Urban Climate-Ecology Lab

<p style="text-align:start; margin-top:3px; margin-bottom:5px"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="color:#222222"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-weight:400"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">This two-session laboratory module (6 contact hours total) uses the Minneapolis–Saint Paul (MSP) metropolitan area as a living field site to investigate three interconnected problems: how greenhouse gas emissions drive climate change, how a warming climate worsens urban air quality, and why these burdens fall unequally across communities differentiated by race and income.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:start; margin-bottom:3px"> </p> <p style="text-align:start; margin-top:3px; margin-bottom:5px"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="color:#222222"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-weight:400"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">Session 1 (GHG Emissions, Radiative Forcing & Climate Connections) engages students directly with real emissions data. Working from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) GHG Inventory, students compile sector-level emissions for the MSP metro, apply Global Warming Potential (GWP₁₀₀) conversions using AR6 values to produce CO₂-equivalent totals, and evaluate Minnesota’s emissions trajectory against its own statutory climate targets (MN Statute 216H.02). Students then connect these emissions to their atmospheric effects by applying the Myhre et al. (1998) simplified radiative forcing equation (ΔF = 5.35 × ln(C/C₀)) to Mauna Loa CO₂ concentration data spanning 1960 to the present, and separately calculate CH₄ and N₂O forcing from current NOAA GML concentrations.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:start; margin-bottom:3px"> </p> <p style="text-align:start; margin-top:3px; margin-bottom:5px"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="color:#222222"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-weight:400"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">Session 2 (Air Quality Disparities, Climate Justice & Solutions) brings atmospheric science into the lived geography of Minneapolis neighborhoods. Students collect real-time PM2.5 readings from the PurpleAir distributed sensor network and compare them to EPA federal reference monitor data, learning to reason about the strengths and limitations of each monitoring approach. Using EPA EJScreen, they extract and compare pollution burden and demographic vulnerability indicators for high-EJ and lower-EJ census tracts. They overlay these patterns with digitized 1938 Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC) redlining boundaries from the Mapping Inequality archive, testing whether historical housing policy predicts present-day air quality disparities. A new GIS mapping exercise (Part 2C.5) uses the Minnesota Geospatial Commons tree canopy dataset to examine how shade and canopy coverage—measured by lidar remote sensing—co-varies spatially with PM2.5 levels and redlining grades across six Minneapolis neighborhoods. The session concludes with a co-benefits analysis of seven real MSP mitigation interventions and a simplified 2035 emissions scenario model.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p> <p style="text-align:start; margin-bottom:3px"> </p> <p style="text-align:start; margin-top:3px; margin-bottom:5px"><span style="font-size:11pt"><span style="font-family:Calibri, sans-serif"><span style="color:#222222"><span style="font-style:normal"><span style="font-weight:400"><span style="white-space:normal"><span style="text-decoration:none">All data tasks and 12 written response prompts (plus a four-part GIS question) are completed within the protocol document using publicly available, browser-accessible datasets. No prior GIS software, statistics package, or atmospheric chemistry background is required.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p>