May 7, 2013

HUMAN IMPACT ON THE ENVIRONMENT

There are many simple solutions to help you reduce your carbon footprint. ISKL students work on how.

FAMILIES AT ISKL REDUCE ELECTRICITY

Thanks to an eighth grade yearlong mathematics project, students and their families have succeeded in reducing their energy consumption levels.
Electricity has become a necessity in has recorded the kilowatt hours she has our daily lives. We use it to complete the used every month since August 2012. [See simplest or most complex of tasks. Image 3 below] Everyday we rely on electricity to get us This was her plan for the start of the through the day, but do we ever think about year. For my yearlong project I chose to how the environment relies on our try and reduce my electricity usage as consideration on how we use our much as possible. I want to be able to access of electricity. Every time see a significant downfall with my we turn on the light we have to families use of electricity.The Small be aware of how our actions first step to doing this was to affect the world around us. It actions make a be able to identify a few key may seem like something objects that use a lot of my difference. small but when a billion small electricity. And here they are.I -Sol Agero actions are combined they sat down with my parents and result in a huge impact. the three of us came of with simple solutions and improvements in The eighth grade ISKL math classes ways to lower our kilowatt-hours. Here are have decided to work on a yearlong project our plans to contribute to a better world. to find ways to reduce their carbon - Set a timer at 11:00 PM or earlier to shut footprint whether it be by reducing the down the air conditioning. number of cubic meters of water or the number of kilowatt hours each of their - Use the air conditioning only a 3-4 hours a families use. day. Sol Agero, a student in one of the math classes, has decided to work on - Shut down our home computer completely lowering the amount of electricity her and when going to sleep. her family uses. Throughout the year she

Simple Solutions
Saving electricity in households can be as simple as turning of a light switch. By performing simple tasks like replacing the air-con with a fan or turning off lights when leaving a room can turn into a great habit for you and your family. Do your part for a brighter future

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Sol Agero and her Familys Success With Reducing Electricity Use The efforts of the Agero family
have proven to have payed off as the fitted line on the graph of data has a negative slope meaning that each month the family have approximately decreased their use of electricity. The table and the graph show the familys trends each month. As you can see each month the usage raised and then decreased, showing how the data does not consistently drop. This pattern of raising and decreasing continues but in the end the fitted line shows an overall decay of electric use. Although the data is inconsistent what the graph does not show you is all the variables that played a role in the results. For example some weeks the Agero family had extra people as guests this shows as a raise in the use, or sometimes there were holidays and the house was unused this also affects results. But in conclusion the Agero family managed to lower their use of electricity.

MON TH
Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Marc h April

MON TH #
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

KWH

1,945 1,202 1,011 1,115 1,003 1,347 1,042 1,187

987 Image 3

How Many Months Will It Take for Sols Family to Use only 300Kwh per Month?
This question can be answered easily with all the information we have already. Using the equation y=mx+b we can work from it. The first thing that is needed to be found is the slope of the fitted line, using the equation Now that we have the components of the equation y=-100x + 1,800 we can answer the question of how long it will take for the Agero family to reduce their electric use to 300 KwH. The first step is to substitute 300 for y since that is the amount of KwH the family needs to achieve. Then just solve Now we can pick two points on the line (4, 1,400) and (8, 1,000) and substitute to find the slope of the line. m = 1,400 - 1,000 ------------------------------4-8 So if we simplify the slope of the line or m = -100 Now the equation is y= -100x + b 15 = x Next to find the y intercept or b we can use one of the previous ordered pairs to substitute and find b. 1,000 = -100(8) + b 1,000 = -800 + b +800 +800 So now we have answered the question. Based on the data and the fitted line it will take the Agero family 15 months to lower their electric usage to 300 KwH -1,500 = -100x ----------- -----------100 -100 for x. 300 = -100x + 1,800 -1,800 -1,800

1,800 = b so 1,800 is the y intercept.

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