EVELYN OKAFOR'S WEB PAGE.

My first web page in life. I hope it opens a whole new world for me. Good luck to me!!!
These are some of the topics that really caught my interest.

• Living sustainable is managing the economy and population size without exceeding all or part of the earth 's ability to absorb environmental impacts, replenish its resources, and sustain all forms of life over hundreds to thousands of years.
• Global warming: Warming of the earth's atmosphere as a result of increases in the concentrations of one or more green house gases like CO2, water vapor, ozone, methane and other green house gases.
• Greenhouse effect: the trapping of heat in the atmosphere. Incoming solar radiation penetrates the atmosphere, but outgoing radiation [heat] is absorbed by water vapor, CO2, ozone, CH4, CFCs. This radiates heat into the earth causing a rise in temperature.
• Sources of air pollution: Air pollution is the presence of chemicals in the atmosphere in quantities and duration that cause harm to any form of life and materials. Pollution could be caused by natural events like dust storms, volcanic eruptions and decomposition and human activities like emissions from cars and industries.
• According to Albert Einstein ''A clever person solves a problem, a wise person avoids it.'' There is no ''away'' for the wastes we produce, dilution is not the solution to most pollution, the best and cheapest way to deal with waste and pollution is to produce less of it and then reuse and recycle most of the materials we use.
• Systems in science: A system is a set of components that function in some regular and predictable manner. It consists of parts that fit together to make a whole, and a function. Examples are circulatory system [heart, arteries, veins, capillaries, and blood]. The earth consists of an incredible number of iterating systems.
• Scientific models: Are approximate representations or simulations of real systems to help find out how things work. There are many kinds of models people use: mental models, conceptual models, graphic models, physical models, and mathematical models. Models are also used to predict new behavior by applying a variety of alternative conditions.
• Feedback loop: When one change leads to some other change which reinforces or slows the original change. The loops can either be positive or negative. Positive is when a change in certain direction causes a system to change further in the same direction. Negative is one change leads to lessening of that change.
• Evolution: The evolution of life is linked to the physical and chemical evolution of the earth. Life on earth evolved in two phases over the past 4.7-4.8 billion years: chemical evolution of the organic molecules and biological evolution of single celled and multi-celled organisms. Trying to piece together what happened on earth billions of years ago is incredibly difficult. Here is an overview of how scientists believe life may have formed and evolved on the earth. Cloud of cosmic dust condensed into the planet earth, volcanic eruptions and comets hitting the lifeless earth pierced its thin crust releasing water vapor and other gases. The crust cooled for water vapor to condense and fall as rain. A primitive atmosphere was formed and composition not known but scientists agree it has no oxygen gas. Energy was available for the synthesis of biologically important molecules. Over time protocells evolved into singled celled bacteria like prokaryotes we describe as life.
• Extinction: Why preserve species? --because of the economic, medical, scientific, ecological, aesthetic, and recreational values of all species. Protecting wild life habitats throughout the world, and restoring species that we have decimated are emergencies to which we should respond now. The causes of endangerment and extinction of species are loss of habitat and degradation, commercial hunting and poaching, overfishing, and other human activities.
• Alternative sources of energy and Fuel cells: When oil is gone the fuel of the future is hydrogen. It contains no carbon dioxide instead when it burns it combines with oxygen gas in the air and produces nonpolluting water vapor and some nitrogen oxides thus eliminating most of the air pollution we have today.
• Just for my personal interest I would like to quote a great scientist Albert Einstein "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

I like the system approach because it looks at interrelationship of things to each other.

The greatest thing that ever happened to me was coming on this summer institute. It has opened a new world for me. I am a high school chemistry teacher at Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles but l am now contemplating on teaching ES when l get back. The issues of global warming, species going into extinction, protecting our environment, biodiversity to mention a few should be every body's concern. l strongly believe in sustainability principle that says "We should try to understand and work with the rest of nature to sustain the ecological integrity, biodiversity, and adaptability of earth' s life support systems for us and other species."
I am equally a mother of four, and the best thing l love in life is teaching my children. It gives me a great pleasure when my children excel in school. Such occassions, though quite common kept me on top of the world. Children are the greatest source of joy and l wish everybody gets to experience this joy.

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