Student Readers

What
Affects the
Quality of
Air in My
Community?
Student Materials
Name_________________________________________ Learning Set One
Home Room ___________________________________
Student Reader
Date__________________________________________

WHAT IS AIR QUALITY?

Have you ever been somewhere where the
air smells unusual? Or heard someone
speak of the fresh country air? Why would
the air smell different from place to place?
Is the air we breathe in Michigan the same
as the air they breathe in Hong Kong? Are
there different qualities of air? If all humans
breathe air then it must be important to
breathe clean air, right? These are all very
interesting and important questions. Think
about these questions as you read the fol-
lowing article.

November 29, 2001

BY NICOLLE CHARBONNEAU
HEALTH SCOUT NEWS SERVICE
Taken from Detroit Free Press

Study finds air pollution hurts lungs X rays show damage in otherwise
healthy 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 a
higher risk of lung disease.

Lead investigator Dr. Lynn Fordham, chief of pediatric imaging at the University of North
Carolina, 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 and
National Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

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

Student Reader/ Learning Set One SR 3

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader A1

Of the 260 children, 241 came from southwest metropolitan Mexico City, a region known for its
high 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 were
above 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 children’s’ lung
problems are due to air quality?
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This article talks about the air in Mexico City. Is the air in Mexico City the same as in your hometown?
Detroit?
your air quality to that of other US
Why would it be different? In this unit, you will compare Detroit’s
cities. You will also explore what makes air in one city different from other cities. Finally, you will
examine 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. Similar
to 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 protect
and keep our air clean.

SR 4 Student Reader

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader A2

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?

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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?
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4. What do you think the air quality is like in your hometown?

Detroit? Why? If you have taken the walk around
your school use evidence from your walk to support your answer.
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Student Reader/ Learning Set One SR 5

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader A3

Name_________________________________________ Learning Set Two
Home Room ___________________________________
Student Reader
Date__________________________________________

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT AIR?

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

So far, we know that air takes up space, it has volume.

When you submerged a glass in water with a paper towel
crumpled up in the glass, the paper towel did not get wet.
The class determined something had to prevent the paper
towel from getting wet. The conclusion was that air was tak- Paper towel in glass
ing up the space between the paper towel and water; therefore
the towel stayed dry. Air was taking up space (volume) in the
glass. 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? You
blow it up with air, demonstrating again that air takes up space and has volume. Think about a
flat tire. What do you put in a flat tire to make it so you can drive on it again? Air!

Student Reader/ Learning Set Two SR 7

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader B1

1. List three other things that demonstrate that air has volume (takes up space) - hint, think of
things you can inflate.
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What else do we know about air? In class, you measured the mass of a deflated bag and then made
predictions about what the bag’s 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 the
change in the mass of the bag must be because of the air put into it. This tells us that air has
mass.

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 and
measured 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?
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We know that air has volume and mass. Scientists have a term for anything that has volume and
mass 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 completing
the 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, a
ball, 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. In
this unit you will explore how even the particles that make up matter can move.

SR 8 Student Reader/Learning Set Two

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader B2

Name_________________________________________ Learning Set Two
Home Room ___________________________________
Student Reader
Date__________________________________________

COMPOSITION OF AIR
We know that air is matter, but the question still remains, what is air made up of? Take a breath
and think about it. What is in air that helps us live? If you guessed oxygen, you are right. Air has
oxygen in it but it has other things too. What do you breathe out? You exhale a small amount of
carbon dioxide. Therefore, air must have a small amount of other gases. You would think that
because of all the people in the world, air must be mostly composed of oxygen and carbon dioxide-
BUT IT IS NOT!
1%
But what else is air made up of?

In class you determined the amount of oxygen Oxygen

in the air. The water beneath the tube began 21%
to rise because the candle was using oxygen. Nitrogen
78%
Later, you found out that oxygen only makes
other gases
up around 21% of air. Nitrogen makes up
and particles
almost 78% of air and the last 1% or so is
made up of other gases and particles including
carbon dioxide.
Figure 1. Air composition
We know that an inflated basketball not only
has 21% oxygen but also 78% nitrogen and a small amount of other gases and particles. The air in
the basketball and the air surrounding us can be described as a mixture. Scientists explain a mix-
ture as a combination of two or more substances, where each substance keeps its own characteris-
tics and can be physically separated into simpler substances. A substance is something that has a
definite composition, which means that a substance is made of only one material, for example,
sugar, plastic, copper or rubber. They are all substances.

Mixture- a combination of two or more substances,

where each substance keeps its own properties and can
be physically separated into simpler substances.

Student Reader/ Learning Set Two SR 9

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader C1

There are mixtures all around us. The cereal “Lucky Charms” is an example of a mixture; it can
be 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 and
the 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 be
separated from it?
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2. Write a summary about what you know about air and provide evidence for each of
your statements.
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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 when

you blow bubbles in your drink?

SR 10 Student Reader/Learning Set Two

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader C2

Name_________________________________________ Learning Set Two
Home Room ___________________________________
Student Reader
Date__________________________________________

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 as
nitrogen, oxygen and other things. Finally, air is a gas. But do we know enough to answer our
driving question, "What affects the quality of air in our community?” For example, if we had to
draw 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 about
the 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. In
class, we did not use powerful microscopes; instead we learned about the arrangement of particles
in matter by acting out how they are arranged. Below is a diagram that shows how the students
were arranged as a solid.

KEY

= 1 Student = 1

Figure 1. Students arranged as particles in a solid.

People in your class acted like they were particles. These student particles were then arranged to
show the difference between solid, liquid and gas phases. Let’s review and try to remember how
the 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.

Student Reader/ Learning Set Two SR 11

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader D1

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 pop
bottle, a door, and a metal fork. Salt crystals that you put on your french fries are very different
from 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 definite
shape and a definite volume. Remember that volume is a measurement of the amount of space
something 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.

KEY

Particle =

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 packed
together 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 examples
of liquids. Examples of liquids may include water, ice tea, rain, soda pop, and lemonade. Soda pop
is 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.

SR 12 Student Reader/Learning Set Two

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader D2

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 the
glass on to the floor the shape changes again and a puddle forms. Even though the milk takes a
new 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 shape.

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

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

KEY

Particle =

Pollutants can come in the form of a liquid. When factories burn coal and oil for fuel or when
cars use gasoline, pollutants like nitrogen dioxide are released into the air. When this chemical
combines with water particles in the air, a type of acid rain is formed. Acid rain is a liquid. Acid
rain 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.
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Student Reader/ Learning Set Two SR 13

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader D3

What do all substances in the gas phase have in common?
Gases are a little harder to think about, but they are all around us. Some examples may include air,
and helium in a balloon, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. These are all examples of gases.

Oxygen is very different from helium, so why are these things both called gases?
These examples and all other gases have at least 2 things in common. All gases have no definite
volume and no definite shape.

When you buy a balloon and blow it up, you are blowing air inside. When you finish blowing up
the balloon and tie it shut it looks round. The gas inside has taken the shape of its container just
like a liquid. You could then measure the balloon and determine the volume of air inside.

Air has
shape
and volume
of the balloon.

Balloon with no air. Balloon with air.

Figure 4. Balloon without air and with air.

If you pop the balloon, the gas (air) rushes out and the shape is lost. The gas cannot keep its shape
without being in a container.

In addition to not being able to keep its shape, a gas also has no definite volume. When the
balloon is popped and the gas is released, the gas particles just keep moving further and further
apart. This is different from a liquid outside a container. When the milk is poured from the glass
to the floor it spreads on the floor but eventually it will stop spreading and stay like a puddle,
whereas air particles continue to move apart.

Air
leaves
balloon
and
has no
definite
shape or
volume.
Balloon with air. Pop Balloon. Balloon with no air.

Figure 5. Balloon being popped

SR 14 Student Reader/Learning Set Two

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader D4

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 particles
in a gas are very loosely arranged. The particles are also vibrating and randomly moving. This
random movement causes the particles to bump into each other and bounce off the side of the
container. 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

KEY

Gas Particle =

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. All
of these pollutants are examples of gases.

2. Describe the difference between particles in a gas phase and particles in a liquid phase.
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Student Reader/ Learning Set Two SR 15

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader D5

Name_________________________________________ Learning Set Three

Home Room ___________________________________ Student Reader

Date__________________________________________

HOW DO POLLUTANTS LOOK?

So far in investigating “What affects the quality of air in our community?” We have learned that air is a
gas, 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 and
moving a lot and bumping into to each other.

Key

nitrogen particle

oxygen particle

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 particles
in air look like. Do nitrogen particles, oxygen particles or air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide
and 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 used
different 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 oxygen
atoms.

Student Reader/ Learning Set Three SR 17

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader E1

Oxygen atom

Hydrogen atoms

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 the
periodic table. Every substance in the world is made up of at least one of the elements listed in the
periodic table.

Figure 3. Periodic Table

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

SR 18 Student Reader/Learning Set Two

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader E2

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 oxygen
atoms, nitrogen would only have nitrogen atoms and iron would only have iron atoms. An atom is
a very small particle. Every element in the periodic table has atoms.

The element iron is

composed of only
one kind of atom.
A Sample of
the element
i
= iron atom

We found out that air is mostly made up of nitrogen and oxygen. These substances can both be
found 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, sulfur
dioxide, 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 a
model of carbon monoxide in class you used two different colors of gum- drops. One color was
for 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 or
more 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 two
hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom to make one water molecule.

Oxygen atom

Hydrogen atoms
Figure 4. Water Molecule

Student Reader/ Learning Set Three SR 19

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader E3

Many gases exists in a molecule form. Oxygen most often exists as a molecule known as O2, which
means two oxygen atoms. Nitrogen is also an example of a gas that usually exists in a molecule
state.

= Oxygen molecule

1. How are atoms and molecules different?

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During your investigation of “What affects the quality of air in my community?” you may have
heard the word compound. A compound is a molecule that contains more than one different type
of atom. A molecule can be two atoms of the same element like Oxygen or Nitrogen, a compound
cannot.

Below are examples of compounds. Notice each has more than one type of atom.

Carbon dioxide Water

Figure 5. Examples of Compounds

A compound is composed or two or more different

atoms that are stuck together in a certain arrangement
and cannot be separated by physical means.

SR 20 Student Reader/Learning Set Two

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader E4

2. What is the difference between molecules and compounds?
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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. In
the 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 CFC’s.

CFC compound
She drew a picture of how the gas would look if she had a CFC stands for
very microscope camera. Using this information explain
how many compounds, elements, and atoms are in the
Chlorofluorocarbon
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 the
upcoming classes, you will learn more about some of the pollutants listed above and their effects on
air quality.

Student Reader/ Learning Set Three SR 21

What is the Quality of Air in My Community Student Reader E5