The Lancaster Group of the Sierra Club invites the public to a free presentation about air pollution trends in Lancaster County. The event will take place at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, May 17, in the Stone Independent School, 480 New Holland Ave., Lancaster.

The speaker will be Jessica J. Kelly, associate professor of environmental geography and chair of the Geography Department at Millersville University. During her slideshow presentation, titled "A Persistent Hotspot Growing Hotter: Air Pollution Trends in Lancaster County, PA," Kelly will discuss Lancaster County's status as an air pollution hotspot, the factors contributing to worsening conditions, and the impact on human activity. She also will review regulatory and community-based strategies to mitigate the harmful effects of air pollution.

In addition to Kelly's talk, the Sierra Club - Lancaster Group's Purple Air Monitoring Initiative will be discussed, with the focus on recruiting volunteers. Purple Air is a crowdsourcing-based air monitoring system that is used to collect hyper-local air quality data to share with the public.

A remote option for the presentation also will be available via Zoom. For more details, visit http://www.lancastersierraclub.org or email SierraClubEvent@gmail.com.