Literature v3 · Research topic
Does Living Where the Air Is Dirtier Mean Your Family Pays More for Electricity?
Using free government data, you can test if counties with more air pollution also have families struggling more to pay for power bills.
Why this matters
As climate change intensifies wildfires and heatwaves, the same communities often face compounding burdens: dirty air and high energy costs. Yet, the intersection of environmental exposure and energy poverty remains underexplored at a national scale.
Project scores
Difficulty
This 8-week project is suitable for a motivated high school student with basic statistics and data analysis skills. You'll learn to merge and analyze large datasets from EPA and Census, perform regression analysis, and interpret environmental justice implications. Expect to spend time on data cleaning and visualization. No lab work required.
3 of 5 difficulty
Strengths
- Leverages publicly available data
- Addresses environmental justice
- Quantitative analysis skills
- Replication study adds robustness
Skills built
Zero-cost data
Zero-cost dataResearch gap
As climate change intensifies wildfires and heatwaves, the same communities often face compounding burdens: dirty air and high energy costs. Yet, the intersection of environmental exposure and energy poverty remains underexplored at a national scale.
Curriculum alignment
Unlock the full research scaffold & literature chain
Sign in to open competition fit, the complete milestone roadmap, admissions narrative drafts, and the full research write-up for this topic.