Acid Thunder: Acid Rain and Ancient Mesoamerica
THE SOCIAL STUDIES uch of Mesoamerica’s rich cultural heritage is slowly eroding because of acid rain. Just as water dissolves an Alka-Seltzer tablet, acid rain erodes the limestone surfaces of Mexican archaeological sites at a rate of about one-half millimeter per century (Bravo et al. 2003). A half-millimeter may not seem like much, but at this pace, a few centuries of acid rain is sufficient to destroy paintings, frescoes, and other fine detail in ancient art and architecture (see figure 1). The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee is collaborating with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) to study acid rain at Mexico’s archaeological sites. One product of this research is an interdisciplinary educational supplement designed for middleand high-school classrooms, called Acid Thunder: Saving El Tajín from Acid Rain. The supplement is in the form of a Webquest, an inquiry-oriented exercise focusing on analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, for which the Internet is the primary information source (Dodge 1995). The Webquest requires no specialized computer hardware or software, only an Internet connection and a Web browser.