# Presentation: 540177

## AIRNow Students’ website

**Lori Tussey and Donna Rogers**
**US Environmental Protection Agency**

**Notes:**
We’d like to talk to you about two different websites:  Smog City 2 and the AIRNow Students website because they are closely related.

Before we show you these websites we’d like to spend a few minutes talking about the background of Smog City.

## Smog City (smogcity.com)

**Notes:**
Smog City is an ozone simulator that shows how weather, emissions, and population affect ozone formation and the Air Quality Index.
You can see on this interface the controls for weather conditions, such as temperature and wind speed.  There’s a population control and controls for emission sources, such as cars and trucks and industry.  By manipulating these controls the cityscape at the top will change, for example more cars would show up in the cityscape which would also create more pollution.

Below the cityscape the multicolored chart represents the Air Quality Index and the Health Effects Box indicates that we’ve reached unhealthy for sensitive groups.

## Smog City Acknowledgements

- Sacramento MAQMD - Copyright
-    Norm Covell, Kerry Shearer, Lori Kobza-Lee, Jamie Brown
- Sonoma Technology, Inc.
-     Tim Dye, Donna Ladner, Fred Lurmann, Richard Arndt,
-     Lyle Chinkin, Siana Alcorn, Tami Haste-Funk, Dana Coe,
-     Joe Kwiatkowski, Mark Lilly, Jana Schwartz

- 1 Net
-     Scott Ray
- Stymeist Enterprises
-     Joe Stymeist

- Partially funded by EPA OTAQ Grant - Susan Bullard

- JHME
-     Carol Johnson
- CodeAsArt
-     David Rea

**Notes:**
This original Smog City was developed in 1999 by the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District and partially funded by a grant from EPA.
There were a number of people that were involved in the development of Smog City.  The Sacramento AQMD continued to work with us on Smog City 2 and Sonoma Technology’s expertise made Smog City and Smog City 2 a reality.  We’d like to especially recognize Carol Johnson for her diligence and creativity as she was pivotal in the making of the original Smog City.

## Smog City vs. Smog City2

-   Add particle pollution
-   Change the diurnal chart to represent 24 hrs
-   Changes to look and feel

**Notes:**
Why did we need to develop a Smog City 2?
The main reason is that we added particle pollution.
The original Smog City was an ozone simulator, so it contained only the one pollutant.
Another reason is that the diurnal chart represents 24 hr vs. only the daylight hours in the original Smog City.  Ozone is only formed during the daylight hours in the presence of heat and sunlight but particle pollution can be elevated at any time of the day and night.  

Another thing we changed was to make the Interface more appealing and user-friendly for students and teachers.  In order to do this we conducted a Focus Group or User testing with 34 Honors Earth Science Students during the development process.

## Important for Students?

-   Target Audience Middle and High School Students
-   National Science Education Standards - Grade 7
-  Science as Inquiry
-   North Carolina Standard Course of Study
-   Earth/Environmental Science Goals K - 8
-   Atmosphere major focus Grade 7
-   High School Earth/Environmental Science
- 	- graduation requirement
-   Each State has its own requirements - some include Atmosphere, Air Quality, and/or Environmental Science

**Notes:**
The Target Audience for Smog City 2 is Middle and High School students. Smog City 2 meets the National Science Education Standard, Science as Inquiry, for students in Grade 7, through investigations, controlling variables, and predicting outcomes.  

In the North Carolina’s Standard Course of Study, the Atmosphere is a competency goal for grade 7 students who must learn to analyze the properties that can be observed and measured to predict air quality that includes particulate matter, ozone, pollen and temperature inversions.  High School students must meet the Earth/Environmental Science standards as a graduation requirement, which includes Competency Goal 5 – the learner will build an understanding of the dynamics and composition of the atmosphere and its local and global processes influencing climate and air quality.

Each State has its own requirements but many include the atmosphere, air quality and/or Environmental Science goals and objectives that students must achieve.

## Important for Students?

-   Emissions Sources, Population, and Weather contribute to air pollution
-   Children (18 and under) are a sensitive group
-  lungs not fully developed
-  they should take precaution when the AQI is Orange or higher
-   Learn ways to reduce air pollution

**Notes:**
So why is Smog City and the Air Quality Index important learning tools for students?

It will help them better understand how Emission Sources, such as factories, cars and trucks, consumer products, and Population and Weather contribute to air pollution.

It will also help them understand that they are part of a sensitive group, children 18 years and younger. 
	Their lungs are not fully developed, and 
	They should take precaution when the AQI is Orange or higher.  Sensitive groups include active children and adults and people with respiratory disease.  When the AQI is red, unhealthy, then the general public, especially children, are encouraged to limit prolonged outdoor exertion.

	By using Smog City 2 they’ll learn ways to help reduce air pollution

## Slide 7

**Notes:**
This is the new Smog City 2 Main page. We have a short explanation about smog city 2 and Visitors Tour Guide and Instructions for how to use the controls.  The entry to the simulator is in the lower left clouds. The icons read “Save Smog City 2 from Ozone” ad “Save Smog City 2 from Particle Pollution” and “Create Your Own Experience”

It sounds a bit like a game because of feedback received from user testing.
During the development process we ask 34 Honors Earth Science High School students and their teacher  to test an alpha version of Smog City	2

They wanted us to make it more like a game 
In the alpha version they tested the AQI was Good or Green so any changes they made increased pollution. However, they wanted to start with dirty conditions.  Thee object would be to clean it up.

## Slide 8

**Notes:**
Instructions (upper left) were added as a result of user-testing.  Users were not confused by the busy interface - teens are used to complicated interfaces of computer games.  But they wanted instructions - what should they do first. 
Left sidebar -weather controls - cloud cover, inversion, wind, temperature
Emissions controls - energy sources, cars and trucks, off road, consumer products, industry
Population control
Lower right corner - diurnal AQI chart and health message box - dotted line trace represents the particle pollution levels throughout the day . Solid line for ozone is green.
User testing showed confusions between ground level and stratospheric ozone - teacher said hard concept for students - previous version of the AQI chart had bars of color instead of the color gradient you see here.  The earlier version with the colored bars was adding to the confusion - many students thought this represented layers of ozone around the ea

  Sign in near center of the cityscape shows current AQI and temperature.
  In the upper left corner - links to additional information, such as what is ozone? These contain long paragraphs of text that some users had a hard time retaining. We provide this information in a different format on the students site.
  Hyperlink to live site.  Go through “Save Smog City from Particle Pollution” instructions

## AIRNow Students Website

**Notes:**
I mentioned that many student students didn’t like reading huge amounts of text (Copy answers rather than understanding). Our AIRNOW students site uses another teaching approach. The website highlights smogcity2. The information on the “What is ozone page and What is particle pollution page were developed into animation. How is ozone formed., Good Up High Bad Nearby, and Particle Pollution.  So students that aren’t familiar with ozone and particle pollution can get the basics before they enter Smog City.

We made sure to include a “good up high bad nearby” because of the confusion between stratospheric and ground level ozone.  In the interest of time I’ll just show the shortest which is “How ozone is formed.” 

Brad hyperlink to Students page - show “How Ozone Is Formed”

## For Teachers

-  Instructions
-  Student worksheets
-  Flyers

**Notes:**
The teachers we asked to review the site requested resources to help with lesson plans.  We have included instructions for how to use the site, detailed student worksheets, and flyers for the classroom.  Here is an example of a flyer that goes with the “How ozone is formed” animation.  We hope to included additional poster and flyers for the other animations.

## Next Steps

- www.smogcity2.org

- AIRNow Students  - February 2007
- www.airnow.gov  - click “Students”on sidebar

- Marketing announcement will available on
- airnow.gov under “For Partners”

**Notes:**
We hope to release both sites later this month, check the airnow.gov for an announcement.

A marketing announcement state and locals may use for distribution, will be available on airnow (under for partners) upon smogcity2’s grand debut.

## Outreach Statement

- The US Environmental Protection Agency has recently introduced SmogCity2, a new, interactive Web site that helps the user better understand how weather and human activities affect air quality. Most of the unhealthy air in the United States is caused by ozone and particle pollution. Air pollution can cause health effects such as coughing, difficulty breathing, and chest pain.  This on-line tool helps explain how and why ozone and particle pollution form and what can change polluted conditions by simulating actual city conditions.
- Using an interactive air pollution simulator to control the air quality in Smog City shows how individual choices, environmental factors, and different types of land use affect air pollution. In Smog City,  you are in charge - so whether your visit is a healthy or unhealthy experience depends on the decisions that you make.  To learn more about air quality education or enter SmogCity2, go to www.airnow.gov and click on "Students."

**Notes:**
This is the statement  we're going to send to interested organizations for them to put in their publications or to link to from their web sites.

## Smog City 2 Acknowledgements

- Sacramento AQMD
-  Jamie Arno
- Sonoma Technology, Inc.
-  Tim Dye
-  Neil Wheeler
-  Ken Craig
-  Chris Ovard
-  Ken Craig
- CapStrat
-  John Romamo
-  Todd Coats

- EPA
-  John Bachmann, OAQPS
-  Kristen Bremer, OAQPS
-  Susan Bullard, OTAQ
-  Phil Dickerson, OAQPS
-  Donna Rogers, OAQPS
-  Lori Tussey, OAQPS
-  Chet Wayland, OAQPS
-  Debbie Stackhouse, OAQPS
-  Susan Stone, OAQPS
-  Melissa Payne, OAQPS

## Contact Us

- Lori Tussey
- tussey.lori@epa.gov
- 919-541-4825

- Donna Rogers
-  rogers.donna@epa.gov
- 919-541-5478