What Is Asthma? is the first information page in the activity guide that you will come across. This, as well as the other information pages are designed to be used either as teacher background or to be reproduced and given to the student.
The Scientific Method: A Real Life Study is designed to focus on the research going on at the Mickey Leland National Urban Air Toxic Research Center in Houston. It gives a background of who Mickey Leland is, his legacy and the research center. Several different scenarios from research presented at the 2001 Asthma conference at the Mickey Leland center is evaluated for their use of the scientific method. The first scenario explores the basic principals of the scientific method. The second scenario looks at the importance of random sampling. The assessment is based on a true story the town of Seabrook is facing and allows the student to design an experiment using the scientific method to help solve the problem.
Is Wider Better? This activity has a two-fold purpose. It can be used to reinforce process skills by teaching the types of data (Qualitative vs. Quantitative) with their levels of measurement. It will also give the student the opportunity to experience what an asthma attack is like. This is a hands on experiment that needs little laboratory equipment.
Human Health and Air Pollution is designed for the student to work independently and research the effects of polluted air on the human body. They will create a brochure to present their findings. This will require some cut and paste but no laboratory equipment and can be done outside the classroom.
To Smell or Not to Smell, That is the Question? Fits in with the human body theme by exploring the sense of smell. Students will do a serial dilution to test their sense of smell. This can be used in an air pollution unit or a unit on the nervous system and the senses. It requires basic equipment that can be purchased at the grocery store. A graduated cylinder or something to measure fluids in metric is also needed.
The Smeller is the Feller again is an activity that uses the sense of smell and how it relates to air pollution. The students will be given unknown scents to try to match to known ones to see how discriminating their sense of smell is. They will then look at a list of common air pollutants and their odors so they can identify the chemicals by smell. The extension is the classic lab activity of seeing how smell relates to taste by having a blindfolded student, who is holding their nose trying to identify different food by taste as their partner places it on their tongue. All supplies for this laboratory can be purchased at the local grocery.
What Makes the Table Periodic? This is a note page that can be used as a teacher resource or background for the students. It goes with the next few activities on the periodic table.
Analyzing The Dirty Thirty (Three) is an activity that can be used to review the periodic table, and how to read and write formulas while introducing the top 33 urban air toxins as identified by the Environmental Protection Agency. This can be used in a chemistry unit or an air pollution unit. The students will need a copy of the Periodic Table of Elements to complete this activity.
It's A Gas is an activity that focuses on two different skills. The first is that it allows the students to design their own experiment using the scientific method. The second is that the students will discover some of the properties of gases by conducting their experiment. Students love playing with dry ice. Dry Ice can be purchased at many of the large supermarket chains, ice cream shops or bait camps. The rest of the equipment needed will depend on what you decide to let the students use.
The Good, Bad and Ugly of Ozone is a basic pencil, paper activity that allows the students to learn the difference between Stratospheric and Troposheric ozone formation. A Venn diagram will be created by the student to show their understanding of the differences of the two types of ozone.
Light Energy to Chemical Energy is a demonstration that should be preformed by the teacher. It uses chemicals that may need to be ordered ahead of time or the teacher can order a kit to use. In ozone formation, light energy is changed to chemical energy in one of the steps. This process may be too abstract for some students. This demonstration is a way to visualize what happens when a light energy to chemical energy conversion happens. This does use toxic chemicals so the students should not do it.
The Making of Ozone Game is a game that is designed to step the students through the complex process of ozone formation. The students will also see the conditions needed for ozone formation. Post-it notes in the recommended colors or some other type papers that can be stuck together and pulled apart many times should be used. This activity is best used with four students playing at a time. If you have access to the Internet the extension is well worth you time in playing.
Homemade or Store-bought, Which One is Ozone Proof? This activity uses many process skills because the students are designing many parts of their experiments. They will make their own rubber bands using liquid latex and comparing their resistance to ozone to commercially purchased rubber bands. The making of the homemade rubber bands requires the purchase of liquid latex and safety equipment. If getting the chemical or the equipment is a problem the first part can be skipped and the students can use commercial rubber bands and do the second part of the activity. This activity needs several days to complete because of exposure time of the samples.
Using Qualitative Data to Detect Ozone offers an alternative to purchasing the commercially available Eco-badges to detect ozone by having students make their own detection paper. Most of the supplies that are needed to do this lab can be obtained at the local grocery store; however, iodine and potassium iodide need to be ordered from a chemical supply company ahead of time. A sling psychrometer isn't necessary but a nice extra if you have to get an instant relative humidity reading. You can use your local weather bureau. This activity allows the students to pick the test spots they would like to use and compare them with their classmates. This activity needs several days to complete because of exposure time of the samples.
Lichens and Air is another lesson that can be used in two different places in your curriculum. It can be used as a lesson on lichens or it can be used to show how air pollution can harm living things in the natural environment. It also shows how living things can help clean up the environment. The first part of the activity has the students using a sponge as a model of a lichen and how it absorbs pollutants from the air. You will need to order litmus paper or you can make your own acid-base indicator from cabbage juice. The equipment needed is a scale (triple-beam balance) and a graduated cylinder. Everything else can be purchased from the local grocery store. Part 2 of the activity requires a dissecting or binocular microscope. Students will be comparing the structures of lichens to some plants. One of the plants needed should have a waxy leaf. An aquatic plant is also needed. The extension requires a wooded area with lichens on the trees for the students to observe.
Air Pollution and Natural Selection uses the classic example of the peppered moth to show how air pollution can impact an ecosystem. This lesson can be used in the part of your curriculum when teaching natural selection or can be used in air pollution unit. This makes the students realize that air pollution is not a new problem and how it can affect living things. The laboratory supplies are candies that can be purchased at the grocery.
Is Your City a Heat Island? This lesson is a weather lesson that links the weather conditions to the heat island effect that occurs in cities. The students will be picking which variable they would like to test and then they combine with the class to construct a model of a city, while testing their variable. The heat island effect on cities will be demonstrated when the class combines their buildings and make a city. The buildings can be constructed from boxes. Paints, foil and different fabrics should be available to create different surfaces. The students will need thermometers for this activity. If you have Weathernet or similar type weather stations in your area the students can use these to do the extensions to this activity. Save your boxes for another activity.
Wind, Weather and Pollution Dispersal can be used to teach about diffusion or can be used to teach just what the title says. The first part of this activity has the students testing to see what factors will affect the rate of diffusion. You will need clear containers and a thermometers. The second activity will show how a temperature inversion is formed by making a model. You will need an aquarium or clear storage type container to use.
Wind and Dispersal will have the students constructing a city to demonstrate how buildings can affect pollution dispersal. You can use the same boxes that you used in an earlier activity. You will use dry ice and candle to make the air pollution. Please make sure the students exercise caution with the open flame on the candles. You will need several small fans or blow dryers to make your wind. This activity allows the students to manipulate and design different street patterns to track the dispersal rate of pollution.
Getting Particular Over Particulates is an information page about particulate matter as an air pollutant. It can be used for teacher background information or reproduced for student use.
Let's Settle It uses another classic lab in a different context to illustrate a point. Students will see the settling rate of different size particles in water and apply them to particulate matter in the atmosphere. They will then throw in the factor of wind and determine its affect on settling rate. A flashlight and some products that are made of particles that are uniform in size such as clay, corn meal, and flour are used in this experiment.
How Particulate Are You? is one of the oldest air quality activities around but just too good not to include in this guide. This activity has students making monitors with a sticky surface to collect particulate matter from the atmosphere. The students can choose their locations and then come back together as a class to compare results. This activity needs several days to complete because of exposure time of the sampling cards.
Exhausting Results has the students using a sock to analyze the exhaust of a car. You must be very careful with this activity when collecting the exhaust sample. You will also have a coffee filter inside the sock to later soak in water to try to get a pH reading. You can skip this part if getting pH paper is a problem. You need paper or a universal indicator that will give you the pH, not just litmus paper. This activity is most effective if you can use several ages and types of vehicles.
The Green Team; Does It Pay? focuses on green spaces and how they help with the pollution in cities by helping with preventing the heat island effect and absorbing harmful pollutants. The information page can be used for the teachers own background information or can be copied for the students.
The Green Team has the students working in laboratory groups with each group choosing a different aspect of green spaces to test. There is a list of recommended experiments for the students to choose from. They will be doing the experiments simultaneously in the classroom. This will increase the amount of set up time for the labs but will require less lab equipment overall since each team will be testing a different variable. The lab teams will then report their findings back to the class for further analysis. If the teacher does not feel that each student can design and carry out the topic they chose then they might want to have some prepared labs already copied.
Mapping Houston's Green Spaces requires a map of the city of Houston. The students will work in groups to identify green spaces in the city to evaluate the need for more. You can break the city down into different areas or quadrants for the students and then they can come back together as a class to discuss their results.
The Good News and The Bad News utilizes an issues wheel to have the students evaluate the pros and cons of any solutions they may have to their assigned pollutant. This illustrates that there are no simple answers because there are causes and effects to every solution.
Chaotic Alternatives starts by reviewing Chaos Theory in the background information. Activity One models bifurcation by doing a simple lab activity that will help the students understand what it is. Next, the students brainstorm different ways to conserve energy. They will then go through a process that leads them to choose one action item. From that action item they will analyze outcomes for their success by using principles from Chaos Theory. This again makes the students the complexity of the problem of finding good solutions.
Air Pollution: The Inside Story is a general information page about indoor air pollution causes and using tropical plants as solutions. This can be used as background information for the teacher or an information page for the students.
It Starts With the Soil is a lab activity that test soil for the microbes that help fight indoor air pollution. It can be done with supplies from the grocery. Metheylene blue is the only chemical that is used that may need to be ordered. It does need to sit up for at least 24 hrs.
Having A Tropical Plant Wave is a series of activities that have the students looking at houseplants that have been rated as being affective in fighting indoor pollution. It also has some simple laboratory activities that the students can perform. One of the activities looks at the aftermath of indoor flooding from Tropical Storm Allison. An assessment that is a good writing assignment is used and extensions are included.
What I Want To Be When I Grow Up is an activity that focuses on careers. This looks at both blue collar and white collar careers focusing on the air/energy topic. The newspaper is the resource that the students start with and then the activity expands from where they focus on one career and search for the background needed to follow it.
