The Effect of Air Pollution on Breathing.

In lessons I have been learning about the cardiovascular system and how external factors can affect this system. I will be concentrating on air pollution as it is an increasingly occurring problem in the world today, and could affect the cardiovascular system. This may create health problems. Research Question How does the air quality affect the lung capacity for teenagers? I will narrow down this investigation by just testing 16 year olds and by just using 8 regions just within England. Hypothesis I predict that the worse the air quality of the area, the worse the lung capacity. Variables Independent: The area being tested for the amount of pollution. Dependent: The volume of air is being measured. Peak flow meter reading? Controlled: The same people being measured for the volume of air. This will mean the results are valid. The same equipment being used for each person. The age of the people being tested will be the same at 16 years. The gender of the people will be all female, in order to narrow down the test. The people being tested will have all lived in area all of their lives, so that ther results are valid. The areas that will be tested are: East Midlands, Eastern England, Greater London, North East, North West and Merseyside, West Midlands, SouthWest England, South East England. These same regions will be used in all tests and repeats. The time of year will be the same for all experiments in order to get the correct pollution levels. The experiment will be repeated on three different days and an average will be taken, in order for the results to be reliable. I will make sure that none of the people being tested will be asthmatic or having any breathing problems. Equipment: Method: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7) 8) 9) 10)
1

Defra Recordings of Pollution Levels (Running 24 Hour mean PM2.5 Particles (gm-3) 20 people aged 13-19 years old from each location (8 regions) Peak Flow Meter

Collect secondary data of the pollution levels from Defra for the 8 locations given. For one location get 20 random 13-19 year olds. One person takes a full breath of air to fill their lungs. Place the mouthpiece over their lungs and they close their lips firmly around it. The person blows out the air as hard as they can in one breath. Record the reading on the meter in litres. Re-set the reader and take two further readings. Record the highest recording. Repeat steps 3 to 7 for each person. Repeat steps 2 to 8 for the other 7 locations. Collate data into a table and graph, in order to analyse how air pollution affects the lung capacity.

http://uk-air.defra.gov.uk/latest/currentlevels