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Oh No: The Ozone
February 23, 2007




The New York Times is running an article entitled, "As Asia Keeps
Cool, Fears Grow for Ozone Layer."

The article begins, "Until recently, it looked like the depleted ozone
layer protecting the earth from harmful solar rays was on its way to
being healed."

It continues, "But thanks in part to an explosion of demand for air
conditioners in hot places like India and southern China — mostly
relying on refrigerants already banned in Europe and in the process of
being phased out in the United States — the ozone layer is proving
very hard to repair."

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Discussion-Starters for Younger Children

  • Ask your students if they think it's important for the classroom
    to be clean and neat. Encourage them to explain their thoughts.
  • One day when your classroom is messy ask students
    how they feel with it so messy. Would they prefer it
    neat? How do they feel when the classroom is neat? Is it
    hard to keep the classroom clean and neat? Why?

  • Pose: Ask your students to imagine that stores were really
    messy, what kinds of problems would the stores have?
  • Consider writing a list of the problems that stores would
    have if they were too messy.

  • If it's important to keep the inside of the classroom and their
    bedrooms clean and neat, do your students think it's important
    to keep outdoors clean and neat? Why/why not? Help your child
    (ren) understand that it's not healthy for the outdoors to be
    dirty. Tell them that dirty things in the air are called pollution.
  • Consider asking students to write short poems, or
    sentences, explaining how the world might feel when it
    has a lot of pollution.

  • Challenge your students to list five things that they can do to
    keep the Earth's environment clean.
  • Consider challenging your students to develop small
    projects in which they can help clean the outdoors. It
    would be great if they could actually implement these
    plans.

Discussion-Starters for Older Students

  • Vocabulary terms to discuss: Depleted; Refrigerants;
    Exemption; and, Multilateral.

  • Pose: Imagine that the only air conditioners you had available
    emitted chlorofluorocarbons. Would it be moral for you to use
    the air conditioner? Why/why not?
  • This conversation might make for a interesting class
    discussion. When might it be immoral? When might it be
    moral?

  • The article concludes by explaining that Indian "chemical
    companies are happy to ship as much (harmful)
    chlorofluorocarbons as needed." Ask your students what they
    might do to encourage the Indians to cease this activity. What
    could the United States do in this regard?
  • Consider asking students to develop proposals in groups
    of two or three. Maybe students won't only discuss
    these ideas but actually try to implement them.

  • Pose: Imagine that the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan
    Singh, asked for advise. He knows that chlorofluorocarbons
    are dangerous. But air conditions that rely on such chemicals
    are far cheaper than safer air conditioners. He could push for a
    law to ban these harmful consequences, but what kinds of
    consequences might such an initiative have? What should the
    Prime Minister do?
  • Consider asking students to imagine that they are the
    Prime Minister's science advisors. What do they think
    he should do from a science perspective. Students could
    also develop conversations between the Prime Minister's
    science, economic and political advisors, related to this
    issue.
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