Climate Detectives Projects 2021-2022


Project topic: Wildfires

Project title: Forest fires in Greece

Team: Protect the forests

Esdoornstraat 142   Den Haag   Netherlands   3 Student’s age: 12-13 years old


Research question

How are forest fires caused and how can we prevent them?

Summary of the project
Greece before and after the forest fires (10 days)

We have used reliable websites: BBC, Britannica, national geographic
We have investigated the two main hypothesis to understand the causes of the fires:
– what were the temperatures before and during the forest fires in Greece. High temperatures might be connected to the global warming.
– whether there were any storms right before the fire because maybe a lightning hit a tree and put it on fire.
Additional hypothesis that we have investigated:
– litter
– the possibility that someone accidentally put on fire the forest and then the fire expanded due to the wind.

Main results and Conclusions
Timeline of fires in Greece, August 2021

Our conclusion is that the cause of the forest fires in Greece were a combination of several factors, including:
– The radical heat wave: This is because, the number of fires increased with the heat of the heat wave. This is proven by satellite data showing us that when the heat wave ended, on August 6th, the number of fires decreased.
– possibly some criminals: Wikipedia and several news channels tell us that there have been some criminals suspected of setting some forests on fire and many people have been arrested by the Greek police. However, this is not completely confirmed yet.
– global warming: Global warming is creating warmer summers and colder winters, which increases the risk of having heat waves, and there for forest fires.
As a conclusion one of our main hypothesis was correct (the global warming one), while the storm one was wrong.

What’s Next? Actions to make a difference and help lessen the problem

To tackle global warning, we can all contribute by lessening our waste and smarter using of our resources. Some examples are energy efficient houses, electri cars, increases in wind and solar power, biofuels from organic waste. It is very important to better protect our forests (police and volunteers) especially when there are heat waves in summer.

Project link:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/675426175/

Project poster:

Download project poster PDF

Project presentation

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