Shipley children create their own air quality sensors

Thursday, 20 June 2019 16:00

Year 6 school children in Shipley are building their own air quality monitors as part of an innovative European project on Clean Air Day (20 June).

Bradford Council, University of Bradford and Well Bradford are working with SCORE and Shipley Church of England School to create the technology that will show the temperature and levels of small and large particulate. Particulate matter is the mix of particles in the atmosphere caused by dust, pollen, pollution and other materials and can affect people’s health if levels are too high.

The University will run a workshop where pupils will learn about the science behind air quality and the importance of everyone playing their part in minimising their impact on the environment. They will then work in groups of six to build their own Luftdaten monitors, purchased by Well Bradford, before trying to connect to the council’s innovative LoRaWAN network for sending readings to a cloud server.

Bradford Council said that although other cities are working with communities to build and use these sensors, Bradford will be the first to bring the project into a school in this way.

Dhaval Thakker, Senior lecturer in Computer Science at Bradford University is leading the project at the school. He said: “This is a great project for the kids to be involved in. It’s a real life science project that will teach them valuable knowledge in a practical and engaging way.

“It’s not often we can offer a project where, by the end of the day, we will be able to get these children delivering results which, over time, may help Bradford Council monitor the air quality around the school.”

“That best practice can then be shared amongst the SCORE partner cities – and it will be partly down to the work the children will have done.”

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