Become a SAMHE Pioneer School!
Become a SAMHE Pioneer School!
SAMHE (Schools’ Air quality Monitoring for Health and Education, pronounced ‘Sammy’) is an exciting new DfE supported project which will help us understand indoor air quality in UK Schools.
Schools will get a free high spec air quality monitor linked to a specially designed interactive Web App. The App will enable pupils and teachers to view and interact with the data from their monitor.
We’re currently looking for schools who are willing to help us test the Web App before we launch it more widely later in the year. We want to know how well the Web App works for students and teachers, to ensure it meets schools’ needs. Could your school be one of these ‘SAMHE pioneer schools’?
If this sounds like something your school would be interested in, please get in touch via hello@samhe.org.uk
What it is:
SAMHE is a new research project which will help us better understand schools’ indoor air quality. It is funded by the Department for Education and EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council) and involves scientists from 6 institutions from across the UK.
SAMHE is important because poor air quality can have impacts on pupils’ concentration levels and their health, affecting both attendance and attainment.
What you will get:
Interested schools will receive a free monitor that measures air pollution, and pupils and teachers will be encouraged to do their own experiments to see how air quality differs in different rooms, with different ventilation levels, numbers of people, different activities, or whatever they want! The monitors will monitor carbon dioxide (CO2), volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and particulate matter (PM) along with temperature and relative humidity.
These monitors will send this data automatically to the SAMHE Web App and pupils will be able to access that information to see how air quality changes over the course of hours, days, weeks, months and seasons. This will create opportunities for pupils to be scientists and do hands-on experiments with their monitors. It could also help you keep your classroom comfortable this winter as you will have a better idea of when it needs ventilating and when you can safely close the windows.
The data will also be automatically recorded and used by our project scientists to understand school air quality across the UK.
How you can use it:
Through our Web App you’ll be able to access resources we are developing such as videos, example experiments and lesson plans. We have been consulting teachers through a ‘co-design’ process to make sure that we’re linking activities to relevant parts of the curriculum.
SAMHE is designed to be very flexible, to meet your needs. It can be used:
● in a range of subjects- to support the curriculum, in a science or eco-club, by form groups, or all of the above (the monitor can be moved from one room to another)
● for a single lesson, to support a longer topic, or as the focus for a term’s worth of club or form activities.
● to help pupils learn about air quality and health, design experiments, improve their data skills, gain agency in controlling their environment, develop advocacy and responsibility... what could you use it for?
How you can help:
We know how busy schools are, which is why we want to make the project as useful for you as possible. We’d like you to sign up to be a SAMHE Pioneer School, receive a monitor, and tell us what you like and don’t like about the project, to help us make sure it’s ready for our UK-wide launch later this year.
When you can help:
Anytime in July, August, September or October.
In the meantime if you want to check out the quality of the air around you why not take a look at our Mini CO2 Monitors:
