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John Daley ReportingStudents are playing scientists today at one Utah middle school. The aim is to give them a hands-on way to understand the link between invisible globe-warming greenhouse gases and what we drive.
Ninth grade biology students insert tubes into the exhaust pipes of a range of vehicles, from an SUV to a semi to a hybrid.
Alexa Dalling, 9th Grader: "Our hypothesis is if newer cars are going to give out more or less CO2 than older cars. We haven't done enough of our experiment so far, but I think the newer cars are going to give out less."
The exhaust turns the chemical inside, bromo thymal from blue to green to yellow. It's a clear sign carbon dioxide, the #1 global warming gas, is being added to the mix and it's a more tangible example of something that often seems very far away.
Chante Lundskog, 9th Grader: "It shows that we're putting a lot out than what we should be doing, that we need to take our part. We need to carpool and we need to maybe bike or walk and stuff like that."
David Rosen, 9th Grader: "Especially like old cars and stuff. They're old and the engines don't work as well, so they put out a lot of emissions. But people don't seem to care, they just keep running it and running it."
The kids' teacher says she hopes that they learn that the type of car they buy, whether it's a big Ford with a big engine or a hybrid, makes a big difference when it comes to pollution."
Chandra Vostral, Biology Teacher, Hillcrest Jr. High: "What we're looking at is how much CO2 the different vehicles produce, to try to relate the climate change, the greenhouse effect to them as people to individuals who are about to drive."
Their teacher's husband, meantime, is part of a research team up at the U of U. With rooftop monitors, including one at Hillcrest, they measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as it continues to accumulate, something today they can see with their own eyes.
So what has the students' research found? Bottom line is older cars put out much more pollution, more carbon dioxide, than newer ones. And for diesel cars and trucks, perhaps the most obvious pollutants are particulates, small particles, which account for the sooty exhaust you see sometimes.
