 optional activitymapping us mercury emissions overview  in the northeastern us it has been estimated that at least 75 of mercury arrives here from the atmosphere this activity tracks that mercury back to one of its sources electric utilities using data collected by the us environmental protection agency the data are reports from various industries regarding how much mercury they emit ideally students work in teams and contribute to a classroom map that will ultimately show where large and small mercury emitters are in the country if appropriate this can also be an individual project with each student filling in his or her own map using markers or colored pencils after the mapping exercise there should be a followup discussion about how mercury arrives in the northeast the map will show low emissions in our region there is an optional math problem to tie the results to the amounts found in fish getting ready materials three colors of sticky notes like postits red yellow blue or green would be ideal a us map wallmap size  student versions of the epa s mercury release table student prerequisites how to measure volume and square inches parts of a circle proportions averages ranges computer skills library skills time needed activity procedure  divide students into three groups give each group a different colored pad of sticky notes have students categorize the total onsite disposal or other releases numbers in the third column classifying the values as high medium or low as follows high 2938 medium 12602938 low 1260 note the categories are fairly arbitrary they were chosen to split the data in thirds and were used on the epa s map  assign one group to each category then have students place their sticky notes on the map to show the geographic distribution of mercury releases in the us for example a group with red sticky notes could be the high group and should place their stickies on the states that have high levels of releases eg alabama arizona etc when all the states have been categorized lead a group discussion of any patterns in the data teacher version  map produced by epa showing distribution of mercury emissions by state using the same data set as in the table students will use the students map should look similar reflection formative assessment ideas which way does the wind blow follow up with a discussion about prevailing winds in the northeast and how mercury is transported here in the atmosphere answer the graphic below is a visual demonstrating one way mercury is transported spatial distribution of coalfired plants and volume of coal burned black dots and predominant wind patterns in the conterminous united states extension ideas  the data we just worked with are reported in pounds of mercury to reinforce the concept of scale and some math unit conversions students will determine how many pounds of mercury are in a fish say a fish weighs 5 pounds a pound is equal to 454 grams say that fish has a concentration of 300 ppb of mercury one ppb is equal to one nanogram per gram so the fish has 300 nangograms of mercury per gram of fish weight now how many pounds of mercury are in the fish answer the fish weighs 5 lb x 454 g lb 2270 grams there are 300 nanograms mercury per gram of fish so 300 ng g mercury mass x 2270 g fish mass 681000 ng of mercury in the whole fish you can factor out 1000 by converting to micrograms and say the fish contains 681 ug of mercury how many pounds is 681 ug well multiply 681 ug x 1 mg 1000 ug x 1 g 1000 mg and you get 0000681 grams now convert to pounds 0000681 g x 1 lb 2270 g 00000003 lbs you would need over 33 million fish to gather together a pound of mercury  teacher s cheat sheet completed teacher version of epa s mercury release table handouts student version of epa s mercury release table resources all data regarding mercury releases in this activity were gathered from the us epa s tri explorer and are 2007 data accessed august 18 2009 main tri web site  http wwwepagov triexplorer  online tutorial for further investigation  http wwwepagov tri triexplorertutorial indexhtml map courtesy of portland press herald portland maine usa source united states energy information administration e3 ventures usdoe 1999 adapted from bank et al 2005  mapping mercury emissions mapping mercury emissions mercury movement the environment   mercury in watersheds background classroom activity  