UMGC ENMT380 Week 1 Discussion (dq1+dq2+dq3) Latest 2021 October

ENMT380 Air Quality Management

Week 1 Discussion

DQ1 You, your interests, and experience in air quality management

Share why you are taking this course and preview the content of this course to share what topics most excite you and what topics you are most anxious about or unsure about.  Also, please find out the air quality in your zip code as part of the introduction about yourself and the air quality in your locality!

DQ2 Quantitative analysis and critical thinking

I often see a lot of anxiety around quantitative analysis.  We need to use quantitative analysis to make decisions every day so it is important to practice, and we shall do so every week.  Here are some questions that relate to our course content and discussions this week centered on thinking quantitatively and analytically.

We talked about PM2.5 and PM10.  What is the diameter of these particulates compared to the diameter of the width of your hair?  How many PM2.5 would it take to be the same width as your hair?

In this week’s reading, I converted 70 ppb of O3 to percent of O3 in our atmosphere that would be harmful for us to breath.  Can you show how to do this conversion?  What about converting from ppb to ppm?  How would you go about doing that?  Once these conversions have been clearly demonstrated, please find the concentration of the other pollutants that you have been concerned about and their concentration levels that have human health impacts.  Convert between ppm, ppb, and % for the pollutant you have chosen to discuss.

One of the important uses of qualitative analysis is to check out data you see.  I had stated that I take about 23,040 breaths a day.  How many breaths is that per minute?  Is that figure in the correct range for an adult?  About how much more breaths per minute do toddlers take?  What about babies?  What do those data tell you about the most vulnerable age group?  Explain your reasoning.

Quantitative analysis goes hand in hand with critical analysis.  Look at what is presented and ask questions like where, what, how much, how was it measured, in what context and how long.  We will be practicing critical thinking though discussions, quiz questions, and assignments.

Let’s take a look at one of the figures used in the Introducing the key concepts of air quality management video you viewed this week:

There is something already wrong with this few-years-old data.  What is the incorrect information and what is the percentage change in that information.  What about the other components in our atmosphere?  Have they changed more than a few relative percent?  By the way, what is the difference between relative percent and percent?

Figure from: Wyche, K. & Smallbone, K. (2017). Introducing the key concepts of air quality management. University of Brighton. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BERM_1ktwpc

DQ3 Global to local state of air quality – what are the main issues and how do we monitor them

This week, we got to view a wide variety of air quality monitoring resources – from global air monitoring by NASA to various countries and provinces to cities like London and Amsterdam.  What were the most memorable parts of these videos in terms of the impact of air quality and how it was monitored and managed?  Please make sure to add to what your classmates have begun by sharing something they have not shared or adding depth to something they did share.