This scientific paper, worksheet, and accompanying videos discuss the ways that air pollution reduction programs have affected bird populations.
This resource walks students through the scientific process and includes vocabulary terms, reading comprehension questions with a teacher's key, videos, related resources, and the original journal article.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This paper includes a colorful, engaging PDF with highlighted text, a glossary, references, and graphs.
The videos within this resource elaborate on the content by providing information on various implications of air pollution.
Additional Prerequisites
Teachers must create a free account in order to access the Teacher's Key, which involves providing your name, email address, and school.
Differentiation
The "Check for Understanding" questions are a great way to assess students' comprehension. Allowing students to discuss their answers with partners may be a way to deepen their understanding of the topic.
Since this text includes many scientific vocabulary terms, have students read the article more than once, allowing them to listen to the narrated video the first time and then reading it independently afterward.
Before diving into this resource, ask students to discuss whether they think reducing air pollution can help birds, and then follow up with their responses after reading the article.
To deepen students' understanding of particulate air pollution, consider having the class engage in this other hands-on activity that encourages critical thinking.
Scientist Notes
Reducing air pollution has obvious benefits on human health. This study looks at how improved air quality helps birds as well. This resource is researched and sourced to our highest standards and is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
MS-ESS3-3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
MS-LS2-5 Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 4: Taking Informed Action
D4.7.6-8 Assess their individual and collective capacities to take action to address local, regional, and global problems, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: Informational Text (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.8.2 Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to supporting ideas; provide an objective summary of the text.
Reading: Science & Technical Subjects (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RST.11-12.8 Evaluate the hypotheses, data, analysis, and conclusions in a science or technical text, verifying the data when possible and corroborating or challenging conclusions with other sources of information.
Speaking & Listening (K-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.11-12.2 Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data.
Common Core Math Standards (CCSS.MATH)
Statistics & Probability: Making Inferences & Justifying Conclusions (9-12)
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSS.IC.B.6 Evaluate reports based on data.
