CAPS Project

The Community Air Pollution Sensors (CAPS) Project provides a unique opportunity for school pupils to play an active role in measuring air quality and engaging with the results. 

In Partnership with PPL PWR!

They are a collective whose aim is to promote sustainable technologies and innovations, to create small, lightweight, portable, and low-cost air quality sensors. The CAPS Project was created to introduce these sensors into schools and allow pupils to play an active part in tracking their local air quality, as well as incorporate the findings into their education. 

Why?

The aim of the CAPS Project is to engage students with the topic of air quality and their local community. We want to join forces so we can effect greater change and we think it’s important we have a stake in our own neighbourhoods. Students will be taking a leading stance on air quality, becoming citizen scientists, empowering them to be part of the solution by giving them the necessary tools to measure change. 

How?

Thanks to Google, we acquired funding to run a pilot project at two secondary schools in Camden. The project consisted of three 2-hour workshop-style sessions at each school that were as follows:  

 

  • What is air pollution and how do we tackle it collectively? 
  • Assembly of the Air Pollution Sensor (APS)
  • Coding for data collection 
Following the workshops, students have been given the responsibility to propel the project forward, taking control of how their data will be used.  

Regent High School 

 

Students were also handpicked by teachers based on their demonstrated interest in related topics and suitability. There were 30 participants in total and students worked in pairs to create their APS. Within this group, there was a mixture of Year 9 and 10 students, 18 of which were male and 12 female. Workshops were integrated into the school day. The school has chosen to integrate the sensors, and the collected data, into their STEAM curriculum.  

 

UCS Senior School 

 

The students were assigned to the programme by their teachers. They were chosen based upon the students’ demonstrated interest in coding, air pollution and the environment as well as an understanding that the workshop would be part of the term curriculum. There were 16 participants in total and each student created their own APS. Within this group, there was a mixture of Year 9 and 10 students, 14 of which were male and 2 female. Workshops were delivered after school. 

 

When?

This project took a year of development, and then the workshops were delivered in the Spring term of 2022. After the three sessions, we held a Champions Event at Google HQ where we ran mini-workshops with the students that had been part of the project, as well as local businesses, the council, and some residents. The idea was to celebrate the success of the project while discussing ideas on how we can tackle air pollution as a community.  

 

We are now developing this into a self-sustainable project whereby schools can sign up to the CAPS project and receive the training and equipment needed to deliver these sessions themselves.  

Get involved!

We are building a waiting list of schools interested in getting involved if we can acquire more funding. Want to be added? Get in touch here. 

 

Are you a business that wants to support this project? With more funding, we will be able to scale up and reach more schools, so if you would like to support please get in touch here.