CleanAir@School – engaging with students to improve air quality

4sfera Innova – 17th July 2023

Cleanair@school is one of the activities proposed within the GreenSCENT project. This activity is focused on improving the air quality around schools, providing schools with both the necessary tools to measure air quality and the didactic material to analyse problems related to air pollution and promote a healthier school environment.

Pollution levels are measured by passive tube dosimeters placed at strategic points around the school. The duration of sampling can be between 2 and 4 weeks, after which the tubes are collected and sent to the laboratory for analysis.

Any school can participate in this activity and each school is free to organise itself as it wishes. It is an activity mainly aimed at 5th and 6th grade of primary school, but other age groups can be involved.

The aim of the activity is to involve citizens in carrying out air quality measurements around schools, but also in the design of campaigns and analysis of the results obtained, so that students, teachers and parents become aware of environmental problems and how they are conditioned by our habits, mainly mobility, and thus try to make a change in them motivated by the results of this study.

CleanAir@School aims to create healthier school environments and promote environmental awareness among the younger generation. We are excited to be part of the GreenSCENT project, which, through the pillars of the EU Green Deal, aims to improve the well-being and health of citizens and future generations. 

Air pollution

Air pollution is the presence of pollutants in the air in a concentration that interferes with human health or well-being, or produces other harmful environmental effects.

This pollution can be of natural origin (volcanic eruptions, African dust intrusions…) or mostly of anthropogenic origin, as a consequence of human activity (combustion and industrial processes, transport, use of solvents…). 

More information  about air pollution can be found in our colleagues article “Clean air for a better life”.

Youth Assemblies workshops

During the 4th Youth Assemblies workshop in May, we simulated the CleanAir@School activity. This online exercise will be carried out live in Barcelona’s YA meeting in September 2023.

Students in the 4th YA workshop assisted in improving the activity further taking into account their opinion on the development of a new App and web interface. Some highlights in our colleagues article “Bringing the real world into the classroom”.

What’s next…

In the coming months the team will be organising the piloting of CleanAir@School in different schools across Spain, Greece, Serbia, Italy… Watch our space!!!