When you ask kids about what we breathe , the words “Air” and ” Oxygen” are most often fully interchangeable. And they will know that trees give us “air” and from 2nd grade on, they have heard the word air pollution, but without actually filling it with any meaning. For them, air is all around us, it’s a constant. Air means oxygen to them, so the concept that the CONTENT of air, the ratio of the gases that are part of air are important is beyond their (and -lets face it- most adults) imagination.

For the intrepid reader: our air consists of 78% Nitrogen, 21% and 1% of other gases including CO2 and Argon.

Every time we breathe or burn something we are converting Oxygen into Carbon Dioxide. Thanks to plant respiration, any green leafed plant will convert Carbon Dioxide back into Oxygen. So the question is how much CO2 do we produce, while cutting down trees until that balance is off?

This is all very hard to grasp for kids but teaching them about it and then showing them how a small chemical reaction of mixing vinegar and baking soda together creates an entire balloon full of Carbon Dioxide and for them to watch that it takes only a tiny puff of CO2 from that balloon to snuff out a candle, was very eye opening to them.

Air pollution is something we ALL are contributing to …….. everyday (!), but we all can do plenty of little things to mitigate the results. These kids are going to be part of the generation of kids who care.