Air Pollution-Detecting Gardens
COLLECTION
UPPER ELEMENTARY | SCIENCE
Air Pollution-Detecting Gardens
Students will learn about biomonitoring – what it means, how it is used, and how we can use it to learn more about our schoolyard garden.
Essential Questions
- What is biomonitoring and how can it help us recognize the effects of pollution?
- How can we use biomonitoring techniques to learn more about our schoolyard garden?
Standards Addressed
Focus
- S3L2. Students will recognize the effects of pollution and humans on the environment.
Review
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.2. Determine the main idea of a text; recount the key details and explain how they support the main idea.
- CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.3.9. Compare and contrast the most important points and key details presented in two texts on the same topic.
Recommended Resources
Online
- Monarch Watch’s list of native milkweed species
- Ozone bioindicator plants
- Using sensitive plants as bioindicators for ground level ozone pollution
- NASA’s resource for planting an ozone detecting garden
- National Database for School Ozone Monitoring (Citizen Science Research Project)
- Sources of indoor airborne toxins and plants that can remove them from the air
- Directions for planting an ozone garden
- Distinguishing ozone damage from other types of leaf damage
- Who eats milkweed?
- Interactive online training to estimate percentage ozone damage of a leaf
- How to submit a leaf damage photo to NASA for analysis