How Kids Can Help Prevent Acid Rain

Acid rain is no good. Acid rain technically refers to both wet and dry material from the atmosphere that contains large amounts of nitric and sulfuric acids. To break it down, acid rain means polluted rain, snow, fog, hail, sleet, or even dust or smoke. If it falls to the ground and it’s polluted, then we call that acid rain. Even though, as you can see now, that term is somewhat misleading.

The pollution in acid rain is mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels, like gasoline and oil. Coal burning and some natural sources, like volcanoes and decaying vegetation can also release the necessary sulfur dioxide or nitrogen oxide needed to create acid rain, or harmful pollution.

This pollution can kill animals, trees, and many researchers think it may end up causing human health issues. In fact, acid rain can even mess with old building and monuments – it’s that powerful a pollutant.

To stop acid rain we all have to use a smaller amount of fossil fuels – in almost all cases this is going to relate to your energy use. Can you think of some ways to use less energy?

An acid rain experiment: This is a well know trick to see how bad acid rain is for our environment. Take two small (same sized) houseplants and make sure that they’re receiving the same amount of sunlight. Placing them on a sunny windowsill will work well. Use a small sticker or an old popcicle stick to mark one plant as the “acid rain plant.”

Now, when you see they need water, water them. However, before you water the acid rain plan, add three tablespoons of lemon juice or vinegar to its water. Only use clear, clean water for the other plant. Vinegar and lemon juice are both highly acidic. That represents our “acid” rain.

Experiment questions:

1. Before your experiment consider which plant will grow better. Which do you think?
2. During the experiment which plant is growing better?
3. Do you think that the acid rain plant will eventually die?
4. After you see what the acid water does to one small plant, what do you think a whole bunch of acid rain will do to trees, forests, flowers, animals, and people?

To learn more about acid rain and play fun games visit the acid rain kids site.