SALT LAKE CITY -- A lesson in air quality inspired a group of elementary students to write a song about Utah's inversions.
Sharon Moore's students asked why they couldn't play outside after two days of indoor recess. Their teacher's answer sparked another question: what's an inversion? The topic was so fascinating, the students came up with the song, "The Frightful Inversion" which already has more than 1,000 hits on youtube.
Some of the lyrics say, "The weather outside is frightful and clean air would be delightful...if we don't start to clean our air then we'll start to see people get sick."
James, one of Moore's students said, "The pollution harms people."
Part of the curriculum was coming up with a solution. "They came up with great ideas," said Moore.
"I felt like the giant fan idea and also the make a hole in the mountain one," said Marcus.
"The other solution, was we could find a way to evaporate water and create clouds to basically generate a storm to clear it out," said Barrett.
The 4th grade Whittier Elementary School students admit their ideas are "outside the box" but Barrett is hoping Governor Gary Herbert keeps an open mind. "I think the Governor and they should be taking it into consideration, because even though they are outside the box they can still like we came up with the windmill idea with the giant fans." It's an idea Barrett thinks can be the beginning of an even more brilliant idea.
If anything these kids have learned a valuable lesson. "I learned that an inversion was not fog. I learned that it was actually pollution. I thought how is there anybody still alive?" said Caleb.
Colin is hoping it's a lesson Utah's government is willing to enroll in too. "Take these ideas into consideration or else I might die because I have asthma."
"I am so proud of them because they worked really hard on this," said Moore.
Live performance at FOX 13 Studio:
Original version on YouTube:
