Printable sheet
Polluted city and river scene with smoking chimneys, busy cars and floating trash. An easy printable for eco talks with kids; grab the free PDF.
Printable sheet
Free for personal and educational use
Download PDFPrintFactories with chimneys puffing clouds of smoke, three cars on a bridge, a river with bottles, cans and a plastic bag.
Try a dull gray sky first, then talk about what color it would be on a clean-air day.
Draw the same city on a second sheet with bikes, trees and a sparkling river.
Street trees help clean city air because their leaves trap tiny bits of dust and soot.
A polluted city and river can sneak up on a town little by little. Smoke from factories, exhaust from cars and trucks, and even heating systems send gases and tiny particles into the air, and many of them are too small to see.
On still days, that dirty air can collect over a city as a brownish haze called smog. Breathing it can make people cough, sting their eyes and make asthma worse, which is why weather reports in many places include an air quality alert. Cleaner cars, buses and power sources have helped many cities cut smog a lot over the years.
Pollution does not stay in one place, either. Litter dropped on sidewalks washes into storm drains, then into rivers, and eventually out to the ocean. Bottles, cans and plastic bags can last for a very long time and harm fish and birds along the way.
Kids can be part of the fix by walking or biking short trips, turning off lights, recycling and never littering. Ask them which parts of this picture they would change first and what a healthy version of the city would look like.
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