Waterford Students join the Campaign for Clean Air

Primary school students from Educate Together Tramore and St. Stephen's De La Salle in Waterford City recently took part in a clean air campaign with the support of Waterford City and County Council Climate Action Team.

The aim of the project was to explore the issue of air quality through the medium of art, with funding from Creative Ireland.

The students in both schools have been exploring what it means to have clean air in their own community and finding out about local causes of pollution. The students collaborated with local artist Darty the Creator, who captured their ideas and presented them back to the schools in the form of banners.

These banners are on display at the two schools where parents and students can see the importance of clean air to the whole community.

The students’ own ideas on the quality of their air were backed up by air quality monitors installed outside their schools. These monitors, which sample the air every 10 minutes, show how the air quality outside the schools change over the course of the day.

Commenting on the results of the monitoring, Gráinne Kennedy, Climate Action Coordinator at Waterford City and County Council said,

“The students were able to identify spikes in pollution levels at both school drop-off and pick-up times, resulting from traffic on the road outside.

“In particular, the practice of leaving the engine running, or idling, was identified by the children as contributing to poor air quality.”

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The monitors measure Fine Particulate Matter - PM2.5 – which comes mainly from sources like solid fuel burning and exhaust emissions. 

According to the Centre for Research into Atmospheric Chemistry/ERI at UCC, PM2.5 is ‘the most harmful air pollutant that is associated with increases in mortality and morbidity, adverse birth outcomes and childhood respiratory disease.’

At the end of the campaign, the students sent out a very clear message to parents and others who might leave the engine running outside the school. “No idling” was the chant from students in Tramore as they held a large cutout exhaust cloud representing the pollution from cars.

Meanwhile St. Stephens school sent out a message to all parents highlighting the students concerns and asking them to avoid idling.

Commenting on the campaign, Mícheál Ó Cadhla, Community Climate Action Officer, Waterford City and County Council said,

“The children who took part in this project were not content to just find out about pollution but wanted to take action to reduce it. It is up to all of us, whether dropping kids to school or at any other time, to avoid idling and switch off our engines.”

Meg Halley, Tramore Educate Together teacher and Green Schools Coordinator commended the students saying,

“The children have taken real ownership of it and want to improve the air quality in their local area.”