The purpose of this activity is for you and your teammates to design a locally implemented "Ozone" project. You should work with your team to design and carryout their projects. Your product should be presented as:
- A Powerpoint presentation
- A Three-panel Poster Report
- Webpage
You and your teammates will be involved in the following procedures:
- brainstorming questions that they would like to investigate about air pollution
- designing a research method or set of procedures to help them answer their question(s)
- monitoring the variables that are being investigated in their study
- analyzing of data including graphical and verbal analysis
- summarizing of the results and an evaluating of their methodology
- Design projects based on questions and inquiries about ozone
- Identify, discuss and use research skills to answer scientific questions
- Use the research you have completed on ozone and the resources of the Internet to present your project as a Powerpoint presentation, a 3-panel poster report, or a website.
1. Working with your team, visit one of the following sites and report back to class. How can these projects be of help in designing your own Project Ozone project?
- Project Clean Air: A site of a non-profit organization of concerned citizens working together to improve air quality. Examples of activities and projects.
- Foundation for Clean Air Progress: a non-profit, nonpartisan organization that was formed in 1995 to provide public education and information about air quality progress.
- Children of the Earth United: A site desgined to provide resources for students to develop a greater understanding and respect for animals, plants, water, soil, air. Examples of activities and projects. and energy systems
- The Ozone Hole Tour. A powerful U.K. site designed to teach you about the "good ozone" and its depletion, and progress being made to reduce this trend.
2. Discuss with your teammates the nature of a research project. You might begin by thinking about a question, and then how such a question might be answered. For example:
- Is the ozone level near plants (such trees and shrubs) different than the ozone level in an open field?
- What can citizens in our community do to reduce smog that pervades our environment, especially in the summer?
- What health issues related to air pollution can we bring to the attention of citizens in our community?
- What is the threat of "ozone action days" in our community? What should citizens in our community do to help reduce the number of ozone action days in our environment?
- What scientific reasons support the use of suncreen? Do you think where people live on the Earth affects the amount of suncreen they should use?
3. Work with your teammates and other members of your class to create a list of possible ozone projects and from the list decide upon the one that your team will do.
4. When your team has completed its project, prepare your report (Powerpoint, three-panel poster, website) for class presentations.
1. Have the students write an editorial letter or report of their study, and the implications for the local community, and sent it to the local newspaper.
2. Have the students create a scrapbook of articles on pollution (don't limit them to air pollution).
3. Make contact with a local environmental action group and let them know that they are working on global problems. Students can send the local group a copy of their report, and encourage the group to visit their class.
4. Have students create a Web site that focuses on the problems and solutions related to air pollution.