After the Columbine High School shootings in Colorado in 1999, the Virginia police departments across the commonwealth quickly introduced tactical training for police and school resource officers (SROs). They were taught several methods for handling Virginia schools' students with weapons.
Members of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police wanted to do more than just react to situations in the Virginia schools. They wanted to take preventative measures. So, in 2002, the Commonwealth Youth Conference for Leadership Effectiveness (CYCLE) was created.
CYCLE is a one-week, leadership training program for Virginia schools' students who are entering high school. Held once every summer at Virginia Tech's campus in Blacksburg, Virginia, it has become one of the most successful and meaningful programs for Virginia schools' youth, focusing on the basics of leadership.
Virginia schools' students are given the opportunity to:
? Gain an understanding of their own leadership potential,
? Identify positive leadership characteristics,
? Gain a better understanding of themselves,
? Learn how to better relate to others,
? Learn to use effective communication to foster positive interactions,
? Gain problem analysis skills to assist in decision making,
? Understand the value of teamwork,
? Understand their own role within their communities, and
? Learn and embrace values of diversity.
The hopeful result of the program is to provide Virginia schools' students with skills to help them become valuable and contributing members of society, as well as to make Virginia communities safer places to live. If Virginia schools' children are given leadership skills and positive reinforcement, then situations such as Columbine may be forestalled.
To attend CYCLE, Virginia schools' students must go through a lengthy application process. The selection process begins in the fall of each year with interested Virginia schools' students applying to their school's SRO. Accepted applicants and their parents receive notification from their SROs in early May of the following year. The selection process ensures that all areas throughout the commonwealth are properly represented each year at CYCLE.
The program looks for the ?rising? 10th grade students ? those with recognized leadership potential, who have not yet found their place in the world. Virginia schools' students must be:
? Recommended by their school's SRO,
? A rising student, entering the 10th grade at application,
? Between the ages of 13 and 15 years,
? Have no major infractions on their discipline records,
? Have a minimum grade point average of 2.0,
? Complete an essay on an assigned topic, and
? Provide a letter of support for their desire to attend CYCLE, which may be written by anyone chosen by the student.
CYCLE is sponsored and chaired by the Virginia Police Chief's Foundation, the charitable and educational arm of the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police. They work with corporations, civic groups, police agencies, and citizens to raise the needed funds to support CYCLE. The current cost of $600 per Virginia schools' student is occasionally underwritten totally by a police department's training budget for the youth in its jurisdiction. This covers tuition, lodging, meals and learning materials. The local police departments in which students reside always supply the transportation. CYCLE is always provided entirely at no cost to the students.
Thanks to the Police Chiefs of Virginia and the work of police departments across the commonwealth, Virginia schools' students are given the opportunity to participate in an exceptionally unique program that may affect the rest of their lives, as well as many others.
Types of Carbon Fuels
Any discussion of carbon fuels tends to carry the assumption they are all the same. There are, however, many different types of carbon fuels comprising this energy source.
Types of Carbon Fuels
While all carbon fuels are generally used for the same purpose, producing energy, there are different types of carbon fuels. Carbon fuels are the hydrocarbon fuels that are found underneath within the Earth. They were produced millions of years ago during the Carboniferous period of history. These fuels are very important to the Earth's population, as most of our energy is produced by their burning. Formed from decayed plant and animal matter that was both compressed and heated underground, carbon fuels are a non-renewable resource because they are no longer being created.
The three major types of carbon fuels are coal, oil and natural gas. Coal has been used for thousands of years since cavemen first began burning it to heat their caves and cook their food. A solid, shiny black substance, coal is a carbon based fuel that became especially important in the 1800s when both the industrial revolution and the locomotive combustion engine relied on its use. Machinery, as well as transportation, grew quickly once coal was found to be a portable and easy to use power source.
Generally, the hardest types of coal, bituminous and anthracite, are used in the burning of coal. These forms of coal are fairly prevalent. They are mined by strip mining or digging down into coal veins with the raw material then being transported to the surface for refinement. Coal is not clean burning, very efficient or environmentally friendly. The material is also very hazardous to the miners given the dangerous work environment and the coal dust that imbeds in their lungs.
Oil is the most widely used of the types of carbon fuels. Oil (petroleum) is found in natural reservoirs underneath the Earth's surface. Pumps and piping are drilled down underground to reach these stores of oil, and then it is pumped up to the surface. Crude oil is then refined for use as heating oil, gasoline and many other combustible fuels. Oil's portability and easy to burn properties make it an excellent source of energy. The burning of oil has a number of drawbacks. It produces significant air pollutants and carbon dioxide, which is a greenhouse gas. Furthermore, oil reserves are not spread equally over the planet, giving rise to political and military tensions associated with the control of the resource.
Natural gas is the last prevalent carbon fuel we use in modern society. While oil and coal formed the backbone of the industrial revolution, natural gas has become more of a player recently. Natural gas is primarily comprised of methane, another greenhouse gas. Natural gas is found in many of the same places as oil and coal, but was not originally a popular energy resource due to transportation and a lack of stability. In fact, it was simply burned off using flaring pipes in many oil fields. With modern advances, natural gas is now much easier to control as it is reduced to a liquefied form for transportation. In fact, flaring of natural gas is no illegal in many countries. As with oil, natural gas has many problems related to the production of greenhouse gases and the fact it is found in abundance in only a few countries such as Iran. While oil gets much of the attention, natural gas reserves are actually under much more stress.
The different types of carbon fuels used in the world today are fast being depleted. With the economies of countries such as India and China growing at shocking rates, the demand will only increase. This will putt the different types of carbon fuels under more stress and inevitably lead to political and military conflict.
Rick Chapo is with Solar Companies - a directory of solar energy companies.
History of Carbon Fuels
Because of carbon fuels, we have gone from a horse and buggy lifestyle to the digital revolution. Understand the history of carbon fuels, and you understand the advancements in our way of life.
History of Carbon Fuels
There are many different ways to obtain energy to power our world. Solar power, hydro power and wind power are all interesting forms of energy that are being researched for more ecologically safe alternatives to current power sources. Today, however, most items in our world are powered by carbon fuels. These fuels are easily burned in combustion engines and other machinery in order to produce power for most of our needs at the current time.
The history of carbon fuels starts millions of years ago before even the age of dinosaurs. The period in which the formation of carbon fuels began is known as the Carboniferous period, due to carbon being the main component of carbon fuels (which, incidentally, are also known as hydrocarbons). Carbon fuels started out as plants and animals, which were living on the Earth during this time period (mostly in watery and ocean areas). When these plants and animals died, they settled to the bottom of these waters and formed a decomposing pile known as peat. As the water and land formations of the Earth changed over various periods, and sediment and other items piled on top of the peat, pressure began to change the peat into something different.
Here is when the history of carbon fuels as the substance we know now really begins. A combination of the pressure from materials stacking on top of the decomposing peat, as well as heat from the inner layers of the Earth, changed the chemical and physical properties of the peat. It became the different types of carbon fuels we see today such as coal, oil and natural gas. Coal was the first of the carbon fuels to be used by humans for heat and power ? in fact, there is evidence that cavemen even used burning coal for cooking and heating their caves. Coal is also one of the most abundant of carbon fuels with stores of the material being found in many parts of the world. Plentiful and easy to use but dirty and crude, coal is not as frequently burned today because of the negative impact on the environment.
Oil and natural gas are also commonly used today. They form the energy basis for everything from running out cars to the production of electricity to the warming of our homes. In understanding the advancements made in our way of life, however, oil is really the key.
Although many arguments can be made for the great advancements civilization has seen in the last 100 years, none is more convincing then the role of oil. Oil has produced by the lubricant and fuel necessary for transportation on a vast scale. Think about it. You can get in your car and drive anywhere to meet with others. For business and science, the ability to hop on a plane and travel across the great seas cannot be understated. Each of these transportation opportunities presented us with an ability to exchange commerce and ideas on a time sensitive basis. If you doubt this, image what the world would look like today if we were still riding horses and had to take a month trip to cross the ocean. It would be a much less advanced word indeed. In fact, you would not be reading this because there would be no Internet to speak of.
The history of carbon fuels is the history of mankind. Without them, we would not have made many of the advancements we have today and we certainly would not be sitting in rush hour traffic!
Rick Chapo is with Solar Companies - a directory of solar energy companies.
