Science Partnership for Global Change Education
In-class activities
Wildfires and Air Quality
1. This hands-on student activity explores the idea of combustion, and conservation of mass. Combustion is the chemical reaction that feeds a fire more heat and allows it to continue, during which bonds are broken and rearranged but mass is conserved. To model this chemical process students burn paper to see what happens to the weight of it before and after burning, then address what happened to the lost mass of the paper.
2. This engaging activity illustrates the connection between fuel availability and wildfire intensity. Periodic heavy rain and large snowpack can reduced early wildfires in California, but may contribute to later ones by increasing growth and providing more fuel. In addition, a hands off approach to forest thinning has resulted in evermore devastating fires. In this hands-on activity students burn models of high and low density forests to see the impact of forest density on fire intensity. Fuel is the only fire factor that we as humans directly control. This comes into play as we consider what we’re doing to manage (or fail to manage) our forests.
3. In this activity students explore the idea of partial combustion and how it creates particulate matter, reducing air quality. By delicately blowing on a lit candle flame, students experiment with varying amounts of oxygen to create both a partial combustion process and a more complete combustion process, observing the differing amount of particulate matter that results from both processes.
4. In this activity students make a simple particulate matter (PM) collector, which they place around their school site or neighborhoods. They then examine how much PM gets collected and what it looks under a microscope. This activity combined with the partial combustion one helps students connect wildfires and car exhaust to PM concentration in their school or neighborhoods.