Deadline for schools to sign up to the SAMHE project: 31st May

Funding for SAMHE (pronounced ‘sammy’), the School Air Quality Monitoring for Health and Education project, comes to an end on 31st July but this is not the end of the scheme, and there is still time for schools to get involved.

Through the project, schools are provided with a free, high spec air quality monitor that measures carbon dioxide, volatile organic compounds, particulate matter, temperature and relative humidity.

Teachers and pupils can access their data through a specially designed interactive Web App, seeing how air quality changes over the course of hours, days or weeks and months.

The Web App also offers a range of related activities and experiments, creating opportunities for pupils to be scientists and do hands-on experiments with their monitor. Schools can submit contextual data (school buildings characteristics and operation, behavioural patterns etc) and interact with the data gathered in their school and use it in specially created learning activities.

The deadline for new schools to sign up and receive their monitor is 31st May and while the amount of support available will reduce after the funding ends, schools will still be able to use their monitor and the web app for years to come. 

Also, SAMHE will continue to collect data from connected monitors until at least 2030, which will be used by researchers to further the understanding of air quality in schools and make recommendations to improve it. 

While the project has proved an excellent way to get children engaged with air quality, it has also provided important data for the team behind it.

Earlier this month SAMHE published a paper on ventilation rates, based on measurements taken in classrooms. The research went some way to overcoming the two complicating factors: that classrooms can vary significantly in terms of both size and pupil numbers, and the ventilation rate can change throughout the day (e.g. as a result of changing winds or windows being opened or closed).

SAMHE say they hope to receive additional funding in the future to extend and expand the project.