The United Kingdom the talk about giving every citizen an annual carbon ration is being discussed. The idea is to give everyone a “bank account” of credits that will be spent throughout the year while buying fuels or making certain purchases on items that could put out extra carbon dioxide.

If one were to spend too much of this account, they will be required to buy more credits. Those who used less like someone who uses their bicycle or walks primarily might receive a refund check for that carbon dioxide they didn’t not contribute to.

There are a few criticisms of the plan. First is that this will just add a layer of bureaucracy to the government. You will have to be balancing these credits and debits, giving out new cards when lost, doing extra paperwork, and costing the tax payers hours in trying to run the program. This is criticized because it is said that most people wouldn’t run through their allowance which makes one wonder the point of the program.

Another criticism is that those with money probably won’t change their habits. A private jet might take more carbon credits to run, but someone who is wealthy will still prefer the private jet for travel. It will be difficult to sway someone’s habits with this credit and debit system. Essentially those who do have habits that might produce more emissions like these will also have the money to cover an extra fees or taxes imposed on these specific activities.

A last criticism is that if someone is poor they could end up paying extra money for emissions that could otherwise be going towards food, clothing, education, and other expenses that someone needs to pay for.

Is something like this a little bit too Orwellian? Well to many it can look that way. Others have the opinion of cutting CO2 at any cost regardless of the results.

The New York Times (April 2008) reported on a study out of Ohio State University suggesting that using concrete, real world examples and manipulatives to teach math do not enable students to transfer their knowledge to new problems. They found that students who learn through examples do not do as well as those who learn only the abstract symbols.

There undoubtedly are some important “real world” lessons for us to reflect on in this study. Mere activity with manipulatives does not guarantee that learning will take place. Manipulative lessons are not an exception to the need for well designed and delivered instruction. Do we give proper attention to making the connection between manipulation and computation? Are students guided in making generalizations based on specific actions and observations involved in real world lessons? It is not automatic. It is not enough to simply present students with the abstract symbols after working with manipulatives as this article suggests was done. How many teachers are comfortable with teaching abstract formulas, but less skilled in designing and presenting lessons that draw effective learning from tangible objects?

While there is much to think about, there are also questions about the study itself. What about developmental readiness for abstract thinking? This study focused on college not elementary school students. What about multiple learning styles? Were the students guided in making generalizations based on their specific observations? Were they guided in connecting manipulation and computation? Again, the article suggests that the students were simply presented with the abstract symbols after working with real world examples. In other words, were the teachers skilled in designing and implementing effective manipulative lessons? Pre-existing bias and relative skill with different styles of teaching make a difference.

Not recognized in this study is that students who are taught a number of abstract formulas can remember them poorly, confuse them with each other, unwittingly mix parts of different formulas together, apply them incorrectly, and most importantly, fail to understand the actual meaning behind the formulas. For example, students who are taught several formulas for determining perimeters, circumferences, areas, volumes, and surface areas for different kinds of shapes can still find it confusing to determine the perimeter of a simple rectangle. They are so focused on trying to recall the abstract formula, that they are unable to think about what it actually means, or to check the reasonableness of their calculations.

And what do the researchers think is the purpose of math education? Is the goal just to pass a test? Or is the goal to be able to harness math concepts and skills for use in the real world of objects and actions? If we expect children to learn to apply math in the real world, then would it not be useful to make that connection all along the way?

What a man has not done to destroy and damage the natural environment and eco-system of this planet and what a man is not doing to save the planet again? It is a positive sign that more and more people are heading towards much greener alternatives in every aspect of their living. Even the Industries have realized the importance of planet saving alternatives and the productions are now based on recyclable materials. Yet still the most important role in this cause can be played by the domestic changes that should be considered. Mostly when we talk about green houses we think of houses with solar panels and wind turbines, but that really is not enough to suffice the need of our injured planet. Modular home manufacturers take into account this idea of building an environment friendly house, from the day its foundation is laid. These modular homes manufacturers employ eco friendly techniques and reusable materials in almost every step of the construction.

These prefabricate houses can be green in plenty of ways. First of all, the building process, as mentioned earlier, the material used in building these prefabs is eco friendly and reusable. Conventionally, there is a lot of waste and leftovers in the construction process. Hardly any of this waste and debris can be recycled. But in the factory building process, the materials left over from one unit can be used in another one, for instance, wood, wirings, pipes, insulating material and much more. Most of the factories use the leftover material to be recycled as some other material, like the unusable pieces or debris of wood are used to make a chipboard or paper. Overall, less waste means fewer burdens on earth.

Apart from all the resources that are saved during the factory building process, the design of these structures also focus on long term savings of resources. The architectural layout of the prefabricated homes is carefully designed to allow a good passage of air and light and eliminate any wasteful space. Not only that these houses allow air and light passage, they are also well insulated to reduce the need of air conditioning or heating. For the ultimate green enthusiasts, the manufacturers also provide solar panels and other alternate energy devices to overcome the dependency on non-reusable resources of energy.

One of the other reasons that the resources are greatly saved during the mobile home construction is because of the climate controlled environment in which they are constructed. Other than all the materials, space and energy saved in the process, the labor is also significantly reduced. The reason is not only the assembly line production method but also a proper utilization of time. Since, the construction process requires lesser time, hence the labor is also timely utilized.

These are only some of the main reasons that make the prefabricated houses an eco friendly housing option long before you actually start living in it and long after that too. Nevertheless, it will save a lot more energy and resources than a conventional house being turned into a greener one.

All of have felt the sting of rising energy cost. Teaching our family and ourselves new ways to save energy has become a common practice among many households today. We consider many methods like reducing our fuel consumption, or managing finances. One DIY (do it yourself) option that many folks are considering these days is solar power for homes. Utilizing solar power to supply your household energy needs is one way available for us to save money and help the environment at the same time. Solar energy can be utilized for to heat your home, for hot water, lighting and to run appliances as well.

Solar power for homes is possible for those who can utilize the sun’s energy to generate electricity. This can be accomplished through implementing a solar energy system in your home. Given sufficient sunlight and proper information, this is completely doable. Do you remember the sense of wonder and the thrill you experienced when originally discovering a calculator or a watch that ran on solar power? Well, now the same technology is available in a form that will power your whole house if you care to install a few simple components.

The sun will supply the energy and solar panels will collect it and convert it into electricity with the use of photovoltaic cells (PV). This clean source of energy extracted from sunlight, not only contributes to a cleaner environment but it affords the opportunity of selling energy back to the power company as a source of revenue. The systems available today require minimal maintenance and upkeep costs and they will last for many years. The potential to positively affect your finances will continue long term as the initial investment costs are recouped over time. It is a wonderful thing to know that you have an economical alternative to costlier forms of electricity.

Not to long ago it was exceptionally expensive to implement solar power for homes. Solar power systems today take advantage of up to date technologies to bring the solar panels costs down significantly. Today there are a myriad of manuals obtainable online for DIY (do it yourself) solar power enthusiasts. Most of these can be bought at costs less than fifty dollars in the U.S. It is said that you can construct the entire system with less than two-hundred dollars. Purchasing a kit is one option to consider. It is entirely possible to purchase everything necessary to build your system at any local hardware supply store. The task does not even require special tools. You may already own them.

Systems that generate solar power for homes consist of a few basic components. The primary one is the photovoltaic cells (PV). These cells are connected together to form PV modules. These modules connect to an inverter. The inverter converts the electricity that has been extracted from the sun’s light from direct current (DC) into alternating current (AC). This current is then used to power your home. If your home is connected to a public utility supplying electricity, you can sell any excess energy generated from your system back to the power company. There are local and federal programs in many countries that will assist in the costs of implementing and maintaining these systems. This makes owning your own even a more feasible from a financial perspective.

The Experiment

Several speculations have been previously noted regarding the efficiency of dishwashing vs. hand washing. A study was conducted in Germany regarding the efficiency of both practices, which concluded that dishwashing was in fact, the most efficient. Now, who exactly funded this experiment has never been disclosed. Could it have been a household appliance manufacturer? Many experiments are sometimes conducted to purposely skew in a specific direction. I decided it was time to do my own experiment and find out once and for all which of the two dishwashing practices is the real deal.

To conduct this real life experiment I spent exactly one month washing all my dishes by hand and one full month running the dishwasher. I chose the month of February and March, which average similar temperatures in South Florida. I maintained my air conditioning system at a temperature of 76 degrees Fahrenheit throughout both months, and tried as hard as possible to eat-out or order in the same amount of times both months. Of course, there are definite inconsistencies in such a real-life experiment, such as how long you shower, how often you flush the toilet, the outside temperature, etc… but, my family and I just continued to go on about our lives exactly the same. The only difference was our dishwashing ritual. Oh, and of course, February did have 28 days, while March had 30. The dishwasher used for this experiment is a Bosch Integra 300 series. This machine is about 5 years old and has the Energy Star qualification (Energy Star is awarded to those dishwashers who do not exceed 5.8 gallons of water per run).

Practices used for both methods of dishwashing:

Dishwasher: