Green Tips for the Holidays....

You wanna really add some green to your Christmas? Incorporate a few of these eco-friendly holiday activities...

• Buy a pesticide free tree. Many tree farmers add colorants and use up to 40 different pesticides on their trees. I have look online for local farms to purchase from but with no luck...if anyone knows of any in the Wilmington area please post a comment and let us know!
  



• Recycle your christmas tree. 10 million Christmas trees make it to a landfill.
  City of Wilmington Christmas Tree Curbside Program: 910.341.4340 New Hanover County Christmas Tree Drop Off Event ( 5 locations): 910.341.4340
  


• Support our local economy and buy items for your holiday feast from local farms. We have plenty of them in our area!
  



• Make your own wrapping paper. The sunday comics are always a favorite of mine! If you don't make your own, encourage friends and family members to reuse the bags and paper that the gifts are in.

Happy Holidays Noble Family! Enjoy the upcoming break it is well deserved and much needed.

For additional holiday greening tips check out http://www.mambosprouts.com/enewsletter/hen/dec07/

Face Scrubs and Exfoliants

Everyone loves the feel of a freshly scrubbed face. Those little beady things feel soooooo good! But unfortunatley most of these little "beads" or "microscrubbers" are made out of plastic. As we know plastic is not biodegradable (it doesn't break down) and marine animals are ingesting these little things.

So what? They're just little beads...

Actually, the smaller the plastic product the more it absorbs harmful chemicals and toxins. When marine animals such as sea turtles and smaller invertabrates ingest these beads they ingest the harmful chemicals as well. Many marine animals have been dying off at a rapid pace over the years and the increased amount of plastic trash in the ocean is major a contributing factor.

If you really want to exfoliate...

Buy products without the word "polyethylene". Try finding products that use all natural exfoliants such as crushed seeds (St. Ives Apricot Scrub is a great one; see picture above).

We sometimes lose sight of the impact we, as individuals, have on the environment. For the complete story: http://www.themanitoban.com/features/scrubbing-out-marine-life

"Pledge 2 Save 5"

On average New Hanover County residents use approximately 138 gallons of water per person per day and 80 gallons of wasterwater per person per day.

In addition the energy it takes to treat all the wastewater at a wastewater facility in a year is enough energy to power 5 million homes!!!

We need to do our best to conserve what little drinking water we have (less than 1% of all the Earth's water).

You and your family can "Pledge 2 Save 5" check out the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and join other residents of New Hanover County to use 5 gallons less a day.

Cell Phones: What do we do with them?

• 4 out of 5 Americans own a cell phone



• People tend to replace their cell phones every 18 months



• 1.2 billion phones were sold worldwide in the year 2007



• Cell phone contain toxic chemicals and materials that can leach into our soil when thrown away and sent to a landfill



• 165 million cell phones were thrown away last year

Greenphone.com is a company who will pay you for your own cell phones. They also plant a tree for every phone they buy.

Collective Good takes your donated cell phones and turns them over to charitable organizations or are provided in a global secondhand market.

Noble Middle School is currently collecting old cell phones for recycling. For every cell phone and/or accessory recycled a small portion of the money goes to Keep America Beautiful for New Hanover County.

Turn off the Tap Water

If you turn off the water when brushing your teeth it will save as much as 10 gallons of water a day per person.

For a family of 4 that can add up to 14,400 gallons a year!

Pack a Waste Free Lunch

It is possible to throw away nothing from your lunch everyday. Other than fruit peels.


Check out how to do it at: Global Stewards

Why Recycle?

Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees, 2 barrels of oil (enough to run the average car for 1,260 miles), 4,100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for 6 months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space, and 60 pounds of air pollution.
~Trash to Cash

Our Leaders for the this Year...

Congratulations to Briare B. and Mecca J.! They are our new Green Team leaders for the year.

Welcome Back Green Team!

This year is going to be a great year for the Green Team. We have some new and exciting things going on. Like...

• Beach Sweep on 9/27. We will meet @ Johnny Mercer's Pier @ 9 am
• Guest speakers from our community regarding the environment.
• The school is getting new recycling bins so we won't have to walk them all the way down the street and mess up Mr. Preiss's truck anymore :)
• School Projects to raise environmental awareness.
• Working with the new butterfly house @ Airlie Gardens.

I hope you are as excited as I am. We welcome any ideas or thoughts so post them in the comment section!

The average person generates 4.5 pounds of waste a day!

Winners are...John Kellam and Karen B

You'll receive your prizes on Monday when I return.

Getting ready to head to the airport I will talk to everyone when I get back. Can't wait to see you and hear how your weeks' have been!!!

p.s. Miss Smith is the awesomest person I know!!!

Multi-Axis Trainer

Here is a short clip of what it looks like when you're in the trainer. It is designed not to make you dizzy or sick because it does not change your body's equilibrium or center of gravity. However, it did something to me because I got siiiiiiccccckkk.

As I said before, astronauts no longer use this in training because there is no tumbling when coming back into the Earth's atmosphere. There used to be a joystick in the center where the astronauts tried to gain control of the spinning and smooth out the ride.

Pilot of the Alpha Mission

Today is our mission for the Endeavor and the pilot is yours truly :)

We will simulate a mission to the moon and there are so many people that it takes to make a mission complete.

Further discussion about the mission and everyone's roles after we've completed it. Look for me up in the sky!!!

Question for the prize:

Who is my superior in the orbiter for this mission. Hint: They sit right beside me.

And the winner is....SAM T!!!!

Sam,

Congratulations on being the first person to answer the question correctly.

Who was the first person to walk in space?

Alexei Leonov (a russian)

You'll receive a 'space treat' when I get back home.

Guess what I get to see today?

View from my hotel window

A rocket test launch!!!!

The Aries mission is having a test rocket launch today at the Marshall Space Flight Center. This type of thing doesn't happen every day around here and we are so lucky to be able to go witness it.

In fact, no other space cadets have been had the opportunity to see one. We are so special.

Question for this post...

2. How many test launch sites are there in the US? Tell me their names and where they are.

You Ain't Gonna Believe this...

Just completed my first official day at Space Camp. We spent the morning doing the simulations machines and ,yes, I vomited. I was the only teacher to throw up (talk about embarrassing) Oh well, makes for a good story!!! The Multi-Axis Trainer was first designed to train astronauts on what it feels like when you are tumbling back into earth's atmosphere. Once they actually got up into space they realized that the Orbiter (space ship) doesn't tumbles at all. So this is just really a simulation. Watch the video to see your teacher in action. Video is being very fickle right now. Will try again later. Here is a picture of it for now.

Keep in mind (before you go calling me a wimp) 10 minutes earlier I had eaten eggs, biscuits, pounded a cup of coffee and drank a lot of water. I could feel all of it swooshing around when I was in there. When I got off the machine I broke into a heavy sweat and knew it was all over from there. Hope you enjoy.

The picture below is a 1/6 gravity trainer so you can get a feel for what it's like when you're walking on the moon. They had us do the bunny hop, move from side to side, and slow motion jogging(the one I liked best)

The next thing was a Man Maneuvering Unit (MMU) simulator where you get strapped into this big machine and have a joy stick to move the machine around. MMU's are the machine that astronaut's use when moving around outside the orbiter.

The rest of the day consisted of our space cadet training and background information. We learned about everything that happens before a launch, during, and after. I can't wait to tell everyone about it.

I got my space suit today. It's pretty nifty and makes me feel important. Our names on our suits have to be turned upside down until we graduate from cadet training. Graduation will be Thursday night and then I will be a real Space Cadet.

Tomorrow we will be working on our mission for the rest of the week. We haven't received out positions yet but I am hoping for 1. the pilot of the Orbiter 2. A scientist at the space station 3. INCO/EVA- that's the person at mission control who is responsible for the countdown and makes sure that all systems are GO at the time of launch. It is going to be so exciting. Wish everyone was here because they have tons and tons of cool stuff and you feel really important.

Last night I got to meet and listen to Ed Buckbee who is quite a fellow. I'll tell all about him in the next post. He is the founder of Space Camp and was the Director of the Space and Rocket Center.

Question for Prizes.

The first person to correctly respond to this question will receive a goody from the Space and Rocket Center.
Are you ready? Just post your answer in the comment section...

1. What is the name of the first person to walk in space?
Pay careful attention to the question

Talk to everyone soon. Miss you.
p.s. I did learn today how astronaut's use the bathroom in space. Its verrry interesting.

Space Camp Preparation

The week of March 3rd through 7th I will be attending Space Camp with the North Carolina Center for Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT). The week will be devoted to "astronaut training" it which we will do things like;

• 1/6 gravity trainer to see what it's like to walk on the moon
• train for an extravehicular activity in the Five Degrees of Freedom simulator
• maneuver a MMU for our first space walk
• and maybe take a spin in the multi-axis trainer (feel what it's like inside a spacecraft
• lift off in Space Shot
• Tour Rocket Park and visit NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center which monitors the International Space Station

I can't wait to share my adventure with you all. All of the activities above will be tied into my training for the mission in which everyone of us will have a different role.

When I was young I wanted to be an astronaut and dreamed of going to Space Camp. It's hard to believe that 25 years later I will get the opportunity. It's never too late!!!

Take some time to explore the Space Camp site in the links column. Any questions/comments are welcome.

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