A CASH injection from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) will see a range of educational initiatives launch within schools to help children better understand air quality and how they can reduce their exposure to air pollution and tackle it too, making our streets safer, greener and healthier.

The funding, which totals £279,489, comes from the Air Quality Grant, which helps councils develop and implement measures to benefit schools businesses and communities and reduce the impact of dirty air on people’s health.

The funding will see schools in areas that are experiencing a higher level of air pollution benefit from new initiatives and educational projects to help children, young people their teachers and parents/carers better understand air quality. It is hoped that these initiatives will lead to direct behaviour change, encouraging the next generation to be more astute to issues around air pollution and ways it can be tackled.

As part of the education in schools, an innovative and ground-breaking project will travel round primary schools. The ‘Abbie Ayre and the Shed of Science’ Performance in Education (PiE) educational programme, will highlight the causes and effects of poor air quality through a special live performance. It will also offer pupils practical advice and information on how, by improving air quality, they can make a positive impact on both their local environment and on their health. 

School children will also learn practical skills and monitor air pollution themselves as part of another initiative due to launch.

Using a combination of diffusion tubes and backpack mounted air quality sensors, which school children and teachers will have the opportunity to wear, air pollutant concentrations local to each school and along key routes will be able to be identified and mapped.

Monitoring will be undertaken by children or staff, using the learning from their interactive Abbie Ayre session to monitor their own levels of air pollutants on their journeys to and from school.

In addition to the activity within schools, the funding will also see an updated air quality website for Essex https://essexair.org.uk , focusing initially on schools pages. This will provide them with air quality data and advice in an innovative and easy to understand way.

Cllr Peter Schwier, Essex County Council’s Climate Czar Said: “This funding is great news for our schools and residents. It is so important that we start educating children on environmental issues at a young age and this funding will help us do this in an engaging and interactive way. This project is a great example of how we can work with residents to achieve our goal of making Essex a clean-air county.”

Cllr Tony Ball, Cabinet Member for Education Excellence, Lifelong Learning and Employability said: “It is so important for our future generations to learn early on how they can help improve their surroundings. Giving them both education within schools and the opportunity to take part in practical learning, such as wearing the monitoring back packs, will really help them easily understand the issues and hopefully inspire them and their families to make positive changes too.”