Climate Justice and Health Impacts of Methane (so-called Natural Gas) in General or Introductory Chemistry

Heather Price, North Seattle College

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Summary

In this activity, students explore the chemical forms of methane (CH4), so called natural gas, learn about the various sources and uses of methane, and gain knowledge of human health impacts and the disproportionate impact of extraction pollution on poor and racialized communities. Student tasks include watching two short videos, reading two short news articles, seminar on a scientific journal article, practicing chemical concepts in homework and class, and engaging in a civic engagement component where students practice science communication and build their science literacy skills.

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Learning Goals

1. Recognize how pollution produced by methane extraction and combustion creates climate & health injustices;
2. Learn and work with key chemical concepts of chemistry including balancing equations, redox, and shapes of molecules, and connect these concepts with local and global issues related to climate and health;
3. Use knowledge of chemistry concepts to discuss and reflect on methane combustion pollution and related climate and health injustices with others (civic engagement);
4, Identify and discuss ways that people and communities experiencing climate and health injustices can address the challenges they are facing; and
5. Reflect and practice science communication and build science literacy skills through a civic engagement assignment.

Context for Use

I designed this activity for a first-quarter college level General or Introductory Chemistry course, and have taught it multiple times in my 26-student community college chemistry courses. I introduced this activity during Week 5 of the course when students are learning about energy (enthalpy, activation energy, energy calculations) but it can be introduced at any time in an introductory chemistry course. Timing will depend on which key chemistry concepts you want to use as you introduce/integrate climate justice and civic engagement elements into your course. For instance, this activity could be included during week one when students are typically learning types of matter (coal is solid, gasoline or oil are liquids, and methane is a gas), or later in the quarter when learning the shapes and polarity of molecules (methane is tetrahedral and contains non-polar bond, while carbon monoxide is linear with polar bonds), or when learning types of reactions (methane is reactant in its combustion reaction and also a reductant in its redox reaction).

The activity takes place during the lecture period, over two separate days (Day 1 and Day 2 here) with a civic engagement component completed as homework that is due a week after the completion of Day 2. Associated discussion and homework can be completed in-class or online, depending on the course modality. Following completion of the two-day lecture and in-class discussion portions, students have a week to complete the civic engagement assignment and reflection. Day 1 of the activity includes engages students with the two introductory videos, a lecture on the chemistry of methane, and class discussion and practice problems related to the videos and accompanying lecture. Between the two days, students have time to read the assigned paper(s) and practice related chemistry concepts and calculations. During Day 2, students seminar on the readings and continue to practice key chemistry concepts introduced on Day 1. Following Day 2, students complete the civic engagement assignment, practicing science communication at home or with someone in their community, and reflect on their community discussions in a written self-reflection that is due a week following the completion of Day 2. No special equipment is needed for this activity.

Description and Teaching Materials

About two hours of class time are needed to implement this activity with a class of about 26 students.

Instructor Class Preparation: I check documentary links, create a Jamboard and/or multiple-choice polling questions, create a PowerPoint and/or handouts with questions and other content, create out-of-class assignment for students to reflect on their science communication, civic engagement assignment.

Day 1:

Step 1: The activity begins with students watching the two to three introductory videos (35-45 minutes) on methane, so called natural gas. You could assign some or all of the videos as pre-work for students to complete before meeting or show them during class, in person or on Zoom.

Videos:

Step 2: In my class, I introduce various chemistry concepts throughout the quarter using methane as the molecule of interest. These may include states of matter, shapes of molecules, bond and molecular polarity, energy graphs and calculations, redox, stoichiometry, and/or balancing equations. After showing the introductory videos, I teach and/or review the relevant chemistry concepts from the appropriate textbook chapter using slides from the textbook alongside slides I have created (10-20 minutes).

Step 3: Next, we move to class practice and discussion responding to the documentary (10 minutes). Following the videos and slides illustrating the chemistry concepts of interest, students discuss the videos and practice problems related to the chemistry concepts. The discussion can take place in person or online, synchronously or asynchronously. If the class is meeting online, I recommend creating a graded assignment in a Canvas discussion board asynchronously, or if the discussion is happening synchronously online, then I recommend using a JamBoard. If using Jamboard, I take care to ensure that my link is set up so everyone is an "editor" of the Jamboard. This way students can type and post their "sticky notes." The default is "viewer", meaning they can only view the JamBoard, but cannot edit.  If you are using JamBoard, you can click on the blue "Share" button in Jamboard on the upper right to change the setting to "Anyone on the internet with the link can edit."

Step 4: I remind students that the next time we meet, we will discuss the readings related to methane chemistry, health impacts, and climate justice. If the Day 2 discussion will take place in person, I hand out the readings to the students at the end of Day 1. If the course is online, then I make sure the students have access to electronic versions of the reading assignments.

Day 2:

Step 4: Students seminar on reading(s) related to the chemistry, climate justice, and health impacts of methane (45 minutes total) by working through the attached seminar worksheet in groups of four. If this is the first time for students to seminar on readings, I will spend 5 minutes discussing what a "seminar discussion" entails and sharing discussion guidelines for a successful and fun seminar experience. In small groups, students discuss the assigned readings for 20-25 minutes. Following the students small group discussions, I facilitate a 10 minute full-class discussion to summarize the readings. Students turn in their completed seminar worksheet at the end of class. 

SeminarReportMethane_Sp23.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 2.3MB Apr26 23)

Step 5: Next steps (5 minutes). At the end of Day 2, I assign a civic engagement activity called "Methane, Climate Justice, and Chemistry Conversation". Through this part of the activity, students discuss what they learned with someone in their community (typically a friend or family member), come up with at least one way that the communities affected by methane pollution can address the challenges they face through civic engagement, and then post their reflection of this discussion in a written reflection assignment. I use Canvas learning management system (LMS) for the discussion board, but any LMS with discussion board capability will work. An example of this activity and discussion prompts are included in the attached Word file. Students are given one week to complete the activity and submit their written reflection.

Activity Sheet Homework or Quiz (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 566kB Apr27 23) 

SERC Methane discussion materials.docx (Microsoft Word 2007 (.docx) 552kB Apr27 23)

This work is supported by the C-JUSTICE grant NSF 2043535.

Teaching Notes and Tips

Teaching tips and notes for this lesson is still a work in progress. I have taught this lesson multiple times since 2021 in my synchronous and online introductory chemistry course and I have not received any questions or face any challenges in explaining the content to students.

When I plan to teach it in a face-to-face class, I show the videos in class, and I ask the students to complete the readings outside of class. This way, students have time to process the information before discussing in class. I highly recommend splitting this lesson and activity components into two class sessions. If you only have one class session, the Day 2 seminar discussion on the readings can take place during Day 1, or in an online discussion format.

Student feedback from this activity has been entirely positive and generated enthusiastic discussion and comments between students and in their faculty evaluations of my class. Some students were surprised that natural gas is the same molecule as methane. And many didn't know the level of indoor air pollution and health impacts caused by burning methane, even when a vent hood is running. Most of my introductory chemistry students are allied health majors, preparing to enter nursing school programs, and many expressed gratitude in their anonymous written evaluations for learning chemistry in a way that connects their chemistry learning with human health and climate justice.

Assessment

1. Recognize how pollution produced by methane extraction and combustion creates climate & health injustices.

I do an informal formative assessment of students' understanding through observing their in-class discussions of the videos.

2. Gain knowledge of key chemical concepts of chemistry including balancing equations, redox, and shapes of molecules, and connect these to local and global issues related to climate and health.

To assess student's knowledge of key chemical concepts of chemistry including balancing equations, redox, and shapes of molecules, and connect these to local and global issues related to climate and health, I conduct a summative assessments. This includes adding questions related to what they've learned into graded activity sheets, quizzes, and exams. These include a mix of calculations and conceptual questions.

3. Use knowledge of chemistry concepts to discuss and reflect on methane combustion pollution and related climate and health injustices with others (civic engagement).

I also conduct formative assessment of chemistry concepts and their reflections on the climate justice connections of what they are learning. One way I do this is by having students discuss with a student sitting next to them and then report back to the larger group. When my class is online, the reflection is moved to an online discussion forum where students discuss what they have learned and comment on another students' post as well. These concepts are then repeated in summative assessments, such as in quizzes and exam essay questions, which I grade for understanding of methane chemistry and its scientific and social connection to the climate.

4. Identify and discuss ways that people and communities experiencing climate and health injustices can address the challenges they are facing.

As in 3 above, formative assessment is done through listening to students during class discussion. For the summative assessment I grade students' class activity sheets, seminar report, quizzes or exams which test for students' understanding of the ways people and communities experiencing injustice can address the challenges they face.

5. Reflect and practice science communication and build science literacy skills through a civic engagement assignment.

To assess this, I observe student learning and understanding as they take part in online discussions and/or in class conversations using an informal formative assessment.

References and Resources

This work is supported in part by NSF-IUSE grant (DUE 2043535).

List of suggested readings and videos to assign or show in class:

A. Videos:

B. Readings: