Discovery Channel videos, google around, etc. In your presentation, you may want to use visual aids and all other expressive means your creativity would suggest.