A friendly page for Deer Park kids, families, and classrooms. Find out what today’s air is doing, how an oil refinery actually works, what to do if you ever hear “shelter in place,” and try a quick quiz. There’s a printable activity sheet at the bottom.
A simple stoplight tells you if it’s a good day to play outside.
What’s AQI? The Air Quality Index is a number that tells you how clean or dirty the air is outside. Lower is better. The EPA measures tiny bits of stuff floating in the air — like dust, smoke, and gases — and turns it into one easy number from 0 to 500.
When the number is low, the air is clean and you can play outside as long as you want. When the number gets higher, kids, older folks, and people with asthma should slow down or stay indoors.
Scroll through the story. The picture changes as you read.
Crude oil comes out of the ground in places like Texas and Mexico. Big ships and underground pipes bring it to Deer Park’s docks along the Houston Ship Channel. By itself, crude oil isn’t very useful — it’s sticky, smelly, and full of different things mixed together.
Inside a tall metal tower, the oil is heated to about 700°F. That’s seven times hotter than a really hot summer day! The heat turns the oil into a gas. As the gas rises and cools, different parts of it turn back into liquid at different heights.
The light stuff floats to the top — that becomes propane and gasoline. The middle becomes jet fuel and diesel. The heavy stuff at the bottom becomes things like asphalt for roads. The same crude oil also makes plastic, crayons, and even some medicines.
From Deer Park, refined fuel travels to gas stations, airports, factories, and homes all over Texas and beyond. About one-third of all the gasoline in the United States is made along the Texas Gulf Coast.
Operators watch the controls. Engineers design the equipment. Safety technicians check the air and the pipes. Maintenance crews fix things. Lots of Deer Park families have someone who works at one of the plants — and the city makes rules to keep everyone safe.
Sometimes the city asks everyone to shelter in place — that means stay inside until the all-clear. Here’s your hero checklist. Tap each step to mark it done.
Grown-ups call it “sheltering in place.” You can call it Safety Hero Mode.
No score keeping, no signing in. Just for fun. Earn your Deer Park Safety Star at the end!
For classrooms, library tables, and rainy-day kitchen tables. Press print below — the rest of the page disappears and just this sheet prints.
Use crayons, colored pencils, or markers. Look for the air monitor!
Find these 8 words. They go across → or down ↓.