how does air pressure affect water boiling/ freezing points
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In a perfect vacuum, air pressure of 0, the water molecules on the surface are only being held down by their weight and attraction to the other water molecules because there’s no air sitting on top of it like a lid.
So, when you heat the water, and the molecules begin to get excited and move around more, those molecules on the surface are free to just jump out of the container like popcorn popping.
Compare that with really high air pressure (normal air pressure at sea level is about 14.7 psi) where there is a blanket of air molecules pushing down on the surface of the water. It takes more heat to create more kinetic energy to enable those surface molecules to jump out past that layer of air sitting on them.
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