Right Under Our Noses

ABSTRACT

Air quality and environmental justice To introduce how socioeconomic status affects the physical aspects of exposure to differing air-quality levels, students used an anthropological technique of comparison to "make the strange familiar and the familiar strange." Students analyzed a New York Times story revealing the air-quality inequities of two teens residing in India "Who Gets to Breathe Clean Air in New Delhi?" For 25 minutes, students interact with the website and reflect on paper * One new and interesting fact that they encountered in the article about air quality, * How they think the information might relate to air quality in the United States, and * What, if anything, they think we could do to help increase awareness about these types of environmental disparities. For the next 35 minutes, students search online for articles about air quality and environmental justice in the area near our school's location. The data from real-time air quality index reports are available on every cell phone, and students decided to record it on a calendar to chart in Excel.