Air Quality InQuiry (AQ-IQ)

The unit is comprised of one lesson and five activities. The lesson and the first three activities provide students with background information and skills necessary to conduct their own research projects. The fourth activity walks students through study design and provides a jumping off point for their projects. At the conclusion of the third activity, students should have a research question, a project plan, and a team. Student projects take place in the interim between the fourth and fifth activities. Following the completion of data collection and analysis, the fifth activity guides students through interpreting their data and presenting their results in the form of scientific research posters. Suggested order:

Lesson 1: An Introduction to Air Quality Research (~45 minutes)

Activity 1: Linking Sources and Pollutants (~45 minutes)

Activity 2: Combustion and Air Quality: Emissions Monitoring (~90 minutes)

Activity 3: Study Design for Air Quality Research  (~90 minutes)

Activity 4: Understanding the Air through Data Analysis (~90 minutes)

Conduct research: Between activities 3 and 5, the long-term student-directed research projects that student groups planned in activity 3 are conducted (may take days, weeks, months; may or may not require air monitoring equipment) to gather and analyze data, before conducting activity 5.

Activity 5: Communicating Your Project Results with Professional Posters (~90 minutes)

This curriculum is intended to prepare and guide students to take on their own long-term research projects, which is similar to what engineers and scientists do in the real world. For example, it is common for environmental engineers to be tasked with conducting investigations into local environmental issues, for mechanical engineers to design and conduct studies to respond to problems when something doesn’t work, and for all engineers to quickly learn new applications in order to analyze data sets.

Through this unit, students design research studies using available technologies, collect and analyze their own data, and communicate what they learned and what it means. They also are challenged to think of how their projects fit into a broader context, such as public health or climate change, and what actions or next steps they might suggest based on their results. Due to the long-term nature of the projects—several days/weeks to several months, depending on the scope of the project (entirely determined by teachers and students)—students also develop professional skills as they manage their own projects, teams and time.