Students research air quality issues

How safe is the air at a coffee kiosk's drive-through or in the high school's wrestling room? How about the house you live in?

This past semester, 65 Whitefish High School students in Todd Spangler's chemistry classes set out to learn more about localized air quality through the annual Air Toxics Under the Big Sky program. This is the fifth year the school has participated in the project.

Developed in 2005 by researchers from the Center for Environmental Health and the Department of Chemistry at the Univer-sity of Montana, in alliance with Big Sky High School in Missoula, the program aims to educate students about environmental health concepts through hands-on research performed by the students in their own homes, schools and communities.

The research performed by students corresponds with broader air-quality issues involved with wood stoves, temperature inversions and road dust.

Spangler says the program benefits students through multiple layers.

"Part of the program is learning more about health concerns relating to poor air quality," Spangler explained. "Another part is that students get to work with real-world, high-end scientific equipment. They also get to work on a real-world science project, they're not looking at a text book."

This year, projects touched on air-quality impacts from waxing skis and snowboards, burning incense or candles, working near drive-through windows and working on a home remodel.

"I wanted to make sure the project was something the students had a personal interest in," Spangler said about the variety of research conducted.

Using a highly sensitive particulate meter, students evaluated their research area for two or three days. They later studied the data they gathered and put together either a display board or PowerPoint presentation explaining their conclusions.

Thirty-five select students then traveled to UM on May 19 to showcase their projects to a panel of judges who assessed the research and scientific process used.

Jenna Hanson and Tyler Bodway scored a second-place result in the display-board competition against of students from six regional high schools. Their project looked at the air quality of the high school's wood shop.

The duo of Bailey Eaton and Carly Schwick-ert, and Jack Steele both reached the finals in the display-board competition. Eaton and Schwickert studied the air quality inside a home while it was being remodeled, and Steele tested the air quality in the wrestling room at school.

In PowerPoint presentations, Kristian Stipe and Joe Mazur took second place for their research on the impact of using snowboard wax.

Spangler emphasized the benefits of doing these types of hands-on, out-of-the-classroom projects, saying students "had to stumble around a little bit and think about what they are doing."

"They also had to work with people out in the public," he said.

To learn more about the program, visit online at http://www.umt.edu/cehs/airtox.html.