Dear Parents/Guardians of London
Are you concerned about air pollution levels in schools?
We hope this finds you well. Our names are Maria Tayiba and Rachel Cole, students at the Bartlett UCL. We would like to introduce you to our new platform 'Breathing Trouble', aspiring to raise awareness of air pollution in schools and student wellbeing.
Our interactive map software visualises the average annual air pollutant concentration (NO2 and PM2.5) associated with each school in London alongside a range of attainment, health and funding variables, providing potential insights into wellbeing of school children. Users can search for a London school to view the corresponding data gathered from our database. By combining pollution data with academic and health variables, we hope to inspire institutions to take proactive steps towards clean air and healthier learning environments. We strongly believe everyone should have access to this information, hence it is imperative that we raise awareness of our platform.
We have prepared a short video to introduce our platform:
Breathing Trouble key features:
1.Variable representation
A wide range of variables are visualised through our data dashboard alongside WHO pollutant guidelines, to convey insights into wellbeing. This includes attainment data for KS2, KS4 and KS5 for both disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged students, further to absence, illness and medical appointment rates. We also display funding variables including income and energy costs, which may be associated with greater ventilation requirements for indoor air quality standards with greater pollution. Projections of the school's NO2 and PM2.5 concentration are also included to 2030.
2.Analysis
Our platform enables users to directly view comparisons of a selected school's pollutant and our variable data relative to the local London borough and the entirety of London, additionally to the WHO guidelines. We believe this could be an extremely powerful tool, allowing policy makers to directly identify schools with poorer variable data to improve student wellbeing.
You can view our platform with interactive map alongside further information relating to our project here: https://breathingtrouble.co.uk
Thank you for your time, and we look forward to any insights or feedback you may have.
Kind regards
Maria Tayiba and Rachel Cole