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EDUCATION: URBANMAAPFrequently Asked Questions
What is the guiding science question for UrbanMAAP?How do concentrations and spatial distribution of atmospheric particulates or pollutants (aerosols) affect the climate and asthma burden? Why is asthma a problem?Millions of people of all ages around the world suffer from asthma. 26 million Americans have been diagnosed with asthma in their lifetime. Asthma is a complex disease, influenced by multiple factors or triggers. One asthma trigger is pollution, in particular, concentration of atmospheric particles in our atmosphere called aerosols. What is NASA's contribution to this problem?NASA's unique contribution to the study of human health and the environment is the observation, measurement and analysis of Earth's regional and global atmospheric and surface characteristics. UrbanMAAP was created for students to help quantify the potential relationship between the alarming increase in the prevalence of asthma and global and decadal scale changes in atmospheric composition due to human activity. What are aerosols?Aerosols are small solid or liquid particles suspended in the air. These atmospheric particulates can absorb, reflect and scatter the sun's energy. They come from natural sources such as wind blown soil, sea salt or volcanoes. Human activity such as burning fossil fuel also contributes to aerosol load through exhaust gases, soot and smoke produced by industry and transportation. Nitrates and sulfates are gases important to monitor in an aerosol study. The majority of aerosols form a haze in the lower atmosphere (troposphere). Visibility is an indicator for aerosol. On hazy days when visibility is low, aerosol levels will be higher than clear days. What role do aerosols play in regulating Earth's climate?Because aerosols can reflect and absorb sunlight they can have both a warming and cooling effect on our climate. Since aerosols are not measured well, there is considerable uncertainty about the aerosols the effect have on climate and how they relate to increasing global surface temperatures. NASA is interested in the chemical reactions that form aerosols from their precursor gases (gases emitted into the atmosphere can mix with other gases and change their composition). For example nitrate aerosols and the precursor nitrogen oxides (mobile emissions from cars, trucks, buses) are related to tropospheric ozone. How do aerosols impact human health?Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disorder of the lungs characterized by episodic and reversible symptoms of airflow obstruction. Pollutants such as aerosols act as asthma triggers. The annual variation of aerosol composition is such that the nitrate mass fraction increases during winter when photochemical production of ozone is smallest. UrbanMAAP studies found that asthma burden (number of attacks) peaks in winter. In summer there is a decrease in nitrate fraction when photochemical production of ozone depletes the NOx available to form aerosols. However in summer, ozone alert days can trigger respiratory health problems. How will school asthma surveys help improve our understanding of the prevalence of asthma?
By collecting asthma survey data from your school's student population, you will be helping build a valuable new data set to better understand the prevalence of asthma among urban high school students. Self-reported asthma data, as shown in the figure above, is needed to quantify the population living with asthma. Asthma mortality data is among the most widely available public asthma data. Hospitals sometimes provide admissions and emergency room visits related to asthma. By having high school students answer survey questions about whether or not they have asthma along with questions about their social and environmental conditions can potentially provide researchers with a new and valuable data set. The expectation is to provide a data set that is more representative of the population of young people in our country living with asthma. This research project aims to improve what we know about the extent of this health problem and the causes or triggers of asthma. Since schools from several urban areas have participated in UrbanMAAP, students can compare data collected from the different cities. Are there differences or similarities in asthma prevalence? Are there possible relationships between the social and environmental characteristics of students who have asthma and those that do not? The answers to these science questions can be of particular importance to people responsible for determining effective investments in public health and environmental regulations and policies. By improving the data available to study asthma, policy-makers are in a better position to make informed and cost-effective decisions to reduce and/or manage the increasing number of children living with asthma. How will school sunphotometer IOPs help study roles aerosols play in climate and human health?
UrbanMAAP schools use hand-held sunphotometers. These instruments are used outdoors to measure the direct beam of sunlight transmitted through Earth's atmosphere at 530 nm, the green portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. A sunphotometer reading is taken on a voltmeter attached to the instrument. What can we learn from this measurement? The data collected with the hand-held sunphotometer is an indication of the total number of particles in the air above our heads. The amount of sunlight reaching the earth's surface where we live is a measure of aerosols since these particles scatter and/or absorb the incoming solar radiation. Your school's Intensive Observation Period (IOP) should last for two weeks in order to optimize each school's opportunity to obtain at least 3-5 days of quality data. |
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