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Some of my interesting ideas:Monitoring the Amazon rainforest is a large problem that must be brokendown in order to be effectively solved. It can be divided in a multitude of ways. Divide the intellectual area. Divide the problem into scientific disciplines (Chemistry, Biology, Ecology, etc.). Within each discipline determine specifically what quantitative characteristics to monitor. For example, Ecology: measure biodiversity, Chemistry: measure composition of soil. Determine the normal ranges for these characteristics. Then determine what is a good trend, what is bad trend, use these as indicators. For example, a decrease or increase in biodiversity is an ecological trend, determine if bad or good; a decrease or increase in pH of soil and/or water is a chemical trend, determine if bad or good. Divide the physical area. Determine a non-biased, statistically sound method of dividing the Amazon basin into manageable sample areas. The number of simultaneous samples is limited to the number of researchers, size of the coordinating group, and number of disciplines involved. A research group will be assigned to these areas. Divide the responsibility and work. Research groups will be created containing scientists from each discipline involved. Each group is responsible for one area of the rainforest. After gathering data, group members get together to analyze data from all disciplines and draw a general conclusion across these discipline for the area they are responsible for (i.e. trends occurring in that specific area and possible causes) A designated leader from each group reports the findings back to the coordinating group (analyses, and raw data) Finally, a coordinating group exists consisting of a leader (me in this case) and scientists representing each discipline. The responsibility of this group is to coordinate other scientists on where to do research and it conducts the final analysis on data coming from all other groups to produce a complete picture and status of the rainforest ecosystem. After monitoring the rainforest for some period of time, negative and positive trends begin to appear. The team must find the cause of these trends. After the causes have been sufficiently proven, an appropriate solution can be suggested. -Tri |