Denise+Farinha-Kippins

__**Restoration of Jamaica Bay by Reducing Nitrogenous Waste**__ The website states that $115 million will be spent to improve the overall water quality and restore marshlands in New York's Jamaica Bay after an agreement among the city, state, and environmental groups. The city will use $100 million for installing new nitrogen control technologies at four waste water treatment plants located on Jamaica Bay. The upgrades will help cut nitrogen discharges in half over the next 10 years. Mayor Michael Bloomberg was joined by Deputy Mayor for Operations Edward Skyler, City Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Cas Holloway, and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Pete Grannis, as well as City Council Environmental Protection Chair James Gennaro and Major Mike Clancy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Natural Resources Defence Council Executive Director Peter Lehner, Jamaica Bay Eco-Watchers President Dan Mundy, American Littoral Society North-east Chapter Director Don Riepe, and NY/NJ Baykeepers Executive Director Debbie Mans. "Jamaica Bay is one of the most bountiful wildlife habitats in the entire North-east," said Mayor Bloomberg. "I__t is important to the people who live in the area for its rich biodiversity, the recreation it offers, and the protection of the marshlands provide from flooding. This agreement is an outstanding example of government and citizens' groups working together to meet a major goal of our sweeping PlaNYC agenda: improving the quality of waterways around the city."__ As part of the agreement, the State will exempt the City from $45 million in potential penalties for construction delays in nitrogen __upgrades at two other waste water treatment plants and those dollars will be invested in future clean water projects. The City Department of Environmental Protection is now on track to complete all upgrades by 2017.__ Nitrogen discharges from the four sewage treatment plants are the biggest cause of the severe water quality problems in Jamaica Bay. The plants discharge nearly 40,000 pounds of nitrogen into the bay daily, which cause harmful algae blooms that frequently render portions of the bay unsafe to marine life and unusable for people. __New York government and environmentalists is working to clean up the crown jewel of the city's natural resources in areas such as Jamaica Queens. This preliminary agreement represents a true green solution. It involves not only working to revive a struggling ecosystem, but also restoring an invaluable green space for New Yorkers in our own backyards."__ Jamaica Bay is a 31-square-mile water body with a broader watershed of about 142 square miles. The crown jewel of the city's ecological resources, the bay encompasses more than 25,000 acres of water, marsh, meadowland, beaches, dunes and forests in Brooklyn and Queens, all accessible by subway. More than a half million New Yorkers live in the Jamaica Bay watershed/sewershed, and the bay is a popular fishing and boating area. More than a half million New Yorkers live in the Jamaica Bay watershed/sewer-shed, and the bay is a popular fishing and boating area.

The bay contains a federal wildlife refuge the size of 10 Central Parks, a portion of Gateway National Recreation Area, Bays water State Park and nearly a dozen city parks. Open water, salt marshes, grasslands, coastal woodlands, maritime shrub lands, and brackish and fresh water wetlands support 91 fish species, 325 species of birds, and many reptile, amphibian, and small mammal species. Jamaica Bay provides a nursery for the region's marine life, including valuable recreational fisheries like summer flounder, and a critical bird habitat area that is visited by nearly 20 percent of North America's bird species annually. It is also inhabited by endangered and threatened species - from sea turtles to peregrine falcons. __Jamaica Bay has experienced marshland loss due to many factors, including sea level rise, a loss of sediment and fresh water flows and reduced tidal activity from the extension of the Rockaway peninsula.__ The City's $15 million investment will be spent on salt-water marsh restoration projects in the interior of Jamaica Bay. "This ground breaking agreement demonstrates our long-term __commitment to improving water quality by investing in cutting-edge technology and ecological restoration of New York City's natural habitats," said Commissioner Holloway.__ "__This effort will drastically reduce the nitrogen discharges that are a natural by-product of the 1.3 billion gallons of waste water that New Yorkers produce every day.__ And that means more dissolved oxygen that fish and other aquatic life need to flourish," Holloway said. "This agreement is a model of what we can achieve when the City, State, NRDC and other environmental stakeholders work together to tackle complex problems."

Wiki websites can be used from as early as second grade to enhance inquiry base learning and environmental awareness in young minds. I would use this wiki in my 5th grade classroom to encourage student involvement in the New York government and environmentalists clean up activity (reducing nitrogenous waste in the Jamaica Bay area ).In order to encourage awareness and interest I will encourage active involvement in project, field trips, discussion with resource personnel, community base activities and internet research .Students will interact and research information on Wiki site in a controlled environment. This Wiki site will enhance research skills and provide world and environmental global awareness of human impact on ecology. Projects will build team spirit, clear up misconceptions, encourage effective learning and shared knowledge about what they discovered or learned. Field trips and active involvement will provide first hand information and real life experiences which are critical for developing awareness. Resource personnel from various organizations involved in the act of reducing nitrogenous waste will enhance motivation and provide informative information for students. I will use this Wiki websites to encourage reading and research. I will further offer explanations and define terms student came across on websites such as restoration eg restoration means to restore what is lost from the environment or to restore the environment to its healthy state so that it can sustain life. Terms will be listed on wall charts and students will become more familiar with them through the use of word Wall and vocabulary activities. Students will engage in project base activities such as collecting pictures form internet, news articles etc. to create poster boards and flyers for their group projects after which they will do group presentations on their research findings. I will have parent workshops and mini exhibitions in order to encourage parent awareness, involvement and education so they can assist me in getting students involve and aware of the impact of nitrogenous waste on the resources of their communities. If parents are aware they too can take students to other places on websites and in community for them to acquire knowledge and be involve in the fight against nitrogenous waste. Taking students for field trips to the park and zoos will help them to become aware of the importance of our wildlife resources that are being destroyed by nitrogenous and carbon-dioxide and other forms of poisonous waste than they learned in discussions before, during and after Wiki research. They will learn to appreciate our wild life resources and seek to preserve such. I will ask them questions based on field trips and resources personnel's discussions such as 'If the nitrogenous waste and other substances continues to destroy the environment would you be able to see animals in your environment and more so would you be able to survive? What would happen to the the fishes in Jamaica Bay?. Students will also be involved in other Community based activities such as planting potted plants, counting animals they see in a park or the zoo and recording them on charts in their field trip logs, identifying wildlife that they see on Wiki as well as on field trips and discussing what impact a decrease in the populations of such wild life by nitrogenous waste would have on their community eg reduce of certain species of birds, fishes and marches.(endanger or extinct) Comments on Jennie's wiki page


 * 1) [|__www.dec.__][|__**ny**__][|__.gov/chemical/8444.html__]
 * 2) nbii-nin.ciesin.columbia.edu/jamaicabay/int
 * 3) __[]__
 * 4) http://davidmquintana.blogspot.com/2010/06/