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WEST VALLEY CITY — Air quality monitors give us pretty accurate information on the intensity of the pollution in most of our neighborhoods. Some students are making sure scientists get a better understanding of what's in the smog.
Scientists from BYU and the Utah Division of Air Quality launched a study to get a better idea of specifically what's in our pollution. It all starts with this new instrumentation on the corner of this green house.
Fourth graders at Neil Armstrong Academy got a crash course in atmospheric pollution from scientists who just started a first-of-its-kind air monitoring study at their school. They know how the pollution makes them feel.
"The sky is gray and it kinda looks foggy," said fourth-grader Olivia Laughlin. "It can get like gross stuff in our lungs and make us not be able to breathe very well."
"It's kind of like foggy and you don't feel very well and you feel tight in your chest and you start to cough," said fellow student Parker Jorgensen.
But, what exactly is in that pollution?
It's all of those other toxins that this study hopes to identify with these new instruments built at BYU with a $355,000 EPA grant. They will now discover not only the amount of pollution, but also the source of the particulate matter.
"When we measure these particles on a very rapid basis, we're getting data back that says, ‘oh this particle has glucose in it.' That's a marker that tells us this particle came from the combustion of wood," said Dr. Jaron Hansen, a professor of chemistry at Brigham Young University.
"We get a complete picture of the toxic component of the air pollution here in the Salt Lake Valley," Hansen added.
That's important information when it comes to analyzing the data that lead to strategies for limiting the pollution.
"We literally start writing reports and papers that say ‘Hey, 20 percent of the pollution came from this place, 30 percent came from this place' and then it's up to policymakers to act on it," said Hansen.
We will keep an eye on this study and catch up with the scientists when they have some results to share with us.
