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Air Pollution Where You Live


Real World Question
The quality of the air you breathe can affect your health and the health of other organisms near your home. Clean air laws passed in 1970 and 1990 have helped improve air quality in many regions of the United States. By investigating your community's air quality, you can determine how changes in the laws have affected the air you breathe. You also can investigate methods people have used to help make air cleaner and healthier.

The air quality index tells you how clean the air is and whether is will affect your health. Some areas of the United States experience more air quality problems than others. Form a hypothesis about how weather conditions affect the air quality index.

Goals

  • Identify sources of data that can be used to assess air quality.


  • Investigate data to determine local air quality.


  • Evaluate trends in data to identify patterns of change.


  • Design information that supports or refutes your hypothesis.

Data Sources
Make a Plan
  1. Research information about the air quality index data on the types of air pollutants collected by federal, state, and local government sources can be helpful.


  2. Research specific weather data that can affect air pollution levels.


  3. Investigate weather patterns that can contribute to an increase in the air quality index for a city or region.


  4. Look for other types of information that provide additional clues about your community's air quality over the years. For example, does gasoline sold in your area contain clean-burning additives?

Follow Your Plan
  1. Make sure your teacher approves your plan before you start.

  2. Check this Web site for links.
Analyze Your Data
  1. List the weather data and air quality index values you collected during the time period.

  2. Compare and Contrast weather data and the air quality index values.


  3. Graph you data. You may want to show how temperature and the air quality index are releated, or you may want to illustrate how values changed during the time period that you collected data.
Conclude and Apply
  1. Overall, how would you assess the quality of your community's air? Has there been a change in the air quality? What indicators provide these data?


  2. Determine Is there a relationship between weather data and air quality data?


  3. Discuss patterns in the air quality index over several days or weeks. For example, air quality may worsen from Monday to Friday. Explain why this might be happening.

Post your data in the table provided.

Air Quality Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
Location
Year
Air Quality Index Values
Weather Data
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