Assignment 1:
Monitoring Our Home Planet
The Internet is a
powerful tool that provides the ability to monitor natural phenomena and
disasters that happen all over planet Earth.
In this assignment, you
will research resources available on the Internet for monitoring natural
phenomena including earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, global climate, and
weather.
Based on your research,
do the following:
·
Identify a minimum of
three different natural phenomena that are typically responsible for natural
disasters. Analyze the potential impact of these disasters.
·
Analyze how these
phenomenon are monitored, or not, via the Internet. Critique available Web
sites, which publicly display up-to-date monitored information related to each
of the natural phenomena you have identified. Focus on the following aspects:
o
Geography
§
What parts of the world
are potentially affected by these phenomena? Specifically identify the
countries.
o
Resources
§
What kinds of resources
are allocated toward monitoring these phenomena and why?
§
What types of Web
resources monitor the phenomena and provide up-to-date information about them?
§
What kinds of technology
are involved in monitoring the phenomena?
o
Politics
§
What political
ramifications would this disaster-preparedness technology cause between more-developed
countries and less-developed countries?
§
What kinds of issues
could this technology cause between less-developed countries?
o
Economics
§
How would this
technology directly impact the economies of those countries that have the
technology versus those countries that do not?
§
Do you predict any
indirect impacts? What current evidence supports your position?
o
Disaster Preparedness
§
What types of systems
are in place in terms of disaster preparedness related to these monitored
phenomena?
·
Summarize your findings.
Evaluate how this technology will impact the future of humanity, both
positively and negatively. Be sure to consider the political and economic
issues discussed in your future predictions.
Support your statements
with examples. Use a minimum of six reliable references, two of which should be
peer-reviewed articles.
Write a 7–8-page paper
in Word format. Apply APA standards to citation of sources. Use the following
file naming convention: LastnameFirstInitial_M5_A1.doc
