National project · Air quality

AmIAire

Citizen science and sport in the classroom to monitor air quality.

About the project

In most European cities, air pollution levels exceed the threshold for protecting human health. Children are especially vulnerable, so it is important to keep their exposure as low as possible.

AmIAire is a citizen science and action research project on air quality monitoring.

Students will take part in the project to monitor air quality first-hand in urban and rural areas. Scientists and public authorities will use the data collected to improve models of how particulate matter disperses and settles, or to create new mobility or urban planning policies.

For one week, pupils will place outdoors a piece of white card coated with a layer of Vaseline, which the airborne particles will stick to.

The youngest pupils will look, with the naked eye or with magnifying glasses, at how ‘dirty’ the card is after seven days outside.

Secondary school students will use their mobile phones and software developed by the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Deusto to automatically detect pollution levels from images of the paper sensors. The images will be geolocated to create a virtual map.

Project objectives

– Encourage public participation in science and technology.

– Promote changes in attitudes and behaviour on issues related to science and technology.

– Raise children’s and teenagers’ awareness and knowledge of the environmental impact of our everyday actions.

– Create an open database for research teams working on sustainability and sensors, complementing the data collected by fixed air monitoring stations.

– Help public authorities and regional departments make better-informed decisions on mobility and the urban and rural environment.

The role of Ibercivis

Fundación Ibercivis is responsible for science communication and for raising the project’s profile to promote citizen science. All information and teaching materials produced in the project will be written in easy-to-read format, a method that makes information accessible to people with reading comprehension difficulties.