[Judy Pino] 
Hello, and welcome 
to Green Scene,
EPA's series of environmental 
podcasts that you can
take with you.
I'm Judy Pino.
Acid rains is one of the most 
requested topics here at EPA
from school systems and 
teachers, and today,
we are coming to you from the 
Koshland Science Museum in
Washington D.C., one of the 
nation's premiere environmental
education interactive 
exhibition spaces.
To introduce to you the acid 
rain teacher's guide as part
of the EPA's public outreach 
on acid rain and to tell
us more about this very 
important project is
Brian McLean [phonetic sp], of 
the EPA's Office of Atmospheric
programs, and students, who are 
here today joining us from
Kipp/Key Academy in southeast 
Washington, grades 6-8.
Welcome everybody.
All right Brian, well, you've 
been with the EPA for 20 years
and have been instrumental in 
developing EPA's programs
to reduce acid rain.
Can you tell us, what is 
acid rain and what EPA
is doing about it?
[Brian McLean] 
Okay, well, acid rain is 
a fascinating problem,
because it's so complicated 
that people didn't understand
it at first.
It actually forms in the 
atmosphere from pollutants
that come from power plants 
mostly, and when it mixes
with moisture and other 
chemicals in the air,
it transforms into acidic 
compounds, wet or dry
compounds, that then later fall 
to the earth, sometimes several
hundred miles away.
So when we first discovered 
these problems, they were
in the lakes in the Adirondacks 
in New York, and there were no
pollution sources around 
these lakes.
People couldn't understand why 
the lakes were becoming acidic
and the fish were dying.
And it took people a long 
time to understand that
this pollution was actually 
moving hundreds of miles
from where the power plants were 
to where the lakes were and
falling on the trees and 
falling on the ground
and into the lakes.
So it took quite a bit of 
scientific investigation
before people connected the 
cause with the transformation,
the deposition of the chemicals 
onto the ground.
[Judy Pino] 
So you, of all people, in 20 
years have been able to see
a difference?
[Brian Mclean] 
Yes, in fact, it took almost 20 
years for people to really
understand this problem before 
we began to solve it.
And that started -- 
the solutions we
imposed were in the 1990s.
We passed the Clean Air Act, and 
then in 1995, we began to reduce
emissions from power plants all 
across the United States.
And since 1995, we've reduced 
them now by over 40 percent,
and we have noticed changes.
Deposition has changed, 
it's less acidic.
The lakes are becoming 
less acidic.
So this turned out to be 
scientific investigation
that turned into, really, 
almost a grand experiment
in real time by reducing the 
emissions and then measuring
the effect of those reductions 
on the planet.
[Judy Pino] 
As we mentioned, acid rain is 
one of the topmost topics that
people are requesting, and for 
that reason, we created --
EPA has created -- 
a teacher's guide.
Tell us a little bit 
about that.
[Brian McLean] 
Well, actually, even before we 
started solving the problem,
as we began to understand it and 
people were so interested in it,
we developed a teachers' guide, 
back in the early 1990s.
And because we were getting so 
many requests -- people wanted
to understand what was causing 
this and then what can we
do about it.
And so back then, we were simply 
describing what we understood
about the problem, and we 
decided to put in some
experiments so that students in 
school could actually test and
understand what was happening.
And then, in the last several 
years, we've added not only
the information about it, 
but then we started adding
information about what we're 
doing about it and how we're
reducing emissions to deal 
with the problem.
[Judy Pino] 
And this is not the first 
time that EPA has created
a teachers' guide on acid rain.
[Brian McLean] 
That's correct, and what 
we're sort of announcing
now is that we have 
updated this.
We have new experiments in 
there for people to use.
We've tested those, and we've 
added a lot of new information.
[Judy Pino] 
And of course, we can't 
visit one of the premiere
environmental education 
interactive exhibition
spaces without doing 
a little science.
And Flora Lernman 
[phonetic sp] is
a teacher at Kipp/Key Academy.
Thanks for being with us Flora.
[Flora Lernman] 
Hi, nice to be here.
[Judy Pino] 
Hi, and you have some of 
your students here.
They are doing some science 
experiments in the guidebook --
from the guidebook.
[Flora Lernman] 
Yes, we're actually doing 
experiment number two from
the guidebook, and right now 
these science scholars are
looking at different 
levels of acidity.
They're measuring the pH 
levels of fruits, juices,
and other household items.
As you can see, these science 
scholars have started already,
and they're now in the process 
of measuring and recording
their results.
[Judy Pino] 
Okay guys, go ahead.
In the meantime, we'll 
continue talking.
Brian, how important is it that 
the experiments be easy for the
teachers and the students, 
so they really understand
what acid rain is all about 
and how to prevent it?
[Brian McLean] 
Well, the basic concepts in the 
experiments they're doing are
very similar to what we 
do in the real world.
We use more sophisticated 
instruments, and we have
monitors all around the country 
checking out what's going on,
but what they're looking at is 
how you can measure the acidity
of various common things that 
we have around the house,
from fruits and vegetables 
to other liquids.
We do the same thing, 
we're measuring air,
we're measuring the soil, we're 
measuring the water in lakes,
and we're doing the same kind 
of think, except with much
more expensive instruments --
[Judy Pino] 
Sure.
[Brian McLean] 
-- and much more widespread.
But it's the same kind 
of method that we use,
and by understanding it, they 
can appreciate what actually
goes into evaluating and 
understanding a problem
and solving a problem.
[Judy Pino] 
Now, let's talk to some of 
these science scholars.
I'm interested in knowing what 
you think about acid rain and
how important is it that 
you prevent acid rain?
[Male Student] 
Well, it's very important that 
you prevent it, because it
destroys our community and our 
trees, and so it could affect
us in some way.
If you're like a -- like, 
if you love nature,
then this is a big problem for 
you, and even for people who
don't really love nature, so and 
it really destroys our community
and our houses --
[Judy Pino] 
What about the science 
experiments?
Do you think these are important 
so you guys can understand
a little more about acid rain?
Yes?
And what are you doing 
to prevent acid rain?
[Male Student] 
To prevent acid rain, I'm 
trying not to use as much
electricity as I used to.
[Judy Pino] 
That's great advice, and we 
could all learn from that,
right Brian?
[Brian McLean] 
Yes.
[Judy Pino] 
And Brian, I understand that 
one of the most popular
aspects of this guide is the 
nine science experiments,
such as the one that the 
kids are doing today.
Tell us about these experiments 
and the reason for including
them in the guide.
[Brian McLean] 
Well, we've found that when 
people want to understand
a problem, the best thing to 
do is actually to go through
the process of experimenting and 
testing just the way we would
do and really understand that 
there are liquids and chemicals
and we can measure them.
And so we have developed and, 
in the last few years, revised
these experiments to make them 
very to the point and explicit
so that people can understand, 
students can understand,
exactly what we do when 
we're measuring.
[Judy Pino] 
Okay guys, so the kids have been 
working on their experiments.
What are the results, teacher?
[Flora Lernman] 
Well, as you can see, the soap 
is a base, and the fruit and
the juices and the soda are 
acids, and water is close
to neutral.
[Judy Pino] 
Is that a good thing?
[Flora Lernman] 
Mm-hmm, yeah, we want to keep 
our water neutral so that it's
not acidic, so that when it 
comes down it's not acid rain.
[Judy Pino] 
Okay, well, thank you 
very much.
[Male Student] 
You're welcome.
[Male Student] 
You're welcome.
[Judy Pino] 
And thank you Brian McLean, of 
EPA's Office of Atmospheric
Programs; Ms. Flora Lernman, 
teacher at Kipp/Key Academy
in Southeast; and all of our 
students in the studio today;
and of course, Koshland Science 
Museum in downtown Washington
D.C., one of the nation's 
premiere environmental
education interactive spaces for 
helping us out with this very
important Green Scene.
For more information on what EPA 
is doing to reduce acid rain,
please visit 
www.epa.gov/acidrain.
To find out more about the 
Koshland Science Museum,
go to the address on screen.
The guide "Learning About Acid 
Rain: A Teacher's Guide for
Grades 6-8" we should say is 
also available online for
download at 
www.epa.gov/acidrain.
And of course, printed copies 
are available for free
through the acid rain hotline 
on the screen now.
Thank you very much 
for being with us.
Thanks Brian.
[Brian McLean]
Thank you.