Air Composition Pie Charts: A Recipe for Air
Why do we care about air? Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in... most, if not all, humans do this automatically. Do we really know what is in the air we breathe? In this activity, students use M&M® candies to create pie graphs that show their understanding of the composition of air. They discuss why knowing this information is important to engineers and how engineers use this information to improve technology to better care for our planet.
What's in the air we breathe?Copyright American Lung Association via National Institutes of Health http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/visualculture/environmental07.html
Environmental engineers must understand air composition to figure out what is causing poor air quality and how to clean it up. Improving air quality is a challenge because so many chemicals are reacting in the air at any given moment. Environmental engineers analyze and model these processes and design ways to improve air quality for the benefit of the Earth's inhabitants.
After this activity, students should be able to:
- Describe the major gaseous components of the atmosphere.
- Explain why engineers need to know the composition of air.
- Use a circle graph (pie chart) to describe and interpret the atmospheric composition.
- Explain relative sizes of fractions and percentages.