GASP Air Quality Education Kits
GASP’s Air Quality Education Kits are a fun way to engage students in grades 4-8 about air quality and climate issues. The three unique kits are self-contained boxes with directions and supplies for air quality games, projects and crafts, and lessons. They are free to borrow and are designed for educators to have the freedom to pick and choose which activities they want to use.
Our education team will work with you to ensure that you get the most out of the kit, including incorporating nontraditional activities to accommodate virtual learning. Below are more details about the kits and a form to fill out for more information or to borrow a kit.
Air Quality & Health
While there are so many reasons why we should care about air quality, our own health is one of the most urgent and easily understood by people of all ages and backgrounds. To better understand the connection between air quality and health, it is important to establish a baseline knowledge of the human respiratory system. As students develop an appreciation of the respiratory system, they can connect those lessons with the importance of air quality awareness and having a positive impact on air quality.
Some activities from this kit include: a set of real pig lungs for students to explore, instructions and supplies for making slime “boogers,” and a soccer like game that teaches about populations that are especially sensitive to air pollution.
Air Quality & Citizen Science
Science is for everybody! Citizen science engages people of all ages and backgrounds and allows them to contribute to scientific studies around the world. These volunteer scientists may be working toward a goal on a global scale or trying to understand what is happening in their own backyards. This kit will introduce students to the idea of citizen science and a variety of applications related to air quality.
Some activities from this kit include: using real a real monitor to test air quality, designing an experiment to test for outdoor particle pollution, and instructions and supplies for an air quality bio-indicator walk.
Air Quality, Energy, and Tech
Technology occupies an important and complicated role in environmental science. New technologies require or eliminate the need for certain resources. The environmental consequences of using technology could be positive, negative, or a little of both. Students will gain a better understanding of the relationship between technology and air quality, as well as developing a sense of their own role in creating and reducing pollution.
Some activities from this kit include: creating comics to learn about different types of energy, exploring newer technologies like solar power, and an activity where students try to think through regional climate issues.
Host a Clean Air Fair - Fun, Interactive Air Quality Education Featuring Puppets!
We’re excited to tell you about a special, free educational opportunity available to enhance youth STEAM programming: The Group Against Smog and Pollution (GASP) is partnering with local puppeteer Dave English to offer Clean Air Fairs in Pittsburgh and across southwestern Pennsylvania.
Clean Air Fairs are flexible educational opportunities to help school-age students better understand local air quality.
Clean Air Fairs can be customized to best fit your organization’s needs. Fairs can be structured either as a presentation or as a drop-in fair with activity tables. The presentation, featuring GASP’s air quality educator and English with his puppets, covers topics like our region’s history with air quality, ways to learn about air quality (monitoring, bioindicators, etc), and air’s impact on health.
The drop-in activity fair is a great fit for a local park or in combination with another event – children will interact with the puppets as well as air quality education activities, like learning about air quality’s effect on the respiratory system using real pig lungs.
To learn more about partnering with GASP on a Clean Air Fair, contact Laura Kuster at laura@gasp-pgh.org or fill our the form below. Your school, library, or community program can borrow our grab-and-go Air Quality Education Kits instead or in addition to a Clean Air Fair!
GASP’s Clean Air Fairs and education kits are made possible by funding from the Allegheny County Clean Air Fund and the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Environmental Education Grants Program.