At an online webinar yesterday four schools from Ireland presented their results from part of their PULCHRA projects which involved measuring the air quality outside their schools.
At the start of the school year the schools explored PULCHRA City Challenge Five: Moving around the City – Green Transport and Mobility Patterns that Support Community Development. Part of this challenge showed the issue of air pollution in urban areas due to traffic. Some schools did traffic counts to see how much traffic passed their school. Then a stakeholder that joined the project in Ireland, GLOBE, presented an opportunity for the schools to use devices to measure the traffic pollutant, NO2 outside their schools.
The schools set up the measuring tubes in locations outside their schools. After a few weeks they collected the tubes and posted them to a lab who were able to read the levels of NO2 from the tubes and these results were sent back to the schools.
The schools have since also worked with other stakeholders to further explore air quality around their school, ways to look at solutions to the issues, and what they can do with the results.
Yesterday’s event was an opportunity for the student’s to present their projects to all the stakeholders/experts and other schools involved in PULCHRA in Ireland. It also created a live forum for the schools to get ideas for solutions and next steps for their projects from the various experts/stakeholders involved.
Finally, how the school’s can best further communicate their project was explored. Which made a fitting end to what was a fascinating and productive event for all involved!
