Alexandra Primary School pupils have spent four months monitoring the town’s smoke levels to determine what was happening with smoke inside their homes.
Their findings will be revealed during a public meeting on October 17.
Alexandra regularly fails to meet the national standard for air quality in winter, according to Niwa.
It was for that reason that year 5 and 6 pupils took home a sensor, developed by Niwa, to monitor what was happening with smoke inside their homes.
They used an app to record whether they could see or smell smoke and if it affected their breathing or made them cough. Niwa also placed sensors on power poles around the town to observe smoke outdoors.
The experience was a lot more than a school project, Niwa air quality scientist Dr Ian Longley said.
"The children acted as genuine scientists and we learnt as much as they did from the process.
"We weren’t giving them a finished product, we were giving them things we were trying for the first time."
He said data collected showed a 10-fold difference in air quality inside homes sampled across the town. The scientists are now teasing apart the different causes, but early indications show it is due to a combination of the way smoke is moved around the town on the breeze, differences in leaky and airtight homes and emissions from within the houses, like smoking and cooking.
"Now it’s time to share these results with their parents and the wider community.
"The aim is [to] show Alexandra some new evidence about the complexity of the town’s air quality and stimulate some debate about how the situation can be improved."
A public meeting will be hosted at the Centennial Court Motor Inn, Alexandra, on October 17 at 6pm to present the findings of the project.
It will feature presentations from the children and their teacher about their experience and what they found out.
Scientists will also discuss what the new data means. An exhibition of the children’s and scientists’ work will be open to the public from 3pm.
