Air Quality Lesson Plan

Lesson Plans

Grades6, 7, 8Science, Mathematics

Scientist Reviewed

Provided by UCI Science Project

Open Resource

What it is

In this lesson, students will use maps, graphs, and data from California to investigate the connection between air quality, wildfires, and location.
Students will develop questions about the causes of poor air quality, use fire and smoke maps to determine the impact of wildfires on air quality, analyze the increase in droughts and wildfires due to anthropogenic climate change, and analyze box plots to compare the air quality in different communities.

Teaching tips

Positives

Students do a lot of collaborative thinking in this lesson, helping them develop their ideas and questions.
The option for a final project is very open-ended, making it adaptable for students of all learning styles and needs.

Additional Prerequisites

The CaPMSE Storyline link has been deleted.
Some of the activities require the use of student devices. Teachers can achieve some of these activities with sticky notes or journals if students do not have devices.
The link for "what pollution is" on Day 2 is broken.

Differentiation

After discussing how air pollution impacts communities differently, teachers can segue into the topic of environmental racism and practices like redlining.
Teachers can make more math connections by generating specific questions for students to answer about the graphs and demonstrate their graph analysis skills.
In health class, students can research the impacts of air pollution on children's health and create infographics to demonstrate their learning.

From the scientist review

This lesson tasks students with analyzing the geographic distribution of air quality. All text is clear and thoughtfully organized. The worksheet guides students through making claims, providing supporting evidence, and then developing the reasoning to support their claims. This resource powerfully addresses the links between wildfires, air quality, climate change, and social justice. This resource is recommended for teaching.

How we review resources

Ready to use it?

Hosted on docs.google.com

Open Resource

Want this to fit your class?

Add your location for local examples, questions, and action ideas.

At a glance

Grades: 6, 7, 8
Subjects: Science, Mathematics
Other types: Data, Graphs, and Maps, Activity - Classroom, Worksheets, Interactive Media
Format: Google Docs, PDF
Language: English
Location: North America, North America > United States, North America > United States > California
Provider: UCI Science Project
Authors: UCI Science Project
Published: May 22, 2024
Last updated: July 16, 2026
: Reviewed by our climate scientists How we review

Standards alignment · MS-ESS3-3. + 14 more

Core

Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)

MS-ESS3-3.Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
MS-ESS3-5.Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century.
MS-CCC-Stabilityand Change.3. Stability might be disturbed either by sudden events or gradual changes that accumulate over time.

New Jersey Climate Education Hub

Mathematics

6.RP.A.1Understand the concept of a ratio and use ratio language to describe a ratio relationship between two quantities. For example, "The ratio of wings to beaks in the bird house at the zoo was 2:1, because for every 2 wings there was 1 beak." "For every vote candidate A received, candidate C received nearly three votes."
6.RP.A.3Use ratio and rate reasoning to solve real-world and mathematical problems, e.g., by reasoning about tables of equivalent ratios, tape diagrams, double number line diagrams, or equations.
6.EE.B.5Understand solving an equation or inequality as a process of answering a question: which values from a specified set, if any, make the equation or inequality true? Use substitution to determine whether a given number in a specified set makes an equation or inequality true.
6.EE.C.9Use variables to represent two quantities in a real-world problem that change in relationship to one another; write an equation to express one quantity, thought of as the dependent variable, in terms of the other quantity, thought of as the independent variable. Analyze the relationship between the dependent and independent variables using graphs and tables, and relate these to the equation. For example, in a problem involving motion at constant speed, list and graph ordered pairs of distances and times, and write the equation d = 65t to represent the relationship between distance and time.
6.SP.B.4Display numerical data in plots on a number line, including dot plots, histograms, and box plots.
6.SP.B.5Summarize numerical data sets in relation to their context.
7.RP.A.2Recognize and represent proportional relationships between quantities.
7.SP.A.1Understand that statistics can be used to gain information about a population by examining a sample of the population; generalizations about a population from a sample are valid only if the sample is representative of that population. Understand that random sampling tends to produce representative samples and support valid inferences.
7.SP.A.2Use data from a random sample to draw inferences about a population with an unknown characteristic of interest. Generate multiple samples (or simulated samples) of the same size to gauge the variation in estimates or predictions. For example, estimate the mean word length in a book by randomly sampling words from the book; predict the winner of a school election based on randomly sampled survey data. Gauge how far off the estimate or prediction might be.
7.SP.B.3Informally assess the degree of visual overlap of two numerical data distributions with similar variabilities, measuring the difference between the centers by expressing it as a multiple of a measure of variability. For example, the mean height of players on the basketball team is 10 cm greater than the mean height of players on the soccer team, about twice the variability (mean absolute deviation) on either team; on a dot plot, the separation between the two distributions of heights is noticeable.
8.F.A.4Construct a function to model a linear relationship between two quantities. Determine the rate of change and initial value of the function from a description of a relationship or from two (x, y) values, including reading these from a table or from a graph. Interpret the rate of change and initial value of a linear function in terms of the situation it models, and in terms of its graph or a table of values.
8.F.A.5Describe qualitatively the functional relationship between two quantities by analyzing a graph (e.g., where the function is increasing or decreasing, linear or nonlinear). Sketch a graph that exhibits the qualitative features of a function that has been described verbally.

Cookie Preferences

What it is

Teaching tips

From the scientist review

Ready to use it?

Want this to fit your class?

Related Teaching Resources