Fresh Air and Air Pollution Facts Hunt Directions: Bookmark this web page. Click the linked site to find the answer. You'll need to do some digging on the sites. Use the Bookmark to return to this page. Delete the bookmark when you have finished the activity. If a link is broken, use your Net searching skills to find the necessary information. Answer sheet?

1. What gases make up the atmosphere of the earth?

2. Harness the EPA AIRNow site and Indoor & Outdoor Air pollution project to find the answers to these questions:

a. Name the federal agency responsible for monitoring air quality.

b. What impact does air quality have on human health?

c. What is the air quality forecast for your community today?

d. List the four ingredients that lead to ground level Ozone. Write the chemical symbol for ozone.

e. List 4 actions you can take to limit air pollution.

3. Not my problem. Describe what happened to the polluted air originating in lower Michigan in late summer 2002
or the facts behind "Arvin has averaged 73 bad smog days each year since 2004.".

4. Write three facts about Carbon Monoxide. CO (Use your Internet search skills to find the answer.)

How can you protect your family from Carbon Monoxide poisoning?

5. When you buy/sell a home you will have to have it tested for radon. What danger does radon gas pose? DEP Air

6. One of your classmates may have asthma. What is asthma?

7. All air pollution cannot be controlled or stopped. Explain

8. Acid precipitation is a serious consequence of air pollution.

What is the normal pH of rain?

What is the pH of rain in your area?

How does acid precipitation damage our environment?

9. How has the government sought to limit emissions that cause acid rain?

How is this group using pollution allowances to FIGHT air pollution?

10. A source of indoor air pollution is pesticides. Chemicals to kill bugs can also harm people.
A sound Integrated Pest Management program limits the use of pesticides.

What is the 2nd Commandment of IPM for Classrooms?

Who must follow it?

11. Visit Look Rock in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. What are the current conditions?

What is the consequence of those conditions?

12. Describe the Clean Air Mercury Rule of 2005. (Use your online research skills to find the answer)

View Mercury Deposition From All Sources in 2001. You are considering moving to Pennsylvania.
Compare PA.'s mercury deposition to your home state's deposition. Which one is more polluted?

13. Review your community's Pollution Scorecard.

Evaluate the effectiveness of the government in controlling air pollution in your community.

Identify 4 factors you will consider. What grade would you give them? Why?

14. Watch Capturing Carbon - Nova Science Now online video Jul. 2008
An eighth-grader's science fair project prompts her scientist father to develop a new way to pull
excess carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

True or false. People who make discoveries or invent things just find the answer in their heads.
No actual work/design/development effort is involved.

15. In February 1881, Mary Walton received a patent for her invention.
How did her invention improve people's lives?

Extra credit:

How do compact fluorescent light bulbs contribute to clean air?

Challenge: List the actions that have been taken at your school to control pollution.

Career Considerations - What do we call a person who studies the atmosphere?
(Use your online research skills to find the answer)

The US Department of Labor predicts the need for people in different fields of work in the Occupational Outlook Handbook.
What do they predict to be the need for people in the pollution/environment related jobs?

Select a field/job - What kind of training or education is needed for the job?

"Every American expects and deserves clean air, and then we act on that belief,
then we will set an example for the rest of the world to follow. " George H. W. Bush

More stuff:

Smokestack Effect - Toxic Air and America's Schools - Where is your school ranked?

How Clean is the Air in Your Community? problem based learning

Sky observation - science skill builder activity | Environmental Working Group Podcasts | NRDC - Issues: Air

The Scientific Method - watch this report about the challenges of air quality in one community.
Why would you move there or not move there?

Learn about clean coal technology | Investigate Clean Coal ads and assertions

Explore a science subject Science Close Up

Watch this fun video about idioms - by kids - for kids. Identify 3 "airy" idioms and explain their true meaning.

Save a tree - use a digital answer format - Highlight the text. Copy it. Paste it in a word processing document. Save the document in your folder. Answer on the word processing document in an easily read, contrasting color or font. (No yellow, no Symbols, , font) Save regularly as you work. Or perhaps you have the resources to record verbal answers. If you do, be sure to first read / record the question. Then record the answer immediately after it. Make Your Own Printed answer sheet.

Aligned to Pennsylvania Academic Standards:

Environment and Ecology 4.3. Environmental Health A. Describe environmental health issues. B. Describe how human actions affect the health of the environment. B. Analyze the local, regional and national impacts of environmental health. C. Analyze the need for a healthy environment. 4.8. Humans and the Environment - C. Explain how human activities may affect local, regional and national environments.
4.9. Environmental Laws and Regulations A. Explain why environmental laws and regulations are developed and enacted.

Reading Writing, Listening and Speaking

Science and Technology
3.7. Technological devices - C. Apply basic computer operations and concepts. D. Apply computer software to solve specific problems.
3.7. Technological devices - E. Apply basic computer communications systems.
3.8. Science, Technology and Human Endeavors B. Explain how human ingenuity and technological resources satisfy specific human needs and improve the quality of life.