During this project each group of students in our class was assigned a specific location with a designated water problem. Our goal was to create a water filter that was effective and efficient and could help improve the water in our location.
For our snow awareness project my partner and I decided to make a website that published what we had learned in class and what we had further studied throughout the project. This was also a way to educate more people about avalanches. Our website is relevant to snow science, it covers two topics in detail, avalanche statistics and warning signs. Our page on statistics, goes into depth on specific fatal avalanche statistics in the U.S. as a whole and Colorado. Our page on avalanche warning signs describes what needs to happen for an avalanche to occur, along with the specific warning signs and terrain traps. Throughout this project one important skill I developed was independent research and learning, we had a lot of freedom with this project in choosing and researching our topic. I was able to independently find reliable information and present it in a successful and useful way. Also, I was able to gain a more developed understanding of topical graphs and their role in avalanche studies.
Snow science is relevant to my life because I live in Colorado and I have been skiing my whole life. Even though it is pretty unlikely for me to get caught in an avalanche while skiing because I usually don't backcountry ski, I still think that it is important for me to understand avalanches.There are many other snow related activities that I may participate in, in the future that are at high risk of avalanche danger. Also I do live in Colorado which has the highest avalanche fatalities each year. During this project we also studied the role of snow and water in the American West. We studied the amount of water each state in the American West receives and uses. The Colorado river is the main contributor to all of the water used West of America, the river never actually reaches the ocean it stars in Colorado and ends in Mexico. California allocates the most water from the Colorado river however they are currently in a severe drought. Snow had been melting 2-4 weeks earlier than in should be in past years as a result of dust.
One thing that I enjoyed during this project was looking at the modern day problems regarding snow science such as avalanche safety and water loss in the American West. Looking at new technology and solutions that have been developed to contribute to these problems was very interesting.