In these last months of 2022, the activity of the Barcelona I-CHANGE Living Lab has been focused on the calibration of the Smart Citizen Kit (SOCKs) that will be installed in various schools in Barcelona and the development of the pilot citizen science campaign on air quality. These kits, that will be installed in the eight I-CHANGE Living Labs, measure some variables related with air quality (particulate matter of different sizes, NO2, CO2,…). The pilot campaign has been designed with Kostka school thanks to the involvement of the school itself in all the projects related to sustainability, and the fact that they have different buildings in which to carry out the measurements.
The first sensor has been placed on the roof of a building closest to Park Güell, in a very quiet area of narrow streets with very few cars and in contact with a large green area. The second one has been placed in the roof of a building located near a main street with a lot of trafficwhile and right along a very transited road where several cars and buses drive the tourists to Park Güell. The experiment aims to monitor the air quality data of both sensors along the different school terms and compare if we observe differences between the two different locations (pacified and non-pacified) despite they are relatively close. The students will learn about how to collect and manage the data and they will work with it through interdisciplinary projects of mathematics, technology and natural sciences.
The I-CHANGE citizen science campaign will be inserted in a campaign that the Barcelona City Council itself is developing about the transport habits of the population on the way to school. This school has already participated very actively in the first workshop of the Barcelona I-CHANGE Living Lab developed past July, and will lead the co-design, with the Meteorology Group of UB and other stakeholders, of didactic material that helps students to improve their knowledge about climate change, air quality and extremes of temperature and precipitation, and in turn increases their awareness and ability to acquire habits in line with the European Green Deal. These materials will be designed to be implemented at different school levels, middle school students and high school ones, and will be also used in the other schools that participate in the Barcelona I-CHANGE Living Lab.
The main picture shows Laura Ceraldi, the teacher who leads the project in the Kostka school, with Laura Esbrí and Erika Pardo, from the I-CHANGE team of the University of Barcelona.
