January 20, 2012

By Phil Nast, retired middle school teacher and freelance writer

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has just released Greenhouse Gas Data Publication Tool, an interactive map that identifies nearly 80 percent the nation’s major fixed sources of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as of 2010. Other areas covered by the resource are American Samoa, Mariana Islands, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Users can zoom in on map of the U.S. showing all reporting facilities, choose separate states, or search for specific data on individual facilities or search by location. Reporting facilities can be displayed in map, bar graph, pie chart, and tree map formats. Searches can be further narrowed by greenhouse gas and emission range. The map can be figured to show emissions from power plants, refineries, chemicals, other industrial sites, landfills, metals, minerals, pulp and paper, and government and commercial.

The site can be used in grades 6-8 and 9-12 in social studies, earth science, and mathematics classes.

• Social studies students can use the Map Analysis Worksheet ( PDF, 186 KB, 1 pg.) to analyze the features of the EPA map.
• The map would be a good resource for Social studies or earth science students in a unit on environmental policy, such as Unit Two: Resource Management: Local and Historical Perspectives.
• Math students could use the map to determine the best method for displaying data gathered from it, as in Interpreting and Displaying Sets of Data.
• Pair the Interactive Greenhouse Gas Emissions Map with Earth 2100: The Effects of Greenhouse Gases and select different population, economic, and technological scenarios and learn which greenhouse gas has the greatest effect on global temperature.