Pupil’s winning design to raise air pollution awareness
- Winning entry in schools’ poster competition will be used across Reading to raise awareness of air pollution and ways to prevent it
- Clean Air Living Matter programme has so far delivered air quality education sessions to thousands of pupils in 17 Reading schools
Pupils across Reading have been taking part in a poster competition to help raise awareness of air pollution and what can be done to prevent it.
Schools in the borough were invited to take part in the competition as part of the air quality education programme, Clean Air Living Matters (CALM), being led by the Council.
The panel of judges selected a winning design and the successful Year 6 pupil was presented with her prize of a free family day out at a local attraction.
The Council is working with the University of Reading, engineering consultancy Stantec and social enterprise Design Nature to deliver free air quality education sessions to primary and secondary schools in the borough after securing £327,000 in Government funding last year.
So far, the interactive sessions have been delivered to 11 primary and six secondary schools and a schools’ air quality workshop was held at the University of Reading on Clean Air Day in June.
The poster competition was launched to encourage children to create artwork that helps raise awareness of the prolonged danger to health caused by breathing in indoor and outdoor air pollution and how everyone can help prevent it.
The winning poster (pictured) by 10-year-old Brianna Bambrick, of Manor Primary School, Southcote, shows an unhappy looking globe surrounded by images of different sources of air pollution and a bold headline saying ‘Stop Air Pollution’.
Brianna wins a family day out and her winning design will be used in posters which will be displayed in community spaces around Reading.
Highly commended certificates will also been presented to a Year 4 pupil from St Anne’s Catholic Primary School, in Caversham, and a Year 5 pupil from Manor Primary School.
Cllr John Ennis, Lead Councillor for Climate Strategy and Transport, said:
“It is wonderful to see young children showing their creative flair to highlight such an important subject.
“Improving air quality across Reading is a top priority for the Council and we are addressing this in many ways, including encouraging the use of sustainable transport and making the whole borough a Smoke Control Area from 1 December.
“The Clean Air Living Matters programme has delivered the message of air quality in a fun and engaging way to hundreds of young people in the borough which then permeates to their families and the wider community.
“I am sure Brianna’s brilliant poster will help to spread that message to even more people across Reading.”
Reading schools are still able to sign up to be part of the CALM programme. Sessions can be designed to fit around a school’s curriculum and can include assemblies, activity days and workshops with support from air quality experts as part of term-length project.
Those schools taking part are supplied with equipment which can be used to monitor air quality in and around the school. Pupils are shown how to use the equipment and understand what the data means.
Full details, resources and case studies can be found on the Council’s website at:
Part of the Council’s strategy for improving air quality in the borough is the introduction of a borough-wide Smoke Control Area from I December. This means households can only burn solid fuels on an appliance which is on the Defra approved list, or use manufactured solid fuels bearing the ‘ready to burn’ logo on an open fire or non-Defra exempt appliance.
Find out more at: https://www.reading.gov.uk/climate-and-pollution/smoke-control-areas-smoke-control-areas/.