Air Quality and Biodiversity

Sep 21, 2020  

Event URL:  https://www.scienceliteracy.ca/event/1536/
Cost:  Free
Hosted by: Science Literacy Week

Students will participate in engaging hands-on activitites to understand the science behind how human activity is causing poor air quality. Through trivia, experiments, chemistry and a varity of media we will present live, online to elementary classrooms and bring the science of air quality to life. Poor air quality; pollution, ground level ozone, particulates and acidification affect our ecosystems and their ability to function, grow and develop. As poor air quality affects our animal and plant life this in turn means they are unable to function and provide services such as nutrient, carbon and water cycling. We will explore with the students the human activity affecting our air quality (gasoline cars, trucks, power plants, fires etc) and how ground level ozone and particulate matter is produced, our local airshed in the Lower Mainland, effects of poor air quality on our health, flora and fauna, and actions we can take to keep our air clean (including solutions like people powered transport, clean renewable energy, and organizing ‘no idling campaigns). Our pre / post activities will help deepen the learning and provide resources to the teacher to continue this science by linking topics and skills to the BC Curriculum content and competencies. We will include in the post activitities, for the teachers/students, some resources such as books, videos, and websites on air quality and biodiversity.