Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon National Park encompasses canyons, river tributaries, and surrounding grounds The Grand Canyon is situated in Arizona's northwestern quadrant. Americans never really explored the park until the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In 1875 the gov’t sent an expedition led by Lieutenant Joseph Ives to explore the Colorado river. 1893 president Benjamin Harrison created the Grand Canyon National Forest Reserve. There are artifacts of people living there in the past. 11 native american tribes were moved out into reservations in 1800s. Native Americans are trying to stop a project that creates a gondola from the top of the canyon to the bottom. Natives are not happy about this because this is their land and we are taking it away from them. Theodore Roosevelt declared the Grand Canyon a National Monument in 1908. In 1919 President Woodrow Wilson signed the Grand Canyon into law making it the 17th national park of the U.S. The park holds an abundant amount of animals. These include bison, squirrels, deer, mountain lions, bats, bighorn sheep, elk, and skunks. There are many things to do at the park. There are many tours and helicopter rides. You can also go on rafts!

The Mobro 4000

The Most Watched Load of Garbage in the Memory of Man

In the spring of 1987, a barge called the Mobro 4000 was carrying over three thousand tons of trash around the East Coast of the US. It covered about six thousand miles, and it became one of the biggest garbage sagas in modern history.
There was an excess of trash in New York City that needed to go to any available landfill. Salvatore Avellino, a known mob boss of Long-Island's trash hauling, bought the trash and decided to transport it to a landfill in North Carolina. He was willing to bury it on a local landfill and make energy out of it by capturing the methane gas liberated by the trash. However, photographers took pictures of bedpans and other medical waste mixed with the normal trash. That drove state regulators from North Carolina crazy. It was suspected that Avellino let gang members throw medical waste in that trash. After the word got spread out, no community was willing to take it, even though there was enough space for the tremendous amount of trash that the "gar-barge" was carrying.  

The barge started its journey in New York City. It stopped in states such as New Jersey, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It also past through the Gulf of Mexico, and it went as South as Belize. Every time it docked, people would see the big amount of trash on the barge, so the news and the TV were all over it. After Avellino's company got bankrupted, the Mobro was abandoned. It came back to New York City, where it got incinerated and buried. The Mobro 4000 saga, drove an important concern over the amount of trash that the country was producing. Environmentalists and other people that worried about it initiated recycling movements in a lot of places, especially in New York City, where all the trash that the barge carried over came from. 

Yosemite National Park

 The Yosemite National Park is located in Western Sierra Nevada of Central California. The park is located in four counties; centered in the Tuolumne County and Mariposa county and it extends to the north and east of Mono County and the south of Madera County. The park covers an area of 747,956 acres of land. It was designated a World Heritage Site in 1984 by UNESCO.
         Going back to the 1800s, Galen Clark and Commissioner John Conness decided to protect the Yosemite Valley from development, which ultimately led to President Abraham Lincoln signing the Yosemite Grant to preserve the valley in 1864. But that didn't keep the people away because of the homestead act that was in place and made the Americans able to acquire government land and public domains. In 1872, the U.S supreme court invalidated the homestead act but Galen and John had been expelled from the community by the people for trying to take the Yosemite Valley away from them. Then moving forward John Muir decided to give the park a shot and he started by successfully getting Congress to establish a larger national park. Then during the time of President Theodore Rosevelt, John went camping with the President to the Yosemite Valley and when they returned that persuaded the President to return the Yosemite Valley to federal protection as part of Yosemite National Park.
           Today Yosemite National Park is visited by an average of 4 million people a year and it is recognized for its waterfalls, clear streams, lakes, mountains, meadows, glaciers, El Capitan, the half dome and so many other beautiful cultural, historical and scientific significance. The park a[so supports plant life and up to 400 animal species.

The Donora Smog

The Donora Smog (1948) was a tragic event that occurred in Donora, Pennsylvania. Donora is known for being an industrial town as it had many factories and zinc mills. However, when the smoke was released from these factories it remained in the town. This was because a layer of cold air had settled over the town and did not allow the smoke to exit into the atmosphere. This cause the smoke to build up in the town and created a problem. Within 12 hours, 20 people died and half of the population (7,000 people) were left with long term lung problems. 

After 5 days, the smog finally managed to clear up from the rain that cleaned the air. This tragedy is the most catastrophic air pollution-related event in U.S history. As a result, in 1963, the government decided to pass "The Clean Air Act." Today, Donora is a town with now only about 4,000 people. In remembrance of the tragedy, there has also been a museum created. 

Bryce Canyon National Park

Bryce Canyon National Park

                 On June 7, 1924, Congress passed a bill to establish Utah National Park. When all land within the national monument would become the property of the United States. The land was acquired and the name was restored to Bryce Canyon. On February 25, 1928, Bryce Canyon officially became a national park. The park today is is famous for its beautiful rock spires called "hoodoos" (horseshoe-shaped amphitheatres carved from the eastern edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau), scenic vistas, and the dark night sky. Rocky Mountain elk is one of the most beautiful animals you can  expect to see at Bryce Canyon. The Rocky Mountain elk is a subspecies of elk found in the Rocky Mountains and adjacent ranges of Western North America.

US Radium Corp

The US Radium Corp is a radium processing plant located in Orange, New Jersey.

The US Radium Corp was known for making luminescent paint and watches.

This project was watched over two men Dr. Sabin Arnold von Sochocky and Dr. George S.Willis.

This plant was big during WWI because the demand for watches was high.

Within the watches the numbers where drawn on with radium paint.

The plant hired many women to work on the watches but after awhile the girls were getting sick and dying.

The two doctors found out that it was the radium that were getting the women sick.

The illnesses ranged from a coma to radium jaw.

Radium jaw is when radium is literally eroding the bones in your body.

After a while the Corp had to shut down because there was a lack of workers.

After years of cleaning of the site, the city of Orange made the corp into a park for kids to play and relax.

Rachel Carson

Rachel Carson was born in May 27, 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania. She grew up in a farm and was a lover of nature and wildlife, leading her to invest in a career related to environmental science. Carson graduated from the Pennsylvania College for Women, then earned her MA in zoology in John Hopkins University.

Rachel Carson became a very successful scientist, writer and ecologist. She worked as a marine scientist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, DC, primarily as a writer and editor. After spending some years working as a scientist, she started to focus her time on writing. Some of her most famous works are: Under the Sea-Wind, The Sea Around Us, The Edge of the Sea ,and, one of science's most famous book, Silent Spring.

Silent Spring was written on 1962, and its mission was to warn people about the danger of misuse of chemical pesticides. Throughout the book, Carson asks hard questions like: "Does humans have the right to control nature?" and "Who should live and who should die?". Carson uses the word "biocides" instead of insecticides to describe the pesticides that are harmful not only the environment, but also human health. The cow that ate the infected plant eventually became human's food, affecting our body. Rachel Carson also talks about the direction of science nowadays, the book was written a long time ago, but she wrote about visions on how science would be today. Most of these "visions" are correct. Silent Spring led to a ban on DDT and other pesticides. Although the book brought multiple advantages to the society and human knowledge, Rachel Carson suffered some consequences after publishing the book. The way she thought was against the government and agricultural scientists, so they called an alarmist and said that her facts on pesticides were not accurate. Some years later, her ideas were proven right, leading to the ban of DDT.

Rachel Carson died of breast cancer in 1964. She left behind an enormous legacy. Carson inspired many environmental movements that began in the 1960s and still happen nowadays. The United States Environmental Protection Agency passed numerous laws that protects human health and the environment, after her book Silent Spring. But most importantly, several generations have grown up embracing Carson's ideals of ecological awareness, environmental protection, and conservation.

Charles Young

Charles Young was born into slavery in Kentucky on March 12, 1864. His father escaped bondage to join the Union Army during the Civil War, and Young later followed in his father's military footsteps, attending the United States Military Academy. Young was only the third African-American to graduate from West Point when he earned his degree in 1889. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Ninth Cavalry, the famed Buffalo Soldiers, in Nebraska. In 1901, Young was promoted to the rank of captain (the first black officer in the regular army to receive that rank) and led his troops with distinction in the Philippines.

In 1903, Captain Young and his men were stationed at the Presidio in San Francisco. They were sent to Sequoia and General Grant National Parks as part of the army's role at the time of protecting national parks, an acting superintendent, making him the first African-American to be put in charge of a national park.

Under Acting Superintendent Young's leadership, the Buffalo Soldiers kept the park free from poachers, and from the ranchers whose grazing sheep destroyed the parks' natural habitats. The soldiers also completed the first wagon road into the Giant Forest of Sequoia, a feat no superintendent before Young had been able to accomplish.

Later, Young was dispatched to Haiti as the United States' military attachè, sent again to the Philippines, then to Republic of Liberia. During the "punitive expedition" in pursuit of Pancho Villa, Young was put in command of troops from the Tenth Cavalry and promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He would eventually become a full colonel, although – to his bitter disappointment – he was not permitted to serve in the field during World War I.

Charles Young died in 1922 during a visit to Nigeria; ultimately, his remains were buried in Arlington Cemetery.

Glacier National Park

In the early 1890s, Glacier National Park was discovered by George Bird Grinnell on a hiking trip with his wife. While they were there, President Taft, 27th president of the United States, acknowledged that Glacier National Park was going to be a tourist destination. This was called the "Crown of Continent," due to the fact that the water from the waterfalls travel from the Gulf of Mexico to the Hudson Bay and also to the Pacific Ocean. This was the first "Peace Park" after a treaty that was to make peace with the Canadians and the New Yorkers. After World War II, the lodges and the hotels were destroyed and now is an International site.

Exxon Valdez Oil Spill

On March 23rd 1989, the Exxon Valdez left from Alaska with the intention to carry 53 million gallons of crude oil. The captain, Joseph Hazlewood was under the influence of alcohol, and allowed an unlicensed friend steer the ship. The boat hit Bligh Reef, which was understood to be a navigation hazard in the Prince William Sound. The impact caused 11 million gallons of crude oil to spill in the water, spreading over 1,300 miles. Hundreds of thousands of animals died, and thousands more were affected by the spill. Even after cleanup, oil was still present and affected the lives of these animals. This oil spill was also responsible for the decline of salmon and herring fish. Fishing is what kept small shoreline towns, striving, and after this incident they suffered economically. In 1990 Congress Passed the Oil Pollution Act which was put in place to prevent incidents like this. In order for shipping companies to travel with large amounts of oil, they must prevent a detailed containment and cleanup plan in case of an emergency.