Team 2 – Cycle A
Question and Answers from Group’s Prior Knowledge - General Information
1. Was the Dust Bowl a weather phenomenon and why did it happen?
A: The Dust Bowl was a natural phenomenon that happened during the drought era of the 1930’s in
the southwest (plains) . Drought and extensive farming without crop rotation was the major cause
of the Dust Bowls. In 1862 congress passed the Homestead Act that allow people to buy land in US
unoccupied area and farm it. Many immigrants and slaves were allowed to buy land and they did.
The farmed the land without crop rotation that affected the soil. After several years, people could
not farm and without vegetation, there was nothing to hold dirt down. When the yearly wind would
come with the jet stream, dust would be picked up in the fast winds and this created the dust
storms. (Created by Juana M. Martinez)
2. Were the causes of the Dust Bowl a natural event and/or man-made misuse of natural resources?
A: The cause was a result of a natural event but it became severe because of the drought situation
in the era and the lack of vegetation. Due to Global Warming effect on precipitation, many countries
including the United States are experiencing droughts. This could limit soil erosion and lack of
vegetation thus creating dust when high wind occurs. (Created by Juana M. Martinez)
3. What area of the United States did the Dust Bowl affect the most?
A: The southern states were affected the most because of the drought. No precipitation caused the
land to dry up. The land in turn had no way of attaching to vegetation life that when the wind storms
came it caused the dust to lift. (Created by Michelle Salazar)
4. What were the effects of the Dust Bowls throughout the United States?
A: A: The effects of the Dust Bowl were tremendous. People had to migrate to California because
there was no vegetation life. The cost of supplies increased because of the demand. Houses were
damaged or covered completely or partially that people had to move out and away. Another
devastating effect was that people started getting sick with illnesses that the wind storm carried
along. (Created by Michelle Salazar)
5. How did people, in general, deal with the effects of the Dust Bowl?
A: Families survived on cornbread, beans, and milk. People were beginning to give up hope, and a
mass exodus — the largest migration in American history — ensued from the plains. Many
families packed their belongings, piled them on their cars
and moved westward, fleeing the dust and desert of the
Midwest for Washington, Oregon and California. They
were willing to work for any wage at all, planting and
harvesting other people's lands.
When those families reached the borders of those western
states, they were not well received — too many people
already there were out of work. Many California farms were corporate owned, meaning they were
larger and more modernized than what the farmers were used to. Families often lived in tar-paper
shacks with no floor or plumbing. By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Dust Bowl
states toward the Pacific states.
In the fall of 1934, with cattle feed depleted, the government began to buy and destroy thousands
of starving livestock. Of all the government programs during that time, the cattle slaughter was
the most wrenching for farmers. Although it was difficult for farmers to give up their herds, the
cattle slaughter helped many of them avoid bankruptcy. (created by Claudia Perez)
6. How much damage did it cause?
A: The storm damaged about 50 acres.
People became ill and some died due to the dust.
Livestock died due to being caught in the dust storm.
Roads and farm fields were ruined or buried. Farmers had to move because the farming economy
was non-existent. Homes were damaged or ruined by the dust storms because they were buried
under so much dust. (Created by Claudia Perez)
7. What are the probabilities that this could happen again? What are scientists doing to prepare or
prevent this disaster from happening again?
Global warming threatens to create a dustbowl in the American Southwest according to a
new study published in the journal Science.
The research, led by Richard Seager of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth
Observatory, uses projections from 19 climate models to show that the Southwestern
United States and parts of northern Mexico will dry significantly this century and could
become as arid as the North
American dust bowl of the 1930s.
The researchers warn that the
transition to drier climate may
already be underway with the recent
prolonged drought in the region.
Unlike previous El Nino-related
drought in the region, the new aridity
appears to be "caused by a pole ward
expansion of the subtropical dry
zones."
"We show that there is a broad
consensus amongst climate models
that this region will dry significantly
Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
in the 21st century and that the
transition to a more arid climate should already be underway," they write. "If these
models are correct, the levels of aridity of the recent multiyear drought, or the Dust Bowl
and 1950s droughts, will, within the coming years to decades, become the new
climatology of the American Southwest."
The researchers predict that the drier climate will be "unlike any climate states that exist
on record for the area" -- a forecast that does not bode well for one of the fastest
growing population centers in the United States. (created by Maria Izquierdo)
8. Is there any evidence to prove this weather phenomenon will/will not happen again?
A: Global warming can become a factor that could cause dust forms. Drought is one factor that
leads to farmers not being able to plant crops. Lack of vegetation creates the wind to pick up
excessive dirt during high winds. Global warming is creating severe droughts throughout the world.
According to a research led by Richard Seager at Columbia University’s Lamont Doherty Earth
Observatory, they are looking at projections from several climate models and has come to the
conclusion that parts of Northern Mexico and could be affected by dust bowls because it is
significantly dry. This could limit the vegetation and when high wind occur, these dust storms will be
created as early as the end of this century.
Work Cited:
http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0405-dustbowl.html
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0319dustbowl.html
CITATION: Richard Seager, Mingfang Ting, Isaac Held, Yochanan Kushnir, Jian Lu, Gabriel Vecchi, HueiPing Huang, Nili Harnik, Ants Leetmaa, Ngar-Cheung Lau, Cuihua Li, Jennifer Velez, Naomi Naik (2007)
"Model Projections of an Imminent Transition to a More Arid Climate in Southwestern North America"
www.sciencexpress.org / 5 April 2007 / Page 1 / 10.1126/science.1139601
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h15
Cycle B – Model Building
Assignment:
Build an ESS model
Problem Statement: If the present drought continues, then another Dust Bowl is inevitable.
Questions
Team Member
Juana M. Martinez
Question/Support
What I know?
How will I support the problem statement?
Question: Are farmers working to prevent another dust bowl
from occurring?
Cover crops are planted like rye. The grass tilled in provides
organic matter and when it breaks down it releases
nitrogen. Organic matter in the soil helps hold water too.
But the main benefit of planting the grass is that it protects
the land from water and wind erosion.
Combinations of a drought and soil erosion were
factors that caused the severe dust storms in 1933.
As a result, governments have developed methods of
erosion-prevention farming which they hope will help
in the same dust storms happening now. However, as
I researched, I found a video that shows that extreme
drought in Austria has led to some of this type of
storm occurring there.
According to a British Scientist, John Wyndham stated
“when people in Sydney wake up to a sky from Mars,
something is seriously wrong somewhere.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/societyand-culture/global-warning-sydney-dust-storm-just-thebeginning-20090923-g1fi.html#ixzz1fteq3IOB
Furthermore, he predicts that warmer and drier
climate and increase in the strong winds will cause
severe dust storms in South Australian border to the
East Coast.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/20
10-04-09-dust-bowl_N.htm
http://static.lifeislocal.com.au/multimedia/images/full/1470515.jpg
On October 6, 2011 deadly severe dust storms damage
property and killed people in Arizona. The reason that
those storms were severe is that this happened locally
and didn’t spread across several counties. In order
words, scientist says this dust storm happed in one
place and the reason for the dust could have been
explained because of farming activities around that
area. These storms were created by 50 mph wind and
were about 100 miles long and about a mile high.
Also, Arizona has seen a major drought this couple of
years. The dry topsoil which farmers cultivated
around that area caused it to wear down and was
blown away by the high speed winds.
I learned those dust storms usually are very localized
and holy happen where conditions are dry and windy.
This has been the case for most of Texas too
http://news.yahoo.com/deadly-dust-storm-ravagesarizona-again-180100289.html
Prevention Method 2: Matting
Planting Vegetation
http://www.landscapeplanet.com/maintenance-1-soilerosion-prevention.htm
Question: How will our resources be affected by another
Dust Bowl?
Much the same as in the past, a future dust bowl would have
a devastating effect on crops and livestock. Without rain and
diminished soil nutrients, crops will not grow and food will
become scarce. Livestock will become ill due to inhaling dust
particles and no grasslands for grazing. Because of the past,
“lessons were learned, and farmers adopted new cultivation
methods to help control soil erosion in dry land ecosystems.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_history.ht
PAST IS FUTURE: The dry landscape in this ml
Claudia Perez
image, taken during the drought on the Great
Plains in the 1930s, could be what lies ahead
for the southwestern region of the United
States and northern Mexico. Image: ©
BETTMANN/CORBIS
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=sout
hwest-america-drying-climate
Maria
Izquierdo
What are the probabilities that this could be happen again?
What are scientists doing to prepare or prevent this disaster
from happening again?
The dust bowl was a disaster that affected a lot people in
many ways. It took them a lot of time for them to recover
from this disaster. Research has been done to see if it’s
possible if another disaster like this could happen again. A
researcher by the name of Richard Seager has made studies
about this topic and mentions that many factors are
contributing to a possible new dustbowl in the future.
 Precipitation/droughts
 Subtle changes in sea surface temperatures of
tropical oceans
 El Niño-southern Oscillation(ENSO)
 Global warming
 La Niña(winter)
Source for information and pictures:
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp/drought/
Michelle Salazar
What area of the United States did the Dust Bowl affect the
most?
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_
02.html
“Technically, the driest region of the Plains – southeastern
Colorado, southwest Kansas and the panhandles of
Oklahoma and Texas – became known as the Dust Bowl, and
many dust storms started there. But the entire region, and
eventually the entire country, was affected.”
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/depression/dustbow
l.htm
“For eight years dust blew on the southern plains. It came in
a yellowish-brown haze from the South and in rolling walls of
black from the North. The simplest acts of life — breathing,
eating a meal, taking a walk — were no longer simple.
Children wore dust masks to and from school, women hung
wet sheets over windows in a futile attempt to stop the dirt,
farmers watched helplessly as their crops blew away”.
Leticia Calderon
Question: Are farmers working to prevent another dust bowl
from occurring?
Judge H.G. Franklin from Lynn county, owns some land just
outside of Tahoka, Texas. For the past twenty years he has
been a part of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)
which is a federal program that pays farmers to keep their
lands planted with grasses instead of crops. The goal is to
prevent another Dust Bowl just created great dust storms in
the 1930’s. Farmers get between $27 and $40 per acre, the
land is not usually rich soil for planting so farmers don’t lose
much money compared to having grown crops such as
cotton.
photo by: Kate Galbraith
Lynn County Judge H.G. Franklin looks out over his land, which is
enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program
http://www.texastribune.org/texas-environmentalnews/environmental-problems-and-policies/federal-program-hopesto-prevent-another-dust-bowl/print/
Works Cited
http://www.texastribune.org/texasenvironmental-news/environmental-problemsand-policies/federal-program-hopes-to-preventanother-dust-bowl/print/
Another benefit to this conservation program is that the
native grasses being planted has brought back many of the
wildlife. Wildlife-restoration specialist say wildlife such deer,
pronghorn antelope, quail and pheasants are beginning to
return to the area.