CleanAir@School
The CleanAir @ School project is a Citizen Science and environmental education initiative of the EPA Network (the network of European environmental agencies), coordinated by the EEA (European Environment Agency).
The coordinator of the project for Italy is ISPRA (Higher Institute for Environmental Protection and Research), which participates together with the SNPA (National System for Environmental Protection) agencies participating in the initiative.
The project also collaborates with ANCI (National Association of Italian Municipalities), with which ISPRA has activated a memorandum of understanding for the development of activities aimed at achieving a better quality of the urban environment. The initiative is also supported by the Ministry of the Environment, which granted the patronage.
The project was created with the aim of involving schools in numerous European cities in the process of raising awareness of one of the most important environmental issues for citizens' health, air quality.
Specifically, the project involves environmental education and citizen science activities, through the monitoring of nitrogen dioxide, one of the main pollutants in urban areas, largely determined by motor vehicle traffic.
The project, activated in the school year 2019-2020, involves 15 agencies of the SNPA (ARPA Basilicata, ARPA Campania, ARPAE Emilia Romagna, ARPA Friuli Venezia Giulia, ARPA Lazio, ARPA Liguria, ARPA Lombardia, ARPA Marche, ARPA Piemonte, ARPA Puglia , ARPA Sicilia, ARPA Toscana, ARPA Umbria, ARPA Valle d'Aosta, ARPA Veneto) and 69 schools, located in 30 Italian municipalities.
In the school year 2019-2020 the nitrogen dioxide monitoring campaign was carried out in the schools participating in the initiative, using passive samplers made available by the company AQUARIA s.r.l., with a free transfer contract.
The results of the monitoring will be published on a platform created by the European Environment Agency.
The project continues with the second phase of environmental dissemination and dissemination of results, aimed at promoting actions in the area to support the schools involved in the initiative in making it possible to change their behavior towards more sustainable lifestyles, especially in terms of mobility.
Due to the COVID emergency, the project has been remodeled, with respect to its original formulation, and some of the planned activities will be carried out in the school year 2020-2021, in a manner compatible with the government / regional directives issued for the containment of the pandemic
Official sites of the project
- https://www.snpambiente.it/progetti/cleanairschool/
- https://www.eea.europa.eu/themes/air/urban-air-quality/cleanair-at-school
Contacts
- Barbara Bellomo barbara.bellomo@isprambiente.it (coordinamento del progetto)
- Sandra Moscone sandra.moscone@isprambiente.it (comunicazione del progetto)