[Music] welcome learners before we begin will you please take a deep breath with me and let it out slowly ready and let it out what did we just breathe in yes air but I wonder if I breathed in anything else like air pollution yuck hi I'm Mrs defal according to National Geographic air pollution consists of chemicals or particles in the air that can harm the health of humans animals and plants it also damages buildings there are many kinds of pollutants or types of pollution in the air such as odors dust and smoke the purpose of today's lesson is to learn about air pollution and craft a professional letter to Michigan's air quality division to thank them for their hard work in keeping our air clean let's read another passage according to the Environmental Health Research to Action Foundation or EH air pollution is the main cause of climate change as air pollution worsens the Earth's atmosphere changes the greenhouse effect is when heat from the sun is trapped in the Earth's atmosphere due to pollution this causes a rise in global temperatures which leads to changes in climate patterns all over the world i learned a lot and to make sure I understand it well I need to put this in my own words let me model how I'll restate or paraphrase by talking about the topic i understand climate change is a huge concern for the entire world i didn't know that air pollution is the main cause so air pollution isn't good for you and me it's not good for the earth either because heat from the sun can't escape through pollution the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences stated "Air pollution is a familiar environmental health hazard or something dangerous."

We know what we're looking at when brown haze settles over a city exhaust billows that means rises or rolls across a busy highway or a plume rises from a smoke stack like we see in the image on the web page some air pollution is not seen but its pungent smell that's really strong and gross alerts you does your brain feel like it might explode after reading all of that information mine too so let's work together to talk through what we learned air pollution is yes dangerous sometimes we can see air pollution and sometimes we can smell it when we see air pollution we might see what do you think yes a brown haze or smoke in Michigan we have an air quality division when Michigan residents have a concern about air pollution they may reach out to the air quality division through a survey reading information about air pollution motivates me to take action like author and literacy advocate Pam Allen says "Reading is like breathing in writing is like breathing out i breathed in or inhaled by reading more information to understand air pollution now I want to exhale through writing a letter to the air quality division i would like to thank them for their impact on the policies that promote clean air let's craft a letter to thank this team for their hard work in keeping our air clean letter writing is a genre or category of writing so when we think of genres of text we might think of fantasies realistic fiction or biographies letters are a type of genre that follows a set of rules what are the rules for writing a professional thank you letter as the writer or author I include my professional address in the upper right hand corner on the left hand side I begin with the recipient's address for our example the air quality division is our recipient because they are receiving our letter how should we start our letter here's one way we could start the letter dear air quality division now we think about what we want to say because we've been reading about the topic I want the air quality division to know what I learned we've been reading about air pollution we learned a lot about the pollution people see and or smell we understand air pollution is very dangerous it's a hazard for people plants and animals now I think I need to specify some of the hazards air pollution can make it challenging to breathe people plants and animals can also get sick from pollutants this is a thank you letter and I want to be specific we want to thank you for the work you do to help us to have clean air we appreciate how you help businesses to know what they can do better to help air quality we also thank you for serving the community through your hard work the air quality division does so much to help us and I want to help them too what about you what could we do let's write a bit more air quality is so important and all of us must do what we can to not pollute the air one step we hope to take is more steps we plan to walk more than drive whenever possible and now we have to close our letter since we've already said thank you I'm going to use a different closing sincerely Mrs defa and the read write roar learners when we read it's like breathing in that information to feed our brain so we can learn when we write about our reading we exhale all that we've learned through our writing discussion or reflection air pollution is a very important topic to learn about now so that our future actions can help improve the quality of what we breathe in today and tomorrow thank you for joining us if you want more fun ways to practice literacy skills don't forget to subscribe to the Michigan Learning channel and be sure to check the description below for links to activity guides resources and more [Music]