Primary Home
This educational package is aimed at the primary 5-7 age group and intends not only to teach pupils about air quality and the impact it can have on their lives and how they can influence it, but also aims to ensure this message is fed back into the pupil’s home environment, thus reaching the wider population. The module fulfils the people, places and the environment section of the social studies element of the Curriculum for Excellence for second level pupils. It can also be used to demonstrate compliance with the requirements of the eco-schools award scheme. The aim of the package is to not only achieve a greater awareness of local air quality and how it affects us, but also to highlight how our actions in our daily lives can have an impact on the air that we breathe.
Monitoring the air quality around your school alongside other fieldwork forms a key part of the package. Details on how to request the free loan of an air sensor from SEPA can be found below. Please note that the sensor should be setup a week before the Monitoring & Measurements lesson to provide enough data for the pupils to assess.
Request an Air Sensor for your School
Sections:
- History - This section allows the pupils find out what air pollution was like in the past and what measures have been put in place to overcome this. The pupils have the opportunity to complete an activity related to the history of air pollution.
- Major Pollutants - This section focuses on what the major pollutants are, a description of each pollutant is also included. The information given will help the pupils to complete activities relating to the major pollutants.
- Monitoring & Measurements - This aspect of the website allows the pupils to visit the Scottish Air Quality website. They will be able to explore where local authorities have air quality monitoring sites and be able to look at the data the councils have collected over the years. This section also allows pupils to actually gather air quality data around their school environment.
- Air Quality Around the World - The pupils can explore how the air quality in Scotland and the UK compares with other cities in the world. The follow up activity allows the pupils to examine other countries air quality.
- Solutions - The focus of this section is for the pupils to now consider what they can do to improve the air quality in their area and how to broadcast this message to the wider community.
A Guide for Teachers and external links can be found in the Resources page (A link is at the bottom of every page). Also there are Homework/Extension Sheets for each of the topics covered in this section of the website. Links to these can be found in each section and where needed.
