Clean air for schools
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We are looking for schools to take part in our Clean Air for Schools air monitoring initiative, sponsored by Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone Borough Councils.
We want air quality across the borough to be improved and we need your help to do it.
As well as raising awareness of air pollution and the importance of reducing car journeys to school, participation fits well with the National Curriculum Key Stages 2 to 5, addressing SC2 Science etc and relating to PSHE - Developing a Healthy Lifestyle.
The project can also be completed as an extra-curricular activity with an Environment club, Green Team or Eco-Committee if you have one.
2019-20
Welcome to the second year of our Clean Air for Schools scheme where we are working with schools to continue to raise awareness of air quality and pollution with primary schools across the borough.
We have again teamed up with the Kent Messenger Green Champions Scheme and schools can use their work with us to go towards your green champions awards.
This year our officers are visiting all of our Clean for Schools participants and giving assemblies on air quality with children asking them to help us reduce pollution by coming to school without the car. We are giving each school a banner designed by the winners of last years banner competition that they can put outside the school reminding parents to switch off their engines.
We are also providing our schools with a portable air quality monitor that they can use to compare levels of pollution as children walk to school along different routes and compare against levels when they drive in the same way. The children can also use the devices to show the different levels of pollution outside the school at pick up and drop off time compared with the rest of the day. The devices we are using are called plume flows. It is important to remember that they are not nearly as accurate as the monitors that we use at the roadside but they are really useful comparing pollution levels at different places. We hope to show that children can use different routes to walk to school to reduce levels of air pollution that they are exposed to and that they are exposed to more air pollution sitting in traffic as they drive in.
A similar experiment was done by the BBC using portable equipment.
We would love our schools to send us what they are doing each term so that we can put them together once a term into a newsletter to share.
Teaching packs
We have included some teaching material to help schools with air quality related activities and lessons. The material has been produced and is used with the permission of Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council. There is more material on their website.