Air Pollution | Interactive | Learn about pollution and follow a fun STEM activity

Air pollution. Do you ever think about the air you breathe? It is affected by both natural and synthetic phenomena. Today, we are going to learn more about air pollution and do an activity together. Ready? Let's go! First, let's talk about what air pollution is. Air pollution occurs when pollutants, which are solid, liquid, or gas particles, hang around in the air. These pollutants can occur from natural sources like volcanoes, wildfires, dust storms, or mold spores. Or they can occur from human-made sources like factories, car and airplane exhaust, landfills, and burning fossil fuels like coal or oil. Based on what you just learned, list four natural sources of pollution and four human-made sources. Natural sources include volcanoes, wildfires, dust storms, and mold spores. Human-made sources include factories, car and plane exhaust, landfills, and burning fossil fuels. Here is an important thing to remember. When the air becomes polluted, there are many detrimental effects to the environment, and it can also affect our health. Write down a few ways you think air pollution might affect the environment and your health. Here are some ways that pollutants affect our planet. Make sure to check and see if any of your hypotheses match. Certain pollutants increase the levels of carbon dioxide in the air, which causes global warming. The carbon cycle becomes imbalanced, and the Earth's temperature rises, causing the polar ice caps to begin to melt, which raises ocean levels. When pollutants called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, are released into the air from spray cans and methane gas, they cause the ozone layer to deplete. Acid rain occurs when gas pollutants like sulfur dioxide mix with rain and cause a chemical reaction. This can cause significant harm to plant and animal life. And when air pollutants combine with ozone, it creates a brown, smoky fog called smog. Air pollution makes it difficult to breathe and can cause diseases like respiratory infections, heart disease, and lung cancer. That is why it is important to take care of our air and encourage those around you to do the same. How did your hypotheses compare to the examples we gave? Do some additional research to see if you can add any more to the list. Now, let's do an experiment that shows us a real-life example of air pollution's effects. Write down your predictions and observations. If you want to fill out the same observation chart as we do in this video, you can grab the link to download it in our air pollution lesson plan. We are going to see what happens to a leaf, an eggshell, and a paper clip when they are put in distilled water and when they are put in vinegar. In this experiment, the vinegar represents Before we do that, let's measure the pH of each liquid and record it. Make some predictions about what you think will happen to each item in both the water and the vinegar. Now, it is time to place our items into each substance and observe the results. Here is what the leaf, eggshell, and paper clip look after one day of being submerged in distilled water. Write down your observations. Now, let's look at each of these items in the vinegar. Write down your observations. Based on what you see, what do you think will happen to each object after they soak in each solution for one week? After one week, let's look at what has changed. Here are the objects in the distilled water and here they are in vinegar. Were your predictions correct? What does this experiment tell us about the effects of acid rain on both living and non-living things? Excellent observing experiment experts! Hope you had fun learning with us. Visit us at learnbright.org for thousands of free resources and turnkey solutions for teachers and homeschoolers.