Air Pollution Research Resources

A set of resources to support teachers who are interested in climate change and want to explore the topic of air pollution with children. The resources will enable children to develop their science enquiry skills and maths skills whilst learning about air quality and air pollution, namely:

• Asking questions that can be answered by exploring real scientific data;
• Making predictions using existing knowledge of human behaviour and air quality;
• Setting up enquiries - delve into the database to investigate pollutant levels in their area and across the U.K.;
• Developing maths skills - calculate mean avaerages, plot graphs, and interpret line graphs and scatter graphs;
• Using spreadsheets;
• Interpreting and communicating results - interpret trends in data from different cities in the UK and from different years;
• Evaluating - reflect on issues surrounding climate change and identify further questions for enquiry.

Through working on the suggested investigations and setting up some of their own, it is hoped that children will appreciate the sources of air pollutants, the impact of air pollutants, why scientists measure air pollutants; and how we might reduce the effect of air pollution in the future.