A Blog Post Link

This post from "A Year of Reading" (which is listed on my Delicious Account), is one example of a post I think Richardson would approve of. Here is the link if you would like it to refer to for the Blog Assignment


http://readingyear.blogspot.com/2009/09/celebrating-teaching-day-one-its-not.html

Planes: Not very silent and no clear solution

I did more reading on my inquiry topic this week. My first and key text was the sky. Plane after plane fly over the neighborhood, always in the same direction although at different distances. I read more about the issue at this link: http://airtrafficparkslope.org/. From what it says at that website, it must be planes that are heading for Laguardia. I learned from the site that there used to be a rule that limited plane density - the High Density Rule (HDR). The site says since it expired in 2007, the problem has gotten worse:




they relaxed previous restrictions and allowed the airline industry to increase the number of operations into all 3 airports. As a result of this decision, operations went thru the roof with airlines adding substantial number of flights into an already overburdened system. This is precisely the time period when we started to notice the major shift in air traffic over Kings county."

I want to check these facts as I know very well you can't believe everything you find at a website. They say the FAA says people in Brooklyn Kings County are wrong, that nothing has changed and that we're just being over-sensitive. I know this might be true but if it did change in 2007, that would explain why I lived here for so many years and never really noticed before the constant flights.



Some questions this raises for me are:

1) what is the air pollution effect of so many airplanes. I checked one website and it said that the issue of air pollution is more for overall global warming because of the height that planes fly - I need to do more research on this;



2) has there really been a change and who else has been affected by it. There's a really interesting website: http://www4.passur.com/lga.html It shows you plane flights in and out of Laguardia in real time (it changes as you watch). In five minutes, I saw 3 flights cross over the general area of my neighborhood.

Inquiring about Planes in Brooklyn

I spent this weekend working on the two exploration assignments. I was in the city a lot so I took a lot of pictures of environmental print. There were so many choices I finally had to restrain myself. You can see a sample of what I did on the right side of the blog in the mosaic. I could have gone on for a lot longer

I also spent way too much time documenting the block I live on. I've lived here for 16 years but you would think I'd never seen it before. I had about 50 little pictures of every building on the block and it took me a long time to put together because I never pay attention to them. It was fun though and it made me realize how much I do not know about this block I walk on every day!  I should pay more attention to this part of the world!!

Inspired by my recognition of that silence and mystery, I thought about researching the history of this block. I have always wondered when it was built and who it was built for.  I still wonder that. But I was often distracted from this contemplation by the unbelievable number of planes that kept roaring over the neighborhood all weekend long. 

When I was out running on Sunday, there was a plane that flew so low it felt like I could touch it. Of course, the closer it is, the louder it is but it was also stunning that a plane was allowed to fly that low.  My running partner pointed out that more planes can fly if they are flying at different heights. So when planes fly low, other planes can fly high and both can be on track to land or take off at our overbooked airports.

I had never thought of that. I began to wonder: who makes those decisions? Who has to ok it? Who do they not ask?  What is the effect on air pollution (not to mention noise pollution?), what do the neighborhoods that are affected do? So, in the end I am pretty sure that airplanes in Brooklyn is the topic I'll focus on and I'll begin with some of these questions....

What topics or questions are you planning to do?  Let me know in a comment to this blog.

The First Week of School

What colors represent

Mystery

Silence

Solutions

Creativity