Examine the Sustainability of ocean fishing

IB Geography HL 11

January 21, 2014

David Kim, Sunshine Kim, Armand Kaufmann

Examine the sustainability of ocean fishing

            The name of the film we watched in class was The End of the Line: The World Without Fish. This movie effectively indicates how humans are overexploiting the supply of fish in the ocean. In the early and mid 1900s, humans were only fishing for their needs. However, as technology developed, people got more into overfishing as the “bounties seemed endless”. The case of the cod fishing in Canada evidently shows this to be true. Fisherman in Canada were fishing only adequate amount of Cod, and it was also the most popular fish in the vicinity. But things started to get out of hand soon. Boats got bigger, and people learned to catch fish massively. As this was the case, the population of the Codfish got decimated very soon, and the Canadian government restricted overfishing of Cod in 1992. Consequently fisherman got frustrated, but that seemed to be the only method to reduce overfishing and sustain the population of Codfish in Canada. Another example, which shows that fish population may run out in not such a long time, is the Fish Farming. Fish farming uses wild fish to feed the farmed fish. However, doing this kills more than it produces and therefore is not a sustainable method of controlling the fish population. Small fish like anchovies would be ground up to be fed to other fish in the world. This method is very wasteful because tons of fish ended up getting wasted as they get fed to the bigger fish, which then we consume. Statistics also show that 5 kilograms of anchovies make up 1 kilogram of salmon, so this procedure can never be sustainable. Patricia suggests that we eat fish directly instead of using Fish Farming to lessen consuming more fish without the need to do so. In these adversities, one solution to the problems related with sustainability of fishing is setting up marine reserves. Marine reserves are areas in the oceans in which fishing is wholly banned. Setting a worldwide network of marine reserve to conserve the fish population would recover between 20 and 30% of the world’s ocean, and it would take about 12~14 billion dollars to do so. Even if the amount of money seems quite costly, this will not only create many new jobs for people but also help the ocean recuperate its environment.

Google Earth Assignment Reflection

Geography Google Earth Assignment Reflection

On tuesday, novemeber the 26th, our geography class went down to the computer lab to meet up with the kids in the second grade and collaborate together on a Google Earth project we have been planning for a while. When we went down, the second grade class greeted us with a big smile and sang us a song that they had practiced. It was very nice to see the enthusiasm and their interest in the topics they were learning. Then it was time to pick partners. The little kids stood up and went around to pick the partners they wanted. Danny Jin was my buddy and he picked me and Jaewoo and led us to his computer seat where we began our tour.

Introducing ourselves,  Jaewoo and I learned that he was Korean just like us, but was born in Germany. To no surprise, his tour was planned in Germany and we soon went off to look around some parts in Germany after having some fun with the features like flight mode in Google Earth. We visited major cities in Germany such as Munich, Frankfurt, and Berlin. After visiting those places, we even entered the street view of the cities to really view the city in a real photo. Then, Jaewoo and I taught Danny how to place pins at those specific locations. Danny learned fast and put the pins himself with different designs, and was happy to save the snapshot of the city. Even at times he wanted to everything in his own and neglected our tips and helps, we stayed patient and tried our best to lead him through the program. I think having patience and letting Danny learn through the application with trial and error was a good choice because by then I believ he was able to learn faster.

Us three all had fun in doing the exercise, and it was a fresh experience to get together with the second graders to actually accomplish something with them. It was like seeing me nine years ago when I was interested at every little thing. It was a very valuable experience and i actually felt good that I was able to teach a thing or two to Danny. It would have been a memorable experience for him as well to visit Germany although the trip was a virtual one.

China's newest population reform

In what ways is China's newest population reform an example of another attempt at controlling the demographic make-up of the country?

The China's one child policy that began in the year 1979 and limits the number of children Chinese families bear to only one per family. Families that break the law are fined and have to pay a certain amount of money to the government. However this policy had also created several setbacks such as gender imbalance and abortion issues as many people seemed to favor boys over girls. The newly reformed policy now allows families in the future to have 2 children if one parent in the family is an only child. This newly changed policy will hopefully be a solution to China's problems.