Science Fair Projects About Air Pollution on the School Playground

Examining Local Results

Discussion Questions that Require More Critical Thinking Skills:

• What were your conclusions for this experiment?
• What could your infer based on your conclusions?
• What do you think caused the air pollution at the different sites?
• How does the television air quality report affect the amount of particulates collected?
• How would you design this experiment differently the next time?

Discussion Questions that Require Less Critical Thinking Skills

• How many particulates did you find at the different locations?
• Were there different types of particulates collected?
• If the answer to the above question is "yes", which locations produced different kinds of particulates?
• What are some categories we can divide the types of particulates into?
• Did the outside temperature have any impact on the number of particulates gathered?
• Does the weather have any impact on the number of particulates gathered?

Examining Local and Online Results

Discussion Questions That Will Require Critical Thinking Skills to Compare Local Data to the Online Data of Others

• How did your results compare with the results of others?
• What conclusions can you make when you compare your results with the results of others?
• What inferences can you draw from your additional conclusions?
• What changes would you now make in this experiment based on the information you now have?

General Discussion Questions that May Occur as a Result of Comparing Local Data to the Online Data of Others

• Where is the geographic location of the schools who have provided online data?
• How did the types of particulates you gathered compare with those caught by others?
• What external factors may have contributed to different number of particulates being gathered in other locations?
• What similarities existed among those schools that gathered the same types and numbers of particulates?