Air quality monitoring

Improving the quality of the air that children breathe around their school is one of the main benefits of travelling actively.   

This Air Quality Monitoring activity is a great way to engage your Year 7 and 8 students in helping improve air quality around your school. The resources include a range of methods for students to monitor air quality and record their results, including observing soot build-up, lichen and tar-spots.  This resource outlines three scientific investigations you can undertake with your students on the school grounds, and on the streets outside your school, to assess air quality and levels of pollutants.

Citizen science is a fun and interesting way of getting people involved in understanding and tackling environmental issues. By collecting scientific data we can better understand issues such as air pollutio

The key objective is for students to use three different scientific investigations to make an assessment of the air quality around your school.

Students should consider:

•Different locations to investigate

•What locations are like at different times of day

•Number of pollution sources

•If vehicles spend time idling near to their chosen locations

This activity could be aligned with an anti-idling campaign or with an outdoor classroom day to tick off more than one activity at once.