This spring, to mark Living Streets’ National Walk to School Week, Cambridge City Council partnered with Arbury Primary School on a project investigating air quality along popular school routes.
The initiative was designed to help children better understand their environment while also encouraging walking and cycling.
Air pollution’s effects on children is particularly concerning as their bodies are smaller and they breathe more rapidly, they inhale a greater volume of pollutants. Despite these risks, children often have little control over their exposure, with decisions about travel and environment being made by adults. Combined with increasingly sedentary lifestyles, these factors add to potential health challenges.
To explore alternatives, the pupils began by mapping how they typically travel to school. With guidance from teachers and a council representative, they looked at possible quieter routes away from traffic-heavy roads.
Air quality experts from Ricardo then tested these mapped routes during school pick-up and drop-off times, during which a consultant walked the routes that were previously mapped out while carrying an air pollution sensor.
While it was expected that main roads would have the highest levels of pollution, the findings revealed otherwise: one quiet street showed unexpectedly high readings, which turned out to be due to nearby construction activity.
The dark blue colours on the map below indicate areas with low pollution, while red shows areas with high pollution.
These results demonstrated to the children that avoiding main roads alone is not always enough to reduce exposure. Other factors such as idling vehicles, narrow streets and temporary works can also raise pollution levels.
By participating in the project, children gained insights into how their environment impacts their health, and how making informed choices today can help protect them in the future.
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