Everything Teachers Need to Know About Mercury

How dangerous is the mercury in thermostats, compact fluorescent light bulbs, thermometers and other places around schools?

Teachers can find out, with an educational toolkit from the Environmental Protection Agency.

"Mercury: An Educator's Toolkit" is a free, three-disk set of material including student activities, educational videos and other information that teachers can incorporate into their lesson plans. The curriculum material may be used to help students learn about health and environmental concerns associated with mercury, where mercury may exist in their schools and homes, and ways to help school officials and family members address mercury-related hazards.

To see the toolkit, click here.

Mercury is a potent toxic metal that attacks the brain, interrupting normal development, lowering IQ, causing learning disabilities and other developmental problems. People are most often exposed from eating contaminated fish, and fish are contaminated when smokestack pollution rains down and accumulates in the mud of lakes, reservoirs and rivers. Eight percent of American women of childbearing age have mercury in their blood at levels that threaten their children, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study.

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