Category: Cities and local authorities

Surrey Air Quality for Schools Programme

Aether, in partnership with London Sustainability Exchange (LSx), Surrey Air Alliance and Surrey County Council, has helped to create and implement a Cleaner Air for Schools Programme in Surrey.

Aether, in partnership with London Sustainability Exchange (LSx), Surrey Air Alliance and Surrey County Council, has helped to create and implement a Cleaner Air for Schools Programme in Surrey. The programme aims to teach children about local air quality issues and what they can do to help reduce air pollution at their school through a series of workshops and learning resources. Aether was responsible for creating and adapting the learning resources, including a data visualisation which enables school children to learn about air quality.

The challenge

There are 26 Air Quality Management Areas (AQMA) in Surrey. These relate to levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) which are over legal limits. There are a number of schools which fall either in or within 2 km of these AQMAs and may therefore be exposed to air pollution.

The solution

Through this DEFRA funded project, LSx and Aether have created and implemented a Cleaner Air for Schools Programme in Surrey which aims to educate children of all ages on the causes and impacts of air pollution and ways in which it can be reduced. The programme included a series of workshops, diffusion tube surveys at each selected school and the creation of learning resources including teaching notes and an interactive data visualisation. The programme conducted diffusion tube surveys and workshops in 30 schools in Surrey.

The result

Aether’s online, interactive data visualisation can be seen here. The visualisation allows children to explore information and data on air quality in a fun and engaging way. It helps them to learn about air pollution, how it can be monitored, levels of air pollution at their school (from diffusion tube surveys) and actions they can take to reduce air pollution.

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Kathryn Hampshire

Senior Consultant

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Javier Cano Martín, Professional Unit for Climate Change and Environmental Services, CONAF (National Forestry Corporation), Chile

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Umhverfisstofnun, Environment Agency of Iceland

“The support provided by Aether for this project was especially remarkable considering the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tools and methods used in order to engage local stakeholders really added value to the capacity building of the national team.”

Shanna Emmanuel, Saint Lucia BUR Project Coordinator

“Engaging Aether to support us to develop the first GHG Inventory System and first Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) for the United Republic of Tanzania has been a rewarding experience due to their high level of professionalism, creativity, timeliness and value for money. We will definitely consider Aether in our future initiatives.”

Abbas Kitogo, Programme Specialist Energy and Climate Change, UNDP Tanzania

“Chris was excellent to work with and always very pro active in making suggestions, taking work forward and applying his considerable technical knowledge in effective ways.”

Robert Vaughan, Defra Air Quality Team

“Saint Lucia embraces the professional approach with which this project was undertaken by Aether, particularly their ability to develop mentorship relations with local government experts. This provides a basis for ensuring that the pool of local experts remain engaged and recognized over successive processes.”

Annette Rattigan-Leo, Chief Sustainable Development and Environment Officer

“Professional team and very collaborative communication. Effective result in terms of suggestions for improvement in the quality of the inventory and proposals on how to streamline specific topics.”

Italian Institute for Environmental Protection and Research

“It has been a pleasure to work with Chris Dore and Richard Claxton from Aether: they did their job in a very professional and timely manner. The workshop was organized and carried out in a cooperative spirit; the information provided to the workshop participants was complete and clear.”

Alina Novikova, UN/ECE Secretariat

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Sefton Council - for the Merseyside Atmospheric Emissions Inventory

“If we have a need for any more reports in the future Aether will be first on my list.”

Alan Hardy, Kyson Design

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