What can atmospheric chemistry teach us about air pollution?

Suitable for 14-19-year olds (secondary and high schools, and college), this article and accompanying activity sheet can be used in the classroom, STEM clubs and at home.

This resource links to KS4 and KS5 chemistry.

It can also be used as a careers resource and links to Gatsby Benchmarks:
Gatsby Benchmark 2: Learning from career and labour market information
Gatsby Benchmark 4: Linking curriculum learning to careers

• This teaching resource explains the work of Dr Tran Nguyen, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California Davis. She is studying chemical reactions in the atmosphere to understand their impact on air quality and climate change.

• This resource also contains an interview with Tran and offers an insight into careers in atmospheric chemistry. If your students have questions for Tran, they can send them to her online. All they need to do is to go to the article online (see the Futurum link below), scroll down to the end and type in the question(s). Tran will reply!

• The activity sheet provides ‘talking points’ (based on Bloom’s Taxonomy) to prompt students to reflect on Tran’s research and challenges them to design a clean air action plan to reduce air pollution in their local area.

• An animation about Tran’s work is available through the weblink, along with a downloadable script.

• The accompanying PowerPoint reiterates the key points in the article and encourages students to reflect on their own aspirations.

This resource was first published on Futurum Careers, a free online resource and magazine aimed at encouraging 14-19-year-olds worldwide to pursue careers in science, tech, engineering, maths, medicine (STEM) and social sciences, humanities and the arts for people and the economy (SHAPE).

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