Kaikorai Valley College has become the first school in Dunedin to contribute real-time air quality data to a public community network run by Aroha Kaikorai Valley with a solar-powered monitor that captures live air pollution data.
The monitor gives Kaikorai Valley residents and students access to information normally gathered only by councils and commercial stations.
It has been installed in the school’s urban farm — a hands-on learning space where students grow food, care for animals and study environmental systems.
The data from it will be published openly online for the wider community to access.
Former Kaikorai Valley student and Aroha Kaikorai Valley air quality project lead Joshua Smith said the school’s urban farm was a great place for the monitor.
It made a good talking point for the students and would pique their interests to engage with a community initiative for their environment.
Eleven other monitors had been installed around the city and offered good comparison for air quality measures.
Valleys are more prone to trapping pollutants because their geography prevents dispersal.
Kaikorai Valley Urban Farm teacher-in-charge Simon McMillan said having the monitor at the school was a "win-win".
"It was the sort of thing we embrace here at the urban farm about applied learning in different contexts and here we have something in science, mathematics as well as social studies and human health."
He thought it was marvellous that an alumnus of the school had contributed to its future.
