air student readers v2

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S t

u d e n

t R e a

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What Affects the

Quality of Air in My

Community?

Student Materials


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Name_________________________________________

Home Room ___________________________________

Date__________________________________________

Learning Set One Student Reader

Student Reader/ Learning Set One SR 3

WHAT IS AIR QUALITY?

Have you ever been somewhere where theair smells unusual? Or heard someonespeak of the fresh country air? Why wouldthe air smell different from place to place?Is the air we breathe in Michigan the sameas the air they breathe in Hong Kong? Are

there different qualities of air? If all humansbreathe air then it must be important tobreathe clean air, right? These are all very interesting and important questions. Think about these questions as you read the fol-lowing article.

November 29, 2001BY NICOLLE CHARBONNEAUHEALTH SCOUT NEWS SERVICETaken from Detroit Free Press

Study finds air pollution hurts lungs X rays show damage in otherwisehealthy kids

CHICAGO -- American researchers who found inflammation and irregularities in lung X-rays of school children in Mexico City believe they've found the culprit: air pollution.

And they say the findings suggest otherwise healthy, middle-class children in part of that city face ahigher risk of lung disease.

Lead investigator Dr. Lynn Fordham, chief of pediatric imaging at the University of NorthCarolina, said the findings, while preliminary, may be a wake-up call to parents and public-policy

makers. Fordham will present the findings in Chicago today at the 87th Scientific Assembly andNational Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

The researchers enrolled 260 healthy Mexican children, none with asthma or other risk factors forrespiratory problems. "They ought to be healthy, and they ought to be normal, but they're not,"Fordham said.

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Of the 260 children, 241 came from southwest metropolitan Mexico City, a region known for itshigh daily levels of air pollutants, and within 10 miles of a pollution-monitoring station.

During the 20-month study, ozone levels exceeded U.S. National Air Quality Standard levels for

4.75 hours each day. Levels of particulate matter small enough to lodge in the lungs also wereabove U.S. standards.

The regular X- rays found that children living in Mexico City were far more likely to have abnor-mal X- rays: 151 showed over expansion, or hyperinflation, of the lungs, and 126 had abnormally high levels of markings in their lungs.

READER QUESTIONS

1. In the article, what evidence is included that led researchers to believe that the childrens lungproblems are due to air quality?___________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

__________________________________________________________________________________

This article talks about the air in Mexico City. Is the air in Mexico City the same as in Detroit? Why would it be different? In this unit, you will compare Detroits air quality to that of other UScities. You will also explore what makes air in one city different from other cities. Finally, you willexamine real data to determine what the air is like in your community.

Over the next weeks you will be investigating the question What affects the quality of air in my community? In order to examine air quality you will explore what is air and what is in it. Similarto the researchers in the article, you will conduct investigations to help you determine the quality of air in your community. You will examine air pollutants and discover where they come from and

what we can do to reduce them. Finally, you will discover what the United States does to protectand keep our air clean.

SR 4 Student Reader


your hometown?your


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Student Reader/ Learning Set One SR 5

The following questions are to start you thinking about the air you breathe, the quality of air and why air quality is important.

2. Why do you think clean air is important?__________________________________________________________________________________

3. Why do you think the doctors in this article looked at x-rays of the lungs as one indication of whether the air is clean or not?__________________________________________________________________________________

4. What do you think the air quality is like in Detroit? Why? If you have taken the walk around your school use evidence from your walk to support your answer.____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


your hometown?


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Name_________________________________________

Home Room ___________________________________

Date__________________________________________

Learning Set Two Student Reader

Student Reader/ Learning Set Two SR 7

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT AIR?

In class you have started an investigation on what affects thequality of air in your community. One way to start yourproject is to compile a list of what you already know and what you need to know about air and air quality in yourcommunity.

So far, we know that air takes up space, it has volume. When you submerged a glass in water with a paper towelcrumpled up in the glass, the paper towel did not get wet. The class determined something had to prevent the papertowel from getting wet. The conclusion was that air was tak-ing up the space between the paper towel and water; thereforethe towel stayed dry. Air was taking up space ( volume ) in theglass. Volume is a measure of how much space or area some-thing has.

Volume is a measure of space taken up by something.Have you ever seen a deflated basketball? Why is it deflated? How would you inflate it? Youblow it up with air, demonstrating again that air takes up space and has volume. Think about aflat tire. What do you put in a flat tire to make it so you can drive on it again? Air!

Paper towel in glass

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SR 8 Student Reader/Learning Set Two

1. List three other things that demonstrate that air has volume (takes up space) - hint, think of things you can inflate._________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

What else do we know about air? In class, you measured the mass of a deflated bag and then madepredictions about what the bags mass would be after filling it up with air. What did you observe? The inflated bag had more mass than it did when it was flat. Therefore, we can explain that thechange in the mass of the bag must be because of the air put into it. This tells us that air hasmass.

Mass is a measure of how much stuff you have. Another example is if you took another bag and found its mass, then filled the bag with water andmeasured its mass again, it would have a much greater mass then it did empty. In fact, the mass of with bag with water would be greater than the mass of the bag with air. But, they both have mass!

2. How would you determine the mass of air in each of the three things you listed in question #1?_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We know that air has volume and mass. Scientists have a term for anything that has volume andmass the term is matter. Air is matter. Think of anything that has volume and mass. For example your pen, TV, dog, even this paper, they all are examples of matter. While you were completingthe air walk you saw plenty examples of matter: buildings, cars, even dirt.

Matter is anything that has volume and mass.

If you are not convinced yet, think about the fact that matter can move. You can move a chair, aball, animals move, you can toss a rock. Can air move? Of course, wind blows and creates storms. Think of a tornado or a hurricane, these are examples of air moving in a very powerful way. Inthis unit you will explore how even the particles that make up matter can move.

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There are mixtures all around us. The cereal Lucky Charms is an example of a mixture ; it canbe separated into tiny, colorful marshmallow bits and crunchy pieces of cereal. When you go trick or-treating on Halloween, your bag full of candy is a mixture . You can separate out your candy by each individual type. A mixture you could make at home could be of salt, pepper and sugar. If

you put some of each on a plate and stirred them up you would have a mixture . Imagine how hard

it would be to separate each grain of sugar from the salt and pepper, but if you had the time andthe patience, you could separate each substance out of the mixture .

1. What is an example of a mixture that you know and list the individual substances that can beseparated from it?______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

2. Write a summary about what you know about air and provide evidence for each of

your statements.________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

So far, we have developed ideas of what air is and what makes up air. In the next couple classes, you are going to take a much closer and specific look at some of the substances found in air.

Questions to think about:

Are air and oxygen the same? Why?

In scientific terms, what happens whenyou blow bubbles in your drink?

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Name_________________________________________

Home Room ___________________________________

Date__________________________________________

Learning Set Two Student Reader WHAT DOES AIR LOOK LIKE?

So far in investigating What affects the quality of air in our community? we have focused on air. We learned that air is matter, it has volume and mass. Air is made up of several substances such asnitrogen, oxygen and other things. Finally, air is a gas. But do we know enough to answer ourdriving question, "What affects the quality of air in our community? For example, if we had todraw a picture of unpolluted air, what would it look like? In order to do this, we need to under-stand more about the substances in air and how they are arranged.

What is matter like up close?In general, matter can exist in three forms or phases: solid, liquid or gas. Scientists learned aboutthe different arrangement of particles in solids, liquids and gases phases through many years of experimentation. Today, scientists can actually view the arrangement of particles that make up dif-ferent types of matter. Remember that matter is anything that has volume and mass.

High powered microscopes can be used to view how particles are arranged in the solid phase. Inclass, we did not use powerful microscopes; instead we learned about the arrangement of particlesin matter by acting out how they are arranged. Below is a diagram that shows how the students

were arranged as a solid.

Figure 1. Students arranged as particles in a solid.

People in your class acted like they were particles. These student particles were then arranged toshow the difference between solid, liquid and gas phases. Lets review and try to remember howthe student particles were different between solids, liquids and gases.

When students were pretending to be particles in a solid phase they were: lined up orderly, closely packed together, moving a little bit but very slowly.

When students were pretending to be particles in a liquid phase they were: close together, but not as close as in a solid, moving slowly around each other.

KEY

= 1 Student = 1

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And finally, when students were pretending to be particles in a gas phase they were far apart, randomly spaced, moving around quickly.

What do all substances in the solid phase have in common? What are some examples of solids? Just looking around your classroom or home you could proba-bly come up with many examples of solids. Some examples may include ice, salt, a plastic popbottle, a door, and a metal fork. Salt crystals that you put on your french fries are very differentfrom a plastic pop bottle or a metal fork, so why do we call all these things solids?

These examples and all other solids have at least 2 things in common. All solids have a definiteshape and a definite volume. Remember that volume is a measurement of the amount of spacesomething fills. If we could use powerful equipment to take a picture of the particles in a solid, we

would see that they are closely packed together in an orderly manner. If our powerful equipment were a movie camera, we would notice the very little motion of the particles.

Solids have a definite shape and definite volume.

Figure 2. How particles in a solid would appear if we had a very, very powerful camera.

Have you ever seen black exhaust from the tail pipe of a big truck or black smoke from a chim-ney? The blackness in the exhaust and smoke is caused by little pieces of solid material (particu-late matter) like soot and ash. These tiny little pieces of solid have particles that are tightly packedtogether like all solids. Therefore, even though air is a gas, sometimes it contains tiny pieces of solids.

What do all substances in the liquid phase have in common? Just looking around your classroom or at home you could probably come up with many examplesof liquids. Examples of liquids may include water, ice tea, rain, soda pop, and lemonade. Soda popis very different from water, so why are these things called liquids?

These examples and all other liquids have at least 2 things in common. All liquids have a definite volume but no definite shape.


KEY

Particle =



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When you pour a liquid from a carton into a glass, for example milk, the shape of the liquid, milk,changes from the shape of the carton to the shape of the glass. If you pour the milk out of theglass on to the floor the shape changes again and a puddle forms. Even though the milk takes anew shape, the volume of the milk stays the same, If you poured all the milk back into the carton,

you would have the same amount as you started.

Liquids have a definite volume but NOT a definite shapHow are particles in a liquid phase arranged?

We have already described how the particles in a solid are arranged, now we will see how particlesin a liquid are arranged.

Once again, if we could use our powerful microscope we could see that particles in a liquid aregenerally loosely packed together. The particles are vibrating and bumping into each other andrandomly moving around.

Pollutants can come in the form of a liquid. When factories burn coal and oil for fuel or whencars use gasoline, pollutants like nitrogen dioxide are released into the air. When this chemicalcombines with water particles in the air, a type of acid rain is formed. Acid rain is a liquid. Acidrain can cause statues and buildings, to erode and can harm fish and plants.

1.Describe the difference between particles in a solid phase and a liquid phase.___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

KEY

Particle =



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How are the particles in a gas phase arranged?Once again if we could use our powerful microscope to look at particles we would see that particlesin a gas are very loosely arranged. The particles are also vibrating and randomly moving. Thisrandom movement causes the particles to bump into each other and bounce off the side of thecontainer. It is this constant random motion that causes gases to have no definite shape or volume.

Figure below shows how particles in a gas may appear if we had a very powerful camera.

Picture # 1 Picture #2

Particles arranged in a gas.

Many air pollutants are gases. When factories burn coal and oil for fuel or when cars use gasoline,pollutants like nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and carbon monoxide are released into the air. Allof these pollutants are examples of gases.

2. Describe the difference between particles in a gas phase and particles in a liquid phase.______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

KEY

Gas Particle =



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Student Reader/ Learning Set Three SR 17

Name_________________________________________

Home Room ___________________________________

Date__________________________________________

Learning Set Three Student Reader

HOW DO POLLUTANTS LOOK?So far in investigating What affects the quality of air in our community? We have learned that air is agas, and is mostly nitrogen (78%), along with oxygen (21%) and finally other particles (1%).

If we had a very powerful microscope to see tiny particles of air we would notice that the air parti-cles (nitrogen, oxygen, other) are like other gases in that, they are far apart, randomly arranged andmoving a lot and bumping into to each other.

Figure 1. Particles in air

We have learned many new things about air, but do we know enough to answer our driving ques-tion What affects the quality of air in our community? We still need to know what the particlesin air look like. Do nitrogen particles, oxygen particles or air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxideand sulfur dioxide look like tiny dots? Recently in class you built models of these various sub-stances.

In class we used gumdrops to make models. Each gumdrop represented an atom.

An atom is a unit of matter, the smallest unit of a element having all the characteristics of that element.

All types of matter are made up of atoms, but not all atoms are the same. Recently in class we useddifferent color gumdrops to represent different types of atoms. For example during the gum-drop activity you used different colored gumdrops for hydrogen atoms, carbon atoms, and oxygenatoms.

nitrogen particle

oxygen particle

other

Key

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Figure 2. Examples of atoms in water

Why did we use different colors of gumdrops? The different colored gumdrops represented atoms from different elements.

An element is a substance that is made up of only one type of atom.

During the gumdrop activity the different colored gumdrops represented different elements.Scientists have organized and listed all the known elements into a chart. This chart is called theperiodic table. Every substance in the world is made up of at least one of the elements listed in theperiodic table.

Figure 3. Periodic Table

Oxygen is one of many elements. If you look on a periodic table, you will see there are more than100 different elements. Another example of an element is iron, Fe. Can you find iron on theperiodic table?

Hydrogen atoms

Oxygen atom



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What is the relationship between element and atoms? If you break up the element such as oxygen,nitrogen or iron, you would see only one type of atom. Oxygen would only contain oxygenatoms, nitrogen would only have nitrogen atoms and iron would only have iron atoms. An atom isa very small particle. Every element in the periodic table has atoms.

We found out that air is mostly made up of nitrogen and oxygen. These substances can both befound on the periodic table. Nitrogen and oxygen are both elements. Air also contains other sub-stances in addition to nitrogen and oxygen. Polluted air may contain carbon monoxide, sulfurdioxide, and/or nitrogen dioxide. Are these substances elements? The answer is no.

Carbon + Oxygen = Carbon monoxide(element) (element) (new product)

Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen dioxide all are made up of multiple elements.Carbon monoxide can be broken down into two elements, carbon and oxygen. When you made amodel of carbon monoxide in class you used two different colors of gumdrops. One color wasfor carbon and the other color was for oxygen.

Why did we use toothpicks in our gumdrop models?

In class we used toothpicks to connect the gumdrop atoms to form molecules. When two ormore atoms tightly connect together they form a molecule. During the gum drop activity two of the molecules you made were oxygen, and water. For the water molecule you combined twohydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom to make one water molecule.

Figure 4. Water Molecule

The element iron iscomposed of onlyone kind of atom.

A Sample of the element

= iron atom

Oxygen atom

Hydrogen atoms



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2. What is the difference between molecules and compounds?___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The following represents a balloon full of the pollutant Chlorofluorocarbon, more commonly know as, CFC. CFCs are dangerous pollutants that destroy the good ozone in our atmosphere. Inthe past, CFCs could be found in hair spray cans and other spray cans. CFCs are currently strictly controlled by law.

Maria has a balloon full of CFCs.

She drew a picture of how the gas would look if she had a very microscope camera. Using this information explainhow many compounds, elements, and atoms are in the

balloon.

3. Count the number:Number of compounds = ___________Number of atoms = ___________

We are getting closer to answering the question What affects the quality of air in my communi-ty? We know that air is a gas, which contains atoms, elements, molecules and compounds. In theupcoming classes, you will learn more about some of the pollutants listed above and their effects onair quality.


CFC compoundCFC stands for

Chlorofluorocarbon



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air student readers v2

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