Connection Between Water and Land pollution!

What is Water and Land Pollution? Water Pollution is the contamination of streams, lakes, underground water, bays, or oceans by substances harmful to living things. Water is one of the most essential things that pertain to life for all living things. Impure water kills plants and animals. It also causes humans to fall sick and acquire other illnesses like child-birth defects and cancer. Land pollution is similar to that of water. It is the contamination of land with hazardous waste like garbage and other waste materials that don’t belong to the land. These are consumed by plants and animals and then when the next consumer feeds on either the plant or the animal, it plies up and contaminates the body.

FERTILIZERS As the human population grows, more and more planting must be done to sustain them. As a result of these measures have been taken by agriculturalists to maximize the production of foodstuffs. To make sure that they don’t waste their time after they have planted the now produce, they spray them with chemicals to keep rodents away from the crops. They either use pesticides or insecticides to kill and deter weeds, fungi, and rodents. When these chemicals are sprayed on the crops, it sinks into them and the plants grow absorbing them and then when we eat them, we have the chance of falling ill or getting all kinds of illnesses like cancer and birth defects. Some of these pesticides also move through the air and then and inhaled. Because pesticides and insecticides are made to resist rain and some rodents have developed a genetic resistance for these chemicals, farmers use more than they should and it stays in the atmosphere for a longer period of time. Some of these have brought about the devastation and other forms of pollution to the environment. When the topsoil is washed away, it sometimes gets into streams and rivers and causes dirt to get into our drinking water. GARBAGE In some urban areas, they are experiencing a problem with the disposal of garbage and other kinds of waste that can be hazardous to their health such as some solvents (Lead sulfate) and other industrial waste that can get into our drinking streams. So, they dispose of their garbage and another waste where they think is appropriate for them and they get into the drinking streams and the soil, then into the body and they fall sick and some of them even die. Instead of doing this, they could recycle their waste and live in a healthier environment. HEAVY METALS Some heavy metals are copper, lead, mercury, and selenium. They get into water bodies and from industrial waste, car exhaust, mines and from the soil. Also, animals drink from these water bodies and then get contaminated and it gets passed on to us the end consumers. These metals are harmful to the body and when they pile up, contaminate the body and then become poisonous causing sickness or long-term health problems. Taking cadmium into account, it is derived from sewage sludge can be absorbed by crops and it can cause diarrhea and even over time liver and kidney problems. Lead, another poisonous metal, gets into our drinking water from the solder in the water systems and it causes mental retardation in children. HAZARDOUS WASTE These are waste chemicals that are either poisonous, capable of producing explosive or toxic gas, capable of corroding steel or flammable. These wastes always get into our water streams through improper dispose of waste by industries and other companies. In 1969 the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, was so polluted with hazardous wastes that it caught fire and burned.  Factories sometimes turn waterways into open sewers by dumping oils, toxic chemicals, and other harmful industrial wastes into them. In mining and oil-drilling operations, corrosive acid wastes are poured into the water. In recent years, municipal waste treatment plants have been built to contend with water contamination. Some towns, however, still foul streams by pouring raw sewage into them. Septic tanks and cesspools, used where sewers are not available, may also pollute the groundwater and adjacent streams, sometimes with disease-causing organisms. Even the purified effluent from sewage plants can cause water pollution if it contains high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus. Farm fertilizers in some regions fill groundwater with nitrates, making the water unfit to drink. Agricultural runoff containing dangerous pesticides and the oil, grime, and chemicals used to melt ice from city streets also pollute waterways.    PESTICIDES AND HERBICIDES Herbicides and pesticides is another major source of pollution. These are the chemicals, such as chlordane and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) used by the farmers to kill unwanted animals on their farms. The animals feed on the plants with the chemicals and then die. Other animals feed on the plants and live. Now, the ones that live get contaminated and then pass the chemicals that have got into their tissues and other parts of their bodies, on to the next consumer. After a time, these chemicals gather or get into our drinking sources, through rainfalls and erosion, and then the water is contaminated. Also, when the chemicals get into the rivers and other sources of life for animals that live in water, they consume the water and then they get contaminated with these chemicals. So then, any consumer who eats the fish also gets affected by the contaminated fish or whatever animal it is. Oxygen levels in the water may drop to such dangerously low levels that oxygen-dependent animals in the water, such as fish, die. This process of depleting oxygen to deadly levels is called eutrophication. Animals of the land that feed on the crops that have been sprayed with the chemicals also get contaminated and the end consumers, which are us human beings, get polluted and affected. These chemicals can cause birth defects and cancer when they get into the body. OIL SPILLS AND PETROLEUM PRODUCTS Oils spills are another form of water pollution. Ships that travel by oil and other products derived from oil that are used as fuels, lubricants, plastics, and other purposes, at times spill oil into the sea accidentally. On the French coast, in 1978, the tanker Amoco Cadiz and the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1992 got wrecked. This becomes a think layer on the surface of the water and then prevents oxygen from getting into the water and carbon dioxide from coming out. Because most petroleum products are poisonous, the fish get contaminated with chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Routine and deliberate discharges, when tanks are flushed out with seawater, also add a lot of oil to the oceans. Offshore oil platforms also produce spills: The second largest oil spill on record was in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979 when the Ixtoc1 well spilled 530 million liters (140 million gallons). The largest oil spill ever was the result of an act of war. During the Gulf War of 1991, Iraqi forces destroyed eight tankers and onshore terminals in Kuwait, releasing a record 910 million liters (240 million gallons). An oil spill has its worst effects when the oil slick encounters a shoreline. Oil in coastal waters kills tide pool life and harms birds and marine mammals by causing feathers and fur to lose their natural waterproof quality, which causes the animals to drown or die of cold. Additionally, these animals can become sick or poisoned when they swallow the oil while preening (grooming their feathers or fur).                                                                           Water and land both are connected and easily can be polluted by each other. Both have the chemistry to pollute the environment. Actually, both are parts of environmental pollution.

Webquest

 A WebQuest is a simple, powerful learning method and an inquiry-based learning tool in which learner works with the information drawn from the web. According to the developer of WebQuest Dr. Bernie Dodge of San Diego State University, it is simply teaching on the web. But in longer definition he said, it is a constructivist lesson format that wrapped around a double interacting task. He also said that to create this lesson most material comes from the web, resources are pre-selected and often involves student taking on roles with higher level thinking.

                                                          Image: Web Quest's page

     The idea of creating WebQuest came in 1995 in Dr. Bernie Dodge and Tom March when they worked for pre-service teachers. It requires a student to go beyond the simple fact-finding. It is a powerful teaching method and a way to increase collaboration and critical thinking skills. The objectives of making WebQuest are-

1.      To help teachers integrate computer technology into curriculum learning areas.

2.       To encourage the student to achieve their best ability.

3.      Infer generalizations based on readings.

4.      Intellectual the general theme of a given unit of information.

5.      Identify, eloquent, explain and assess, or make counter arguments for a given idea.

There are two levels of WebQuest, they are:

1.      Short term WebQuest: It is designing for two or three class session. Here the goal is knowledge acquisition and integration.

2.      Long term WebQuest: Typically design for a couple of weeks where after completing the Quest the learners expected to have analyzed a concept deeply, change it in some way and established an understanding of the materials by constructing something that others can retort to, both on and off-line service.

There are five basic components of a WebQuest. They are:

1.    Introduction: In this section, the developer of the lesson sets the stage for the activity and try to catch the reader’s attention to draw him/her into the quest and also provides background information.

2.      Task: In this part, the lesson developer states what the students will be required to do and gives detail what products will be expected and the tools that are to be used to produce them.

3.  Process: In this part, learners are given step by step description or brief to how they will accomplish the task to learn something. In this part, the teacher or developer can give some links of websites to further explore that topic to help the learners. The developer can separate the resource part in other section.

4.  Evaluation: In this component, the teacher or developer displays a rubric to measure the product as objectively as possible and leave a little space for question and feedback. It makes teachers expectation clear to the students.

5.      Conclusion: In the last component, user summarizes the experience, allows demonstration about the process. Give ideas for thought as to where they can go with the information they have learned, using it in another situation.

     The design of WebQuest is helpful in locating items quickly, the relationship between screen activities and paper-based activities is clear and well organized. It is easy to learn how to direct so that the learner concentrate on learning. The learner can look back on to check and correct. There is a Web Quest maker named zunal.com by which the teacher can make his/her own web-based quest only by registration that is completely free and easy to use. 

Image: web page of zunal.com 

User-friendliness: 

It is an easy going user-friendly and useful application. It lets the teacher attach unlimited files and videos taken from YouTube and Google and also lets to share it via email, Facebook or Twitter. We can search and view Webquests as a guest and we can register for a free account. There are lots of Webquests already created and categorized by subject on this website. We can search easily a Webquest selecting the content area and grade level. Teachers can share other’s Webquest if the content is appropriate for his or her students because each of the quests has a public URL.

The WebQuest tool creates motivation because it creates interest to work more than traditional reading and note-taking. Without an instructor, the learner can use it and learn something. The links of websites on contents, videos, images, graphs, documentation provided by the developer help the learners to explore and know more information, think critically, analyze, evaluate and enhance their knowledge. The tutor feedback also creates interest for the learners.

Interaction: 

This tool is interactive because learners can interact with different sites on the internet. Beside this, proper guidelines and feedback also works as the interaction between the learner and the developer or teacher. WebQuest provides beginners with a structure to their learning that allows them to perform more skilled than they really are because here, they can see how experts go about their work. It allows students to produce their own work with the help needed from their teachers to succeed in these attempts. Teachers give them a specific task along with the link available on the internet that will help students acquire knowledge. Teachers guide students’ thoughts that develop students’ critical thinking. Its aim is to help students to acquire and transform knowledge using constructivist learning and high-level critical thinking in the classroom. Learners navigate the internet with a clear task in mind retrieves data from multiple resources and use them to produce a final product following the guidelines of teachers through a process and that is called scaffolding. Scaffolding positively affects student achievement positively. 

Scaffolding creates a temporary framework to support student performance beyond their capacities while completing a Webquest. Teachers can add file, images, and slides and can attach video link or textual link list that basically are the list of resources mainly from the Internet for learners to find relevant information for the completion of the assigned task.

Learning Outcome: 

The learning outcomes of WebQuest are many for learners. Learners feel that they have used their imagination and skills to explore something which increases their confidence level in education. Communication, group work, problem-solving ability, critical thinking are very important in today’s world and WebQuest is that way by which the learners work and understand these aspects. Exploring more links advance learners fill up their interest to get more knowledge by using this tool. On the other side, the learners who need special care get the opportunity to work with a guideline and they also feel that they are in a group. This project engenders a reality rather than fantasy. The most important thing is learners are motivated to learn and explore through technology which is necessary for this technologically based world.

Limitation: 

WebQuests are only one tool in a teacher's toolboxes. They are not appropriate for every learning goal. Despite the success of the WebQuest, there are a number of limitations.

 In particular, they are weak in teaching factual total recall, simple procedures, and definitions.

WebQuests also usually require good reading skills, so are not appropriate to the youngest classrooms or to students with language and reading difficulties without accommodations. One might ask an adult to assist with the reading or use screen-reading technologies. The other limitations are:

1.      Some learners have inadequate technological skill or knowledge. So, more time is needed to familiarize the learners especially the school learners with the concept and using systems of this tool.

2.      Though it is a formative activity, some of the learners cannot do it properly without tutor or classmates existence when the project has given to finish at home.

3.      Sometimes the links have provided in WebQuest do not work because of not updating the web page by the developer or some technical problem. So, the guidelines of the teacher connected to the web links do not work and the learners fall in a problem to finish their task.

4.      To create a high-quality WebQuest, teachers have to know the element of good Web Quest and also they have to have specific technological skills.

5.      Most of the WebQuests do not show the proper model of it and merely a worksheet with only URLs because there is no standard set for presenting a good WebQuest.

     The suggestion for the developer is to research on effect on WebQuest learners and teachers or makers who use it as a curriculum and set a standard format that will be easier both teachers and learners to make a good WebQuest. The knowledge for the proper implementation of WebQuest must be developed.

     WebQuest generates an interesting way for learners to overcome real problems in a focused way. In this age of technology, teachers should encourage learners to use this tool with proper and comprehensive guidelines.

VOA

Voice of America (VOA) is a U.S. government-funded international radio broadcast source. It serves Learning English materials through the multimedia source of news and information for millions of English learners worldwide. Similarly, BBC learning English is a part of BBC world service that offers free audio, video and text materials to English language learners and teachers around the world. Both of these websites aim to provide learning materials to international learners and teachers. As their goals are quite similar, they adopted many similar features to teach English. But they also have different features that show their own uniqueness in their teaching methods.

However, after exploring both of these platforms, I have found some similarities between VOA learning English and BBC learning English websites. They are-

Aim: Both of the websites’ aim is to provide materials for learning English. They provided videos, audios, written documents, news articles to make English learning easier.

Transcript: VOA learning English website and BBC learning English website provide transcripts of the videos.

VOA learning English not only gives transcripts after every video, but it also adds subtitles in the video.

Radio station: Both the websites have a radio station and the learners can listen to the audio clips on current issues.

Test and quiz: Both VOA and BBC learning English take a small test/quiz on the content of the videos to ensure learners’ productivity. VOA provides quizzes with almost every video.

 But the BBC provides quizzes only with the lessons. 

Representing own culture: VOA learning English website represents U.S culture. It provides mostly American news, history, the documentary on American parks and important places. It also has a section for the US constitution and people of America. 

Similarly, BBC learning English gives preference to U.K culture. 

The topics and contexts of the videos and articles mostly refer to British manners and etiquette.

Sign up option: Both of the websites have signup options. In VOA one can sign up easily by giving their email address so that he/she can get newsletters from them.                                                

                                                                                                                 

Similarly, in BBC learning English a user can register by providing their email address, age, country, etc. they keep the track of a user’s age to notify them with appropriate content.

Comment option: It is easy to sign up, but both of the websites do not have the comment option for the users. In VOA the users can only news articles.

But the BBC has an option where the users can send feedbacks by contacting them.

Pronunciation: Both of the websites teaches pronunciation through videos. VOA teaches American pronunciation whereas BBC focuses on U.K pronunciation.

But in VOA they give extra emphasis on pronunciation by adding ‘speaking practice’ segment where the learners would be taught pronunciations of the same vocabularies of the lessons. But both VOA and BBC learning English platform does not have any voice recording option. In VOA, they ask to record in the learners' own device to compare their own pronunciation with the given one.

News words: VOA and BBC learning English provide news articles for the learners in a way so that the learners can learn difficult words along with the news. VOA only provides those vocabularies with the transcription. They have a different section named ‘news words’ which only focuses on a new trending word from the news and teach the word by explaining its meaning.

But in BBC learning English they teach difficult vocabularies at the beginning of the videos and throughout the videos, they highlight those words so that the learners can easily learn and reflect on what they are learning.

Receptive skills: VOA and BBC learning English emphasize on receptive skills. Most of their learning materials are based on listening and reading skills. As the component of the courses are standalone and can be studied on their own, it cannot moderate a learner's productive skills neither do they aim to do it.

Grammar: grammar is an essential part of learning any language. So VOA and BBC give special care to grammar by teaching structures and confusing grammatical items through videos.

In VOA they have ‘English in A minute’ and ‘Everyday grammar tv’ along with their courses to teach grammar.

Similarly, BBC learning English has ‘6 minute English’ which is an additional section along with their courses to teach grammar.

Introducing new words: Both of these learning websites introduce new words to the learners.

Access to the content: VOA and BBC learning English give free access to their contents to almost everyone. The learners can download the audio, video clips, pdf file of the transcripts from the direct links. 

I have found some dissimilarity between VOA learning English service and BBC learning service-Targeted learner: VOA learning English’s programs are designed for beginning English learners whereas in BBC learning English the targeted learners are not only the beginner level of English learners.

Courses: In VOA the courses are designed for beginner level learners and the courses are divided into four stages.

But in BBC learning English service has organized courses starting from lower intermediate courses to towards advanced courses.

Learners’ need: In VOA I did not find the courses organized according to the learners need. Though the courses are categorized as level-1 or level-2, these levels do not provide any clear direction for the learners’ to start their learning following their needs and levels.

But in the BBC learning English website, the courses are well organized and the learners can easily understand which course is suitable for them.

Strategies for teachers: In VOA there is a separate section for teachers to teach them new strategies for their teaching.

Sitemap: BBC learning English provides a course sitemap for the learners to give them a clear idea about what they are going to learn.

‘LingoHack’ and ‘News Words’: ‘LingoHack’ and ‘news words’ are two different sections of VOA and BBC learning that focuses on the words of the news. But their features are different and though they are created for the same purpose, they do not function similarly. In VOA ‘news words’ section contains videos that only show the single word in every video and the length of every video is near to one minute.

But in BBC learning English ‘LingoHack’ section contains videos that focus on a particular news item and explains every difficult word of that news. The length of those videos is longer and they are near three minutes long. LingoHack not only focuses on words and phrases, but they also provide interesting information to the learners.

Latest English words: language reforms with time and many new terms and words are included in the dictionary. BBC learning English not only provides existing terms and words to its users, but they also introduce the learners with the latest words and terms through the section ‘the English We Speak’.

But in VOA learning English, there is no feature similar to it.

Wordbook: VOA learning English has a word book for its users and anyone can download this book. It has some frequently used words that can help the learners to learn English easily.

Games: BBC learning English has a games section for its users which makes learning fun and keeps the learners glued with the website.

Literature: BBC learning has a different section to introduce learners with its roots. It teaches words and phrases with famous literary works through dramas. It also has a section ‘Shakespeare speaks’ to teach popular English phrases and expression coined by William Shakespeare.

English @ the movies: This special section is created by VOA learning English to learn through American movies. It contains frequently used phrases and words and teaches through movie clips which are quite fun to learn.

VOA Learning English and BBC learning English are amazing platforms for English language learners who want to learn English on their own. Their videos, audios, games, and articles make learning easier for the students around the world and helped the learners not only to learn the English language but also familiarized everyone with their culture.