This activity is one of a series in the collection, The Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change activities.
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In this activity, you will use an inexpensive spectrophotometer* to test how light at different visible wavelengths (blue, green, red) is transmitted, or absorbed, through four different colored water samples.
Students will learn about and describe the different classifications of Air Quality Index and the importance of standards in air quality monitoring. Students will also use scientific evidence and reasoning to support a claim about long-term trends in air quality in the United States.
Students will review the sources of the six criteria pollutants for which the EPA has established standards for and describe their impacts on human health and the environment.
Students will analyze how air pollution may be transported over time. Students will also differentiate between sources of air pollution and describe how air pollution interacts with the Earth System.
Students will analyze and describe the relationship between air pollution and minority and poverty populations. Students will evaluate environmental problems in relation to social inequalities.
Students differentiate between data sets of monthly shortwave radiation and monthly cloud coverage to discover a relationship between radiation and clouds by answering analysis questions.
In this story map students will learn about what air pollution is, its environmental impact, the standards used to describe air quality as defined by the Clean Air Act, and the Earth System interactions that drive the transport of air pollution.
Students collect and analyze temperature data to explore what governs how much energy is reflected.
This lesson is designed to help students analyze the interaction between different cloud heights and Earth's incoming and outgoing energy.