Last September, our college, in cooperation with Penn State’s Institutes of the Environment, opened a unique Air Quality Learning and Demonstration Center on a hillside in a scenic area near the middle of the University’s Arboretum.
The man who has been the driving force behind the facility, plant pathologist John Skelly, stops short of saying it is the only one of its kind in the country and maybe the world. But he thinks so.

“We don’t know of any others,” he says proudly, gesturing to the small building housing sensitive electronic equipment that gives continuous readouts on a dozen air quality parameters, a “teaching” pavilion complete with Internet connections where classes can be held, a garden where ozone-sensitive and ozone-tolerant plants grow in neat rows, and a compact car-sized topless plastic cylinder where plants bathe in a constant flow of charcoal-filtered, nearly ozone-free air. Growing in the open air next to the cylinder are much less healthy specimens of the same plant varieties, demonstrating how much pollutants stunt growth and promote plant disease.

The college’s Air Quality Learning and Demonstration Center sits atop a hill in what will be the Penn State Arboretum, where the top of nearby Beaver Stadium can just be seen over the trees. The facility is a unique blend of the State College Air Quality Monitoring Station, jointly operated by Penn State and the state Department of Environmental Protection, and an air pollution teaching and research center where the amount of ozone in the air, and its impact on plants, is constantly monitored.

In a sign of the times, Skelly points out, the information generated by the air-quality monitoring equipment soon will show up in real time on the center’s Web site, and pictures of the plants growing in the cylinder, under the watchful eye of a Web camera, also will be available on the Internet.

“It’s kind of like watching paint dry,” Skelly admits, “but it will be an important teaching tool and documentation of the effect ozone is having on plants. There are periods when the ozone content in our air is very high, and people with health problems will be able to consult our Web site and make decisions about going out for strenuous activities.

“By locating the State College Air Quality Monitoring Station, jointly operated by Penn State and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, at this site with educational amenities around it, we can offer programs about air pollution’s effects on agricultural crops, forest trees, and native plants in Pennsylvania and the Northeast,” says Skelly.

Several visitor-friendly research techniques are demonstrated within the confines of the center, which has been supported by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Pennsylvania electric utility companies, private companies, and individual donors.

Although many are aware that air pollution can cause respiratory problems, few are familiar with its harmful effects on the environment, Skelly notes. When exposed to high concentrations of pollutants, some plants, including agricultural crops, have a shorter growing season and succumb more easily to drought, insects, and diseases. “Animals and insects that depend on ozone-sensitive plants for their food supply also suffer when that food source is damaged or depleted,” Skelly says. “The monarch butterfly, for example, relies heavily on common milkweed, and that plant is very sensitive to ozone.”

The need to measure the impact of excess ozone is one of the reasons why the Department of Plant Pathology and support personnel from the Penn State Institutes of the Environment maintain five other air-quality monitoring stations scattered around northcentral Pennsylvania, in addition to the one at the Arboretum. With funding from DEP, these stations provide information essential to understanding how air pollutants affect human health, agricultural crops, forests, and plant communities.

“The location of this monitoring station within the Arboretum is especially advantageous,” Skelly says, “because the Arboretum will provide an ideal venue for outreach activities related to this research.” Skelly, who retired this summer, has turned the center's reins over to Dennis Decoteau, professor of horticulture and plant ecosystem health.

—Jeff Mulhollem