Teacher's Guide for ODYSSEY^TM Breathless: Cleaning Up the Air

April 2006

Format:

Article, Page
Summary
Skills

"That Stinks!," pg. 6

Mexico City and Metro Manila are two of the world's most polluted cities, but the issue of air quality and its impact on health is a global concern.

Cause and Effect, Extrapolation

"Field Report: Whichever Way the Wind Blows" (Activity to Discover), pg. 10

Create a plan for reducing transboundary pollution. Send your plan to ODYSSEY.

Inductive Reasoning, Procedural Analysis

"Engineering Cleaner Air," pg. 12

Industry employs many technological strategies to control air pollution. Greater efficiency, substitutes for ozone-damaging pollutants, scrubbers, and carbon absorption are examples. A sidebar (pg. 14) highlights improvements that have reduced motor vehicle pollution in the United States by 90 percent since the 1970s.

Technological Design, Outcome Assessment

"America's Most Unwanted: A Rogues' Gallery of Air Pollutants," pg. 16

The sources, health hazards, and environmental effects of the worst air pollutants are summarized. These villains include nitrogen oxides, lead, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, ozone precursors, carbon monoxide, and nearly 200 hazardous chemicals.

Cause and Effect, Vocabulary

"KA-CHOOO!," pg. 18

More than half of Americans ages 6 to 59 suffer from allergies. The symptoms arise from the action of the immune system. A sidebar (pg. 20) explains the difference between asthma and hay fever. A second sidebar (pg. 21) explores off-gassing and how houseplants can clean the air.

Cause and Effect, Drawing Inferences from Data

"Air Alert," pg. 22

The Environmental Protection Agency monitors local air quality throughout the United States and reports its findings as the Air Quality Index, or AQI. Here's how the AQI works and where you can learn more about it on the Web.

Inductive Reasoning, Applications

"Magic and the Missing Symbols" (Brain Strain), pg. 23

Follow Sarah on her walk and try to discover the missing symbols.

Following Directions, Pattern Recognition

"Quit to Live! (And Let Others Live!)," pg. 24

Secondhand smoke causes lung cancer, respiratory infections, and heart disease. Many communities have banned smoking in public areas, and many families are making their homes "smoke-free zones."

Drawing Conclusions, Critical Thinking

"Weeds in the Atmosphere," pg. 26

Ozone in the stratosphere protects the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation, but ozone in the lower atmosphere is a dangerous pollutant. Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) has been banned in the U.S. and many other countries because of its effects on the ozone layer.

Vocabulary, Cause and Effect

"As Seen on TV!" (Activity to Discover), pg. 28

Using a balloon, your hair, and a TV, you can replicate a process of air purification frequently used in homes and industries.

Following Directions, Interpreting Data

"Smog City," pg. 30

Follow the narrator in this futuristic (but not so far-fetched) story about a city and the consequences of air pollution.

Theme, Conflict

"Mercury and Meteors" (What's Up and Planet Watch), pg. 34

While waiting for the peak of the Lyrid meteor shower on April 22, enjoy views of Mercury and Venus in the morning skies. Look for Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn in the evening. A companion article (pg. 36) offers tips for observing artificial satellites as they orbit the Earth.

Following Directions, Observation

"A Big To-Doo About Air Poo-lution," pg. 39

The odor of manure can annoy people living near hog farms. The Odor Index uses gas chromatography to measure the stench. A companion piece (pg. 41) tells how hog farmers deal with manure odors.

Cause and Effect, Applications

"Yucca Sends Yucky Smells Packing," pg. 42

The spiky desert yucca cleans odors from the air. It's a natural shampoo, too.

Applications, Experimentation

"A 'Corny' Solution to Air Pollution" (Fantastic Journeys), pg. 46

Teenager Nick Wolf explains how his family's corn stove keeps them warm and keeps the air clean.

Cause and Effect, Applications

Think Tank: (Discussion Starters to Use Before Reading the Magazine):

1. How important is air quality in our nation? In our world? Has air quality improved or deteriorated in recent years? What evidence supports your opinion? If you were the President, how high on your list of priorities would you place clean air?
2. What can individuals do to improve air quality? Make a list on the board and add to it as you read the issue.

Classroom Syzygy: Talk, Connect, Assess

Pg. 6 -- "That Stinks!"

Talk It Over:

1. What are the short-term effects of urban air pollution? What are the long-term effects? How might polluted urban air affect children, even if they move away from the cities as adults?
2. Cleaning the air costs money, and many of the most polluted cities in the world are poor. What steps can they take to improve their air at little cost? How might spending to fight air pollution actually save money and promote economic development?

Connections:

1. Language Arts: The article begins with narrative accounts of visits to Mexico City and Manila. Use a travel book or Web site to identify specific buildings and landmarks in one of those cities. Then write a narrative story of your return to that city several years from now when (in your story, at least) the air has been cleaned. Describe your reaction, comparing the cleaner city with the one you remember from years past. Use specific landmarks and place names as you write your narrative.
2. Statistics/Research: Use the Web to research statistics about the environment in either Mexico City or Manila. Gather as many statistics as you can from several Web sites. (Remember: When possible, look for Web sites that end in .edu or .gov for reliable information.) Organize your statistics into categories. Then print a picture of your city to use as the center of a poster. Surround your city picture with statistics to create an environmental portrait.
3. Geography: Get a globe or mount a large map of the world on a corkboard. Study the map of Earth's prevailing winds at www.geology.wmich.edu/kominz/C8global.circ.gif. Using small Post-it notes on the globe or pins on the map, trace the travel path of air pollution arising in Mexico City and Manila. Locate dust storms in the Gobi Desert and the Asian Brown Cloud. Predict the paths their air pollutants will take. 

Student Assessment:

1. Air pollution turns the world into one global family. Using facts from the article, explain the meaning of that statement in an informational essay.
2. Write and deliver a speech to governmental officials of either Mexico or the Philippines, asking for funding to clean the air of Mexico City or Manila. Explain how the money spent today will return profits in the future. Accompany your speech with a visual aid or PowerPoint presentation.

Pg. 18 -- "KA-CHOOO!"

Talk It Over:

1. Do you have any allergies? Have you had any medical tests to diagnose an allergy? How are allergies treated?
2. Do you grow any houseplants in your home? What, in your opinion, are the benefits of houseplants? If you could add plants to your home, what kinds would you grow? Where would you place them (remembering that they need a light source)?

Connections:

1. Visual Arts: The article explains how your body produces allergy symptoms. Design a flow chart that begins with an allergic cause or trigger and ends with a specific symptom or collection of related symptoms. Present your flow chart on a poster and label it so that viewers can follow the process.
2. Creative Writing: Feel like complaining about your allergies or your asthma? Here's your chance. Pick a favorite song and write your own lyrics, setting the details of your misery to music. Describe symptoms, causes, and treatments in your lyrics.
3. Mathematics: Using library and Internet sources, find statistics about annual rates of allergies and asthma in children for the last 20 to 30 years. Make line or bar graphs from your numbers. Use your graph(s) to answer the question, Are children today healthier in this regard than earlier generations, or do they suffer in greater numbers? Discuss the reasons for any conclusions you draw.

Student Assessment:

1. In an essay to inform, outline a plan to minimize allergies in the home. Give examples, evidence, and reasoned arguments to support the steps you recommend.
2. Compare and contrast an allergic attack to an attack of asthma. What are the similarities and what are the differences? Either write your answers in an essay or organize them into a clear and detailed Venn diagram.

Far Out!: Moving Beyond the Magazine (Pop Lyrics Edition)

"Every breath you take" - The Police

Individual Project: Design a poster for a "No Smoking" campaign focused on the dangers of secondhand smoke. Include facts that will make your poster both informative and persuasive. You may want to display the posters around the school or at your local library.

"I can feel you breathe."- Faith Hill

Class Project: What smells good? Make a list of possibly pleasant odors. Then ask volunteers to bring something to class that they think smells good. Set up samples of the substances and have blindfolded volunteers smell the samples and rate them on a scale from 1 (bad smell) to 10 (wonderful smell). Collect ratings in a data table and make a bar graph to compare averages. Is there general agreement on what things smell "nice"?

"When you turned to me and smiled, it took my breath away."- Chris de Burgh

Community Connection: So you want to clean up the air? Invite someone working with the environment -- perhaps from industry, local government, or parks and recreation -- to talk to the class about career opportunities in environmental science. What educational preparation and on-the-job training are required? What tasks do environmental workers perform?

"There's an awful lot of breathing room, but I can hardly move."- Rob Thomas

Large-Group Collaborative Project: Some cities have gained a reputation for being seriously polluted. Consider London at the turn of the last century or the Los Angeles area today (see "Our Nation's New Smog Capital," pg. 5). Divide the class into teams of four students to investigate a polluted city of the team's choice. Challenge all team members to gather information. Two will construct a visual presentation for the class, and the other two will deliver an oral report.