This month's newsletter topic is Industrial Engineering. An important part of industrial engineering is developing methods of manufacturing items in a more environmentally friendly manner. In this month's lesson, The Air We Breathe, students will learn what causes air pollution and how to investigate the different pollutants that exist, such as toxic gases and particulate matter. Students will investigate the technologies developed by engineers to reduce amounts of air pollution created through industrial processes. Engineers continue to explore new, creative ideas to lower the emissions into the air, such as designing more efficient vehicles, industrial filters to reduce the amount of particulate matter released into the atmosphere, and indoor air filters to keep our indoor air clean.

In the associated activity, Cleaning the Air, students will undertake a an engineering challenge representing removing particulate matter from industrial sources as they design and build a filter to remove pepper from an air stream without blocking more than 50% of the air. One of the biggest challenges engineers face is devising new techniques to prevent industrial air pollution. Engineers are creative in designing modern pollutant recovery methods and industrial technologies that remove particulate matter from industrial sources to minimize negative effects of air pollution.

This activity comes to you from the TeachEngineering Digital Library, a part of the new Engineering Pathway and the National Science Digital Library. The Engineering Pathway portal provides a means of searching high-quality teaching and learning resources, like Cleaning the Air, in applied science and math, engineering, computer science/information technology and engineering technology — for use by K-12 and university educators. The Engineering Pathway brings together quality engineering education materials from all over the internet, including those from the TeachEngineering Digital Library, allowing teachers to search all of these documents in a single location.