Unit 2, Lesson 1
Health, Pollution, and Safety: Why Should We Care?
Objectives:
The students will:
- > understand the impact of our current transportation system on public safety and on the human and environmental health of our communities;
- > understand the global importance of reducing carbon dioxide emissions; and
- > identify ways that alternative fuels can alter local and global impacts.
TEKS:
Science
- Environmental Systems: 8B
- Geology, Meteorology, and Oceanography: 9B-C
Social Studies
- 22A-C, 23A-B
- World Geography Studies: 9A
Health Education
Agricultural Science and Technology Education
Time:
Completing all of the steps in this lesson should take about 10 days. However, you may choose to complete fewer steps if your time for this subject is limited to less than 10 days. The approximate time necessary to complete each step is listed in the directions below.
Materials:
Activity 1 and Activity 2
Student Handouts
- > Health, Pollution, and Safety: The Challenge
- > Automobile-Related Emissions
- > Who’s Interested in AFVs? Who Cares about Health, Pollution, and Safety?
- > Health, Pollution, and Safety: Guide to Community Research
Other Useful Resources
- > Access to the library and Internet
- > Telephone directory or list of phone numbers for these local resources: local or state police or fire department, Coast Guard, local or regional planning department, state department of environmental protection or management, board of health, American Lung Association and its web site, a regional Environmental Protection Agency office and its web site, service stations
Activity 3 and Activity 4
Student Handouts
- > Health, Pollution, and Safety: Guide to Fuel Team Research
- > Comparing Alternative Fuels for Pollutants and Greenhouse Gases
- > Fuel Review Worksheet: Health, Pollution, and Safety
- > Fuel Fact Sheets (to be distributed to appropriate teams)
- > Resource Guide
- > Evaluating Team Reports and Presentations
Other Useful Resources
- > Access to the library and Internet
- > Publications listed as references for this unit
- > Flip charts, poster board, transparencies, and use of an overhead projector
- > Access to word-processing or presentation software
Teacher Preparation:
See the handouts in these lessons (the names of which are listed under Materials) for further background information.
Directions:
ACTIVITY 1 - BACKGROUND READING AND DISCUSSION
Health, Pollution, and Safety: Presenting the Challenge
Time
45 minutes, depending on students’ prior knowledge of air pollutants and global
warming; may be assigned for homework
- Copy and distribute the student handouts listed above for background reading
and community research. Have students identify the major health and environmental
issues related to a transportation system made up of private gasoline-powered cars. To
stimulate discussion, refer to the student handout Health, Pollution, and Safety: The Challenge.
Use the diagram Products of Combustion to discuss the combustion process
and past and current efforts to make gasoline burn more cleanly. A key point for students
to understand is the contribution of gasoline-powered vehicles to global warming
(through the emission of carbon dioxide). In 2000, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released new studies that demonstrate the connection between
human-made greenhouse-gas emissions, global warming, melting of the ice caps, and a
rise in sea levels.
- Refer to the student handout Automobile-Related Emissions, which describes the health and environmental effects of various emissions and includes the diagram Formation of Low-Level Ozone. Use the diagram to help students understand
how ozone is formed and how it travels, and that large numbers of people live in areas that do not meet clean air standards for ozone.
Make sure that students understand the difference between the high atmospheric ozone—needed to protect us from ultraviolet cancer-causing rays—and low-level ozone, which is a respiratory irritant. A key point is that automobiles contribute directly to the development of low-level ozone, a pollutant with serious health effects, which threatens 107 million people in the United States. Through the Health, Pollution, and Safety: Guide to Community Research activity, students will discover if their own region meets EPA air-quality standards for ozone.
Make sure students understand how to read the chart Automobile-Related Emissions
by asking them to identify the health effects and environmental effects of ozone.
Students will use this chart much more when doing the research in this section.
- Ask students to identify various types of people who may be concerned with health and environmental issues, such as global warming, that are related to our transportation system. What would their chief concerns be? Refer to the student handout Who's Interested in AFVS? Who Cares about Health, Pollution, and Safety?
- Engage students in discussion by asking the following questions:
- > Do students identify with any of the people on this list?
- > Which of these people are likely to live or work in their community?
- > Which of these people may be in the audience during the students’ presentations?
- > Who else in their community may have an interest in AFVs, and what would their concerns be?
Extension
Have students make up a sheet similar to the Who's Interested in AFVS? handout that represents actual people in your community.
You may also wish to have an in-class speaker to talk about automobile emissions, air quality, global warming, or releases of toxic substances (regional EPA offices or state environmental agencies often have people available for educational outreach if booked far enough in advance).
As a potential background exercise, you may wish to have your students visit:
ACTIVITY 2 - DISCUSSION AND COMMUNITY RESEARCH
Discovering Health, Pollution, and Safety Issues In Your Community
Time
45 minutes of discussion, followed by another 45 minutes over several days for
research, coaching, and student reporting; requires out-of-class time for some students
- Divide the class into groups of four to six students and refer them to the student handout Health, Pollution, and Safety: Guide to Community Research, which presents a mixture of questions for discussion and for out-of-class research. Provide student groups with 20 minutes to discuss the questions they can answer, identify the questions they can’t answer, and think about places they might find the information they need.
- Have student groups report a summary of their discussions to the class. They should be able to answer questions 1a and b, 2a, 3b, and 4a and b. For the questions that they may not be able to answer (especially 2c and 3a and c), ask where they might find the answers and work with them to develop clear questions to obtain the information they need. Possible answers and references to outside sources are listed below.
The Change from Horse to Horseless
#1a. Smell of horse manure, manure in the street, muddy shoes and clothing, infectious disease
#1b. Change in odor and pollutants, change from infectious diseases to cancers and respiratory problems, more serious accidents, global warming
Safety
#2a. Leaky storage tanks can contaminate aquifers; spilling of gas during fill-up exposes people to carcinogens; poorly designed cars can blow up; highway runoff of fluids can contaminate streams, including oil leaked from automobiles.
#2b. Refer students to the state or local police or fire department to get detailed information.
Land and Water Pollution
#3a. Refer students to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, Coast Guard, the state Department of Environmental Protection or Management, and the regional office of the U.S. EPA.
#3b. Runoff from roadways, driveways, parking lots, and other paved surfaces can enter the watershed and pollute freshwater sources.
#3c. Refer students to the local or regional planning department, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and the Texas Department of Health. Some service stations have capabilities for recycling some fluids and parts.
Air Quality and Air Pollution
See EPA Region 6 web site (http://www.epa.gov/region6/)
#4a. Answers depend on your own community. In polluted areas students may notice soot or gray or yellow atmosphere due to the presence of particulates or smog. Possible places where pollution is evident include highways, downtown, tunnels, drive-through windows, bus terminals, and around the school or other buildings where people wait for riders.
#4b. Answers will vary. Possible responses describing the effects of pollution are burning or watery eyes, coughing, asthma, and other respiratory infections.
- Assign several students to make calls to the various agencies and offices and/or
to research their Internet sites. (To avoid duplicate calls to the same agency, ask one student to get all the information needed from a particular agency. For example, one student may call EPA Region 6 for questions #3a and c; a second may contact the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for the same information. Coach students as they try to find this information. It may take several days for them to find their way through these complex organizations and obtain useful responses.
Optional
This may be a good time to have an in-class speaker to talk about automobile emissions, air quality, global warming, or releases of toxic substances. Regional EPA offices or state environmental agencies often have people available for educational outreach if booked far enough in advance.
ACTIVITY 3 - TEAM RESEARCH AND PREPARATION FOR PRESENTATIONS
Learning to Speak About Health, Pollution, and Safety
Time
Three days
- Fuel teams will use the questions provided in their Health, Pollution, and Safety: Guide to Fuel Team Research to prepare a written report and a mini-presentation lasting 5 to 10 minutes. Discuss where the students might find the answers to the questions. Much information is already available in the fact sheets.
Some questions require that students pull together information from the Internet and form their own opinions.
- Over the next three days, provide students with the opportunity to meet in their
teams, divide up the research tasks, and decide how they will present their findings and
who will do it. Encourage them to develop diagrams and other graphics to help present
their findings. Remind them that these presentation aids may be further developed for
a public presentation.
- Coach students as they do their research. It may be helpful for you to investigate
some of the recommended web sites to have a better understanding of the information
found there.
- Distribute copies of Evaluating Team Reports and Presentations so students will know in advance what is expected in their presentations.
ACTIVITY 4 - TEAM PRESENTATIONS AND CLASS DISCUSSIONS
Health, Pollution, and Safety
Time
Four days (10 to 15 minutes for each team’s presentation and questions, plus 20
to 30 minutes for follow-up panel and class discussion)
- Make a list of stakeholders or special interest groups for the students to represent while listening to and evaluating the fuels being presented. Remind students that a wide variety of people are interested in these issues: physicians, resource managers, atmospheric scientists, emergency personnel, and even the insurance industry, as you discussed earlier in Who's Interested in AFVS? Who Cares about Health, Pollution, and Safety?
- Decide if the students will evaluate the presentations as individuals or as part of
a review panel. Then assign (or have the members of the class select) the stakeholders
or special interest groups they will represent. If they’re working in review panels, allow
the panel members to sit together.
- Refer students to the handout Fuel Review Worksheet: Health, Pollution, and Safety. They will use this worksheet as a guide for taking notes during a fuel presentation and writing down their (or their panel’s) conclusions. (They will need one copy of this worksheet for each fuel presentation given.) Before the
presentations, allow students time to make note of their interest group’s chief concerns.
After each presentation, allow them time to discuss and make note of their conclusions.
How would each fuel affect their community and world?
- Presentations should last 5 to 10 minutes, with additional time for the audience to ask questions. Remind presenters to keep in mind the concerns of the stakeholders in the audience. Encourage students in their audience to ask questions from the points of view of the stakeholders they represent.
- At the end of each day and again after all presentations have been given, allow time for the panels to compare the fuels and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each regarding its effect on emissions, health, and other environmental issues. Decide if the fuels would ease (or worsen) the health and environmental problems important to your community.
- Have the review panels report their conclusions to the class and allow time for debate on their conclusions.
Resources:
Classroom Materials 
Activity 1 and Activity 2
Activity 3 and Activity 4
Web Sites
Activity 1 and Activity 2
Source: "Cars of Tomorrow," Chapter 3, page 31, Northeast Sustainable Energy Association
