Acid Rain Essay

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CAPT PRACTICE PART I Acid Rain Practice CAPT Laboratory Investigation Instructions You will read the following background material about acid rain, analyze student’s experimental data and then complete the questions related to the experimental design and student data. Acid Rain Student Materials Acid rain is a major environmental issue throughout Connecticut and much of the United States. Acid rain occurs when pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide from coal burning power plants and nitrogen oxides from car exhaust, combine with the moisture in the atmosphere to create sulfuric and nitric acids. Precipitation with a pH of 5.5 or lower is considered acid rain. Acid rain not only affects wildlife in rivers and lakes but also does tremendous damage to buildings and monuments made of stone. Millions of dollars are spent annually on cleaning and renovating these structures because of acid rain. There are many examples in both the U. S. and Europe of the corrosive effects of acid rain on sculptures. Many sculptures have been destroyed, a few have been preserved by bringing them inside. The non-metal oxide gases react with water to produce acids Example: SO2 + HOH === H2SO3 ( sulfuric acid ) 2 NO2 + HOH === HNO2 + HNO3 ( nitric acid ) When enough of the tiny cloud droplets clump together to form a larger water drop it may fall to the earth as "wet" acid precipitation including rain, snow, ice, sleet, or fog. Student Experiments Student Task The town council is commissioning a new statue to be displayed downtown. Students in group A conducted an experiment to investigate the effect of acid rain on various building materials in order to make a recommendation to the town council as to the best material to use for the statue. Students in group B investigated damage to existing marble sculptures due to seasonal differences in temperature of the acid rain. In the

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