Those gases from engines
Those smoke from factories
are causing our Mother Earth to be down with asthma!
Spare a knowledge,
Spare a thought
Air talk!
Shocking Facts!
1. 70,000 premature deaths in the U.S. each year are tied to air pollution.
2. The USA alone releases one quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. From 1990 to 2002, U.S. CO2 emissions increased 95 percent from 1960 levels.
3. According to the World Health Organization, if you are one of the 18 million residents of Cairo: Breathing daily air pollution is like smoking 20 cigarettes a day
4. The World Bank reported in 2002 that pollution causes 2.42 billion dollars worth of damage to the Egyptian environment annually
5. According to Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) is rising at an alarming rate. During the 1990s, carbon dioxide emissions increased approximately 1.3% each year. But since 2000, the rate has increased to 3.3% per year, with an estimated annual global CO2 emissions increase of 35% from 1990 to 2006.
Everyday you breathe in about 15,000 litres of air.
If that air is polluted, the toxins are transported to all the organs in your body -- not just your lungs. In fact, polluted air gets carried, via your bloodstream, from your lungs to your heart, liver, brain and other organs.
This will cause harms to your body.
Not only to your body, air pollution brings about damage to the environment.
The presence of these substances in the atmosphere contributes to air pollution.
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Task 1: Watch this video and quickly jot down some of the effects air pollution bring about from the pictures shown.
What have you seen?
These harmful substances can cause harm/damage to people, animals, vegetation, buildings and machines.
What exactly are all these harmful substances?
These substances are called air pollutants.
Q: Where do they come from?
Task 2: Construct a quick mindmap compiling sources of air pollutants.
(Hint: Start from two main headings: Natural Sources & Human Sources)
You should be able to identify these following main sources:
Human Sources
1. Burning of fuels in vehicles
2. Waste from factories
3. Power station
Natural Sources
1. Volcanoes
2. Forest fires
3. Soil erosion/deforestation
In the following chapters, we are going to focus on six main air pollutants around us.
Please research on these six possible air pollutants which are consistently harming our Mother Earth.
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Task 3:
Helping question:
Motor vehicles such as trains and cars are a major source of air pollution.
Given that the typical composition of the exhaust gases from a motor car is shown below:
Substance |||| Percentage
Carbon dioxide 9.0
Carbon monoxide 4.0
Hydrocarbons 0.3
Hydrogen 1.5
Nitrogen oxides 0.2
Non-polluting gases 85
What are some of the harmful pollutants produced by these motor vehicles?
How are they produced & how do they affect our health?
