Student Research Reports

View Research Report

The purpose of this research was to discover where the cleanest air quality might be found. Air quality was monitored in three urban and three rural areas was monitored constantly for a season. These were all located around Lake Erie so the same lake effect would be present in all samples. By installing a PurpleAir flex monitor in each area, constant data was acquired, uploaded to the DEQ and to GLOBE, and collected by this researcher. The data gathered will be air temperature, and AQI (air quality index). Air temperatures were also be taken twice daily using a noncontact infrared thermometer and uploaded to GLOBE via the Observer app. Cloud cover data was also gathered and uploaded to NASA daily. For the control variable, one was placed outside my home as the urban control and another outside my teacher’s home as the rural control. In the other two cities, random locations were chosen and their data accessed for this research. The cities monitored were: Detroit, Michigan, Toledo, Ohio, and Cleveland, Ohio. All three areas are located around Lake Erie which eliminates the “lake effect” since all three cities experience it. The data was analyzed and the results neither validated nor denied the hypothesis, but instead offered another possible alternative. The stated hypothesis was that there would be a difference in air quality between rural and urban locations, but the rural area would consistently maintain a lower number, and a lower AQI. Instead, the AQI seemed to cycle through the cities.