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.
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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.
The Great Smoky Mountains have a unique climate and weather pattern. Students will review a Landsat image and read about the history of the area and why Native Americans called the area “Shaconage.” Then they will answer the questions about what caused the unusual “blue smoke.”
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 analyze two North Pole orthographic data visualizations produced from soil moisture data. After describing trends in the seasonal thaw of land surfaces, students demonstrate their understanding of Earth’s energy budget by explaining relationships and make predictions about the dataset.
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 will watch a short video that explains albedo and how it plays an important role in Earth’s Energy Budget. Applying what they learned from the video, students will analyze a bar graph that lists the albedos of common surfaces found on Earth to answer critical thinking questions.
In this activity students will examine NASA data to determine the differences between a solar and lunar eclipse.