Welcome SCHOOL Module 2: Air Quality
Welcome to the second module of the SCHOOL curriculum!
The Science Core Heuristics for Open Science Outcomes in Learning (SCHOOL) is part of the NASA Transform to Open Science (TOPS) Training (TOPST) initiative, designed to teach the data science lifecycle using data from the NASA Earth Sciences division and to foster an inclusive culture of open science. You can learn more about the SCHOOL Project and other modules on the SCHOOL Project home page.
This TOPS SCHOOL module on the theme of “Air Quality and Health” provides a foundational understanding of the complex interplay between air quality, public health, and environmental justice. We will explore how we can use spatial data for the study of air pollution, the sources and types of pollutants, and their impacts on vulnerable communities. You will gain critical insights into how environmental factors shape health outcomes. As you engage with the lessons, you will develop a comprehensive understanding of key concepts, including the composition of air, the significance of social vulnerability, and the tools available for analyzing environmental data. Ultimately, these lessons will empower you to contribute meaningfully to discussions and actions pertaining to air quality and environmental justice.
The following lessons examine how poor air quality impacts human health. Each lesson uses one or more datasets to walk users through accessing and analyzing data, and further adapting the code to perform their analyses including: data cleaning, processing to subset to an area of interest, and creating visualizations to share what they have learned with their communities, explore the relationships with variables such as extreme temperatures, demographic and socioeconomic factors, environmental injustice, and environmental disasters.
This module is designed to provide undergraduate students and early-career researchers with an introduction to the data science “life cycle” and sample code describing how Open Science principles can be effectively applied to earth sciences, particularly in the context of air pollution and its impact on health.
Teaching earth science topics and coding skills in depth is beyond the scope of the SCHOOL Modules. Instead, the SCHOOL Project aims to provide users with the skills to adapt the skills learned in SCHOOL lessons to the users’ own Open Science workflow. To learn more about Open Science, explore NASA’s TOPS Open Science 101 Curriculum. To explore other themes in the SCHOOL project, visit our Modules Page.
Module 2: Air Quality datasets and use cases cover:
- Acquiring, Pre-Processing, and Visualizing Student-Monitored Data for New York City schools: This lesson will emphasize the relationship between hazardous chronic air quality and socioeconomic characteristics of different New York City school environments.
- Exploring Air Quality, Social Vulnerability, and Health Outcomes in Metro Detroit: Participants will investigate how the Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) highlights areas at greater risk for adverse health outcomes due to environmental hazards. This lesson will examine the connections between socioeconomic status, health disparities, and environmental injustice.
- Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJScreen): Explore the environmental and demographic characteristics of a geographic area using the Environmental Protection Agency’s environmental justice screening and mapping tool.
- Particulate Matter Across Socioeconomic Strata of Countries: Analyzing the Global Gridded Relative Deprivation Index Version 1 (GRDIv1) and annual PM2.5 grids to explore global relationships between socioeconomic vulnerability and particulate matter concentrations over time. This lesson will provide insights into how air quality varies across different regions and its implications for public health, focusing on both local and global contexts.
This course was made possible thanks to the work of our NASA Transform to Open Science (TOPS) team, our SCHOOL Open Science team, open science Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), and the SCHOOL Development team!