Air Pollution

For assignment #3, you'll need to find sources on activities that lead to air pollution, methods of preventing air pollution, and policies that help reduce air pollution.

Government Websites

Consider starting with government websites. They provide reputable information about air pollution, its causes, and policies designed to reduce air pollution:

Environment and Climate Change Canada - Air Pollution. Contains a wealth of information about air pollution, including scientific and policy-based information. There are a large number of links - make sure to explore the website thoroughly.

United Nations Environment Programme - Air Quality. Check out the resources and links in each sub-page.

Environmental Protection Agency - Clean Air Act Overview. This summary of the Clean Air Act provides background information on air quality issues as well as links to U.S. policy aiming to reduce air pollution.

Books and Articles

Use LibrarySearch to find books and articles. Try identifying specific subtopics that you want to explore before searching in the library.

Example
Don't search for: air pollution AND causes
Search for: "air pollution" AND (transportation OR automobiles) AND emissions

You might also search in the database Environment Complete to get results that are focused on environmental sciences

Policy

The government sources above will help you identify policy directions meant to combat air pollution. You might also search in Canada Commons to find government documents and research reports on the topic. 

• narrow down your topic like you did when using LibrarySearch. Search for topics about air pollution causes and policy approaches separately.
• use the filters on the left to narrow your results to recent publications and relevant organizations (e.g. Environment and Climate Change Canada)

Environmental Indicators

For your final project, you'll need to select an environmental indicator and two/three media articles to discuss. For your discussion, you'll want to incorporate information from other reputable sources.

Before you begin searching for sources, make sure you are familiar with the topic. Read the indicator description in the Environmental Issues textbook linked above, as well as any relevant articles listed on your assignment page (under Resources).

Consider examining Environment and Climate Change Canada's Environmental Indicators webpage. It contains a vast amount of information on a wide range of indicators.

Media Articles

Consider searching in one of the following databases:

• Canadian Newsstream - Full text access to a large number of Canadian newspapers
• CPI.Q (Canadian Periodical Index) - Full text access to hundreds of magazines and news publications.
• CBC Curio and News in Review - Contains broadcast news and documentary-style videos on a wide variety of topics, including many on environmental issues
• Google News or a similar news aggregator

Articles and Books

Once you've identified your media articles, investigate the authors' claims using articles and books

• Use LibrarySearch to identify sources on the topic. Be as specific as possible when selecting your search terms.
• Environment Complete - database of journal articles related to environmental science. Similar to LibrarySearch, your searches should include fairly specific terms describing the topic you are researching. If you don't get enough results, try broadening your search
  • Example specific search: wildfires AND canada AND ("air quality" OR smoke) AND health
  • Example broad search: wildfires AND canada AND smoke

Scholarly Peer Reviewed Journal Articles (example)

• Strengths: often based on research findings or extensive review, written by experts, reviewed by experts (peer reviewed), provides evidence
• Weaknesses: Sometimes written using discipline-specific language or terminology, hard to understand

Encyclopedias (example)

• Strengths: short, contains background information on a topic, normally a great starting point when you are just learning about a topic
• Weaknesses: too short, sometimes Wikipedia has reliability issues

Books (example of scholarly book)

• Strengths: Provides an in-depth investigation into a topic
• Weaknesses: too long, sometimes hard to tell whether it is scholarly

Media Sources (news, online magazine articles)

• Strengths: Good for current information
• Weaknesses: Sometimes biased, sometimes written to entertain, often not written by experts

Websites & Social Media

• Strengths: Highly accessible, includes government info or information from non-governmental organizations like the World Health Organization
• Weaknesses: It is hard to assess credibility and reliability...anyone can post online or create a website

Here are some additional tips for identifying trustworthy websites:

Tip #1 : If you are not familiar with an organization, look them up before using their information in your assignment. 

Do not rely on an organization's About Us page or be distracted by an official sounding name. Wikipedia can be helpful here, as their entry for an organization will usually provide information on its history, political affiliations, sources of funding, and any recent controversies they might have been involved in. Here is an example - Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change (CO2 Science). 

Tip #2: Websites that end in .org are not necessarily trustworthy. 

Any non-profit organization can apply for a .org website, regardless of where they stand on an issue. For example, both the United Nations and the National Rifle Association (NRA) have websites that end in .org. Make sure you look at more than the website address to determine if a site is trustworthy.

Tip #3: Even if the page is from a trusted source, look at when it was last updated to ensure the information is still current.

Organizations like the United Nations or the Government of Canada manage thousands of webpages, and not all of them are updated on a regular basis. If you are writing about a fast changing topic, this may matter.

Tip #4: Take advantage of Google's advanced search features to search more effectively

a) Use allintitle: to find particular words in the title of the website

For example, the following search will only find webpages that have the phrase fast fashion and the word environment in their title

b) You can search within a particular website or type of website for resources using site: in Google 

For example, the following search will find Canadian government resources on sustainable fisheries (all federal government websites end in gc.ca)