Mystery Air Pollutants expanded

Can you solve these air pollution mysteries?

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Sally is visiting Lake Tahoe at ~6,000 feet and loves being among the conifer trees. They smell so good! It’s a bright sunny day and many people are driving around the scenic lake loop. Sally notices a beautiful blue haze filling the valleys. The more Sally runs up and down the trail, the worse Sally’s lungs feel. Sally gets an asthma attack. Luckily a friendly rabbit offers to share its inhaler with Sally.

O3/ photochemical smog

PM and CO

Rn-222 (radon)

Answer

O3/ photochemical smog

PM and CO

Rn-222 (radon)

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

Sky has been having trouble with her natural gas heater. It keeps burning through natural gas, but it’s not keeping the house as warm as it used to. Sky’s dog, Ford, wakes her up in the night. Ford is freaking out. Sky has a splitting headache. (Sky doesn’t know it, but oxygen isn’t bonding well to her hemoglobin.) Ford insists they leave the house. Sky walks into the front yard. As they leave the house, her headache clears. If Ford hadn’t woken Sky up, Sky would probably have died.

Ground Level Ozone

Carbon Monoxide

Rn-222 (radon)

Answer

Ground Level Ozone

Carbon Monoxide

Radon Rn-222

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

Bai Chunxue, the head of respiratory medicine at Shanghai’s Zhongshan Hospital, sees the ever worsening haze as the upcoming cause of many deaths. To protect himself, Chunxue wears a facemask on his walk to work (less than one mile) and has moved his apartment to the 37th floor (as this pollution is the worst between 10th and 20th floors). He worries about dust that is fine enough to get through the face mask and settle in his lungs and heart. He advocates that the Chinese government close or relocate factories close to Beijing. Another doctor in Northern China just diagnosed the youngest person to be diagnosed with lung cancer at just eight years old.

Nitrous Oxide

CFCs

PM 2.5

Answer

Nitrous Oxide

CFCs

PM 2.5

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Gaia’s house has an old shed in back. Sometimes, Gaia and her sisters will go play in the shed. There is paint peeling off the walls. Gaia and her sisters have fun peeling the paint of the walls. One of them notices that the paint tastes sweet. The kids take turns peeling off the longest strips possible and eating them. When Gaia returns to school that fall, she has trouble focusing. She gets irritated more easily and no one wants to be her friend. Gaia can’t process words like she used to, and she has trouble reading chapter books.

Arsenic

Mercury

Lead

Answer

Arsenic

Mercury

Lead

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

There was a forest fire on the other side of the ridge from Philly’s pond. Philly did see the lightening and felt the rain pattering on the surface of his lake. Now the water feels terrible. Mucus forms in Philly’s gills and it's harder to breathe. Philly’s cells don’t maintain their electrolyte and fluid balance. Philly’s fertilized fish eggs don’t hatch.

NOx / SO2

Formaldehyde

Mercury

Answer

NOx / SO2

Formaldehyde

Mercury

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

Amal moved to North Dakota and is shopping for a home. He finds a home with a big basement where he can hold foosball parties and store his collection of airline barf bags. (He is trying to beat the world record to 6,290 air sickness bags.) The house is cheap. The owner passed away from lung cancer. Amal’s real estate agent suggests he test the house for [pollutant]. Once Amal does, he finds that levels are high. If he buys the house, he must seal cracks in the basement and increase ventilation in the house. So much for foosball parties…

VOCs

Formaldehyde

Rn-222 (Radon)

Answer

VOCs

Formaldehyde

Rn-222 (Radon)

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

Fremont High School was built in the 1960’s. The insulation in the building has gotten old, and it was time to be replaced. However, the school district hired the cheapest contractors, without examining their credentials. Years later, many people who at attended or worked at the school had lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.

Mold

Particulate Matter

Asbestos

Answer

Mold

Particulate Matter

Asbestos

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens (a volcano in Washington) erupted, throwing huge ash clouds into the air. In the weeks after the eruption, there was an increase of patients to local hospitals who had asthma and bronchitis. Researchers, such as Baxter et al. (1983) found that the increased exacerbating factor was the airborne suspended [pollutant] after the eruption

Ground Level Ozone

Particulates

Photochemical smog

Answer

Ground Level Ozone

Particulates

Photochemical smog

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

Frieda loves to run. When she moved out to the country, she discovered that the railroad tracks make a great running trail (when the trains aren’t going through). On hot days, there is a cool mirage effect where the air above the tracks distorts the light. Over the summer, Frieda’s asthma gets worse, and she starts to have a burning sensation in her eyes.

Mercury

Particulates

Formaldehyde (VOCs)

Answer

Mercury

Particulates

Formaldehyde (VOCs)

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

The workers at WeMakeMoney have a new office building. WeMakeMoney saved money by buying and building on a cheap empty lot near the freeway intersections and decided to be super environmentally-friendly and save money by tightly insulating the building to reduce natural gas burned to warm and cool the building. To not lose time, WeMakeMoney moved its workers in just after they had laid now new carpeting and installed new furniture. The building still had that “new car” smell. The workers were ungrateful. They didn’t appreciate they nice new building. Instead, they complained about headaches, nausea, throat and eye irritation, and fatigue. Worker productivity dropped, costing WeMakeMoney much more than they saved.

Sulfurous Smog

Radon Rn-222

Sick Building Syndrome

Answer

Sulfurous Smog

Radon Rn-222

Sick Building Syndrome

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

Armagosa loves fish. She has tuna fish sandwiches for lunch almost every day. She and her partner often celebrate the end of the week by grilling swordfish steaks. She doesn’t realize that tunas are top predators and that toxins biomagnify the further one goes up the foodweb. This toxin then bioaccumulate in Armagosa’s body over her lifetime. When she’s in her second trimester of pregnancy, she learns about this, but it’s too late. Her newborn baby has hearing and vision problems, and needs to get tested for brain damage.

Lead

Mercury

Arsenic

Answer

Lead

Mercury

Arsenic

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

The Great Smog of London, also known as the Big Smoke happened from December 5-9, 1952. A period of cold weather combined with certain wind conditions meant that airborne pollutants from burning coal were trapped around the city. It reduced visibility, even inside. It was so thick, people referred to it as “pea soup.” Government medical reports found that 4,000 people died as a direct result of the smog and 10,000 more people were made it by its effect on their respiratory tracts. This disaster leads to support for passage of air pollution protections in the United Kingdom.

Sulfurous smog

Ozone

NOx and VOCs leading to photochemical smog

Answer

Ozone

NOx and VOCs leading to photochemical smog

Sulfurous smog

Lorem ipsum dolor sit

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