SBIR-STTR Award

We propose to make air pollution personal by enabling K-12 students to act as citizen scientists using sophisticated, mobile air pollution monitors to measure their individual exposures to black carbon, a primary pollutant, and ozone, a secondary pollutant. Through their experiments and specially designed curricula, students will learn when and where they and others are exposed to these damaging air pollutants and how that exposure can affect their health. Ozone and black carbon are two of the most damaging air pollutants to human health, and it has been shown that both are asthma triggers and can lead to other health problems, including heart disease and even premature death. Heightened awareness of the way air quality impacts health is vital, and nothing is more impactful than understanding exposure at a personal level. Through our nonprofit partner the GO3 Project, ~50 schools will be loaned a 2B Tech Personal Ozone Monitor (POM) and microAeth personal black carbon monitor (AethLabs), both accurate, pocket-sized monitors, for a period of two weeks each, allowing up to ~1,000 day-long personal monitoring experiments. The instruments are equipped with GPS capabilities so students can track their daily activities or planned excursions and upload their data to share with other students and citizens online. Furthermore, these excursions will highlight air quality disparities in different regions or neighborhoods, raising awareness of environmental justice issues. We will develop specific software for online analysis and display on Google Earth and Google Maps. Students will be able to compare and discuss data with students at ~85 schools around the world via the already established GO3 Social Network. The project includes full curricula and activities on the science and health effects of ozone, black carbon and other air pollutants, allowing students to further their understanding in conjunction with hands-on experimentation with sophisticated, mobile instrumentation. Near the end of the Phase I project, we will assess its success in terms of logistical problems encountered, equipment and software, data quantity and quality, learning, experiences, and what can be done to improve the GO3 Project for implementation in 500 schools during Phase II. The Phase II commercialization plan will show how the GO3 Project with personal monitoring can be expanded to thousands of schools through self-funding in an already established educational Green Fundraiser and through additional personal and corporate donations.

Thesaurus Terms:
Affect;Age;Air;Air Pollutants;Air Pollution;Asthma;Awareness;Base;Carbon Black;Cessation Of Life;Commercialization;Communication;Communities;Computer Software;Country;Data;Data Analyses;Data Display;Databases;Design;Education And Outreach;Educational Background;Educational Curriculum;Environmental Health;Environmental Justice;Equipment;Experience;Exposure To;Funding;Gene Environment Interaction;Health;Health Disparity;Health Professional;Health Sciences;Heart Diseases;High School;Human;Improved;Individual;Instrument;Instrumentation;Interest;International;Internet;Junior High School;K-12 Education;Knowledge;Lead;Learning;Low Birth Weight Infant;Lung Diseases;Malignant Neoplasm Of Lung;Maps;Measurement;Measures;Monitor;Myocardial Infarction;National Institute Of Environmental Health Sciences;Neighborhoods;Outreach Program;Ozone;Performance;Phase;Pollutant;Pollution;Premature;Programs;Public Health Medicine (Field);Public Health Relevance;Qualifying;Research Study;Resources;Risk;Schools;Scientist;Social Network;Source;Spatial Temporal Variation;Students;Success;Susceptibility Gene;Teacher;Technology;Testing;Time;Tool;Toxic Environmental Substances;Training;Tropospheric Ozone;Walking;

Personal Exposure Monitoring of Air Pollutants as an Educational Tool in the GO3 Treks project launched by the Phase I grant, ~2,500 students at 50 schools throughout the U.S. used personal monitors to measure the air pollutants black carbon and ozone along treks of their own design. The ~275 treks were uploaded to blogs in the GO3 website where they were displayed on Google Earth and where students, teachers, GO3 staff and air quality scientists discussed the results. The students learned about the sources, transformations and sinks of air pollutants by acting as citizen scientists, forming and testing their own hypotheses using real scientific instruments. Highlights include comparisons of rural vs. urban exposures, discovery of increased pollution levels during pick-up/drop-off traffic at schools, comparisons of pollutant levels along busy and residential streets, analysis of exposures during commutes to school, a trek at a hydraulic fracturing site, treks from urban areas into the mountains, and investigation of emissions from different types of sources such as lawnmowers and buses. One school explored an area that is known to have an underground coal mine fire and even launched the ozone monitor on a balloon to 30 km (100,000 ft.) where ozone in the stratosphere was measured. We propose to improve upon and expand GO3 Treks in the Phase II project by: 1) implementing a quality assurance (QA) program for GO3 Treks data; 2) developing a universal Personal Air Monitoring Module (PAMM) that will allow any air quality sensor to upload data in real time to GO3 Treks via a smart phone app; 3) expanding the suite of miniaturized instruments available to GO3 Treks to include CO2 and Equivalent PM2.5 in addition to O3 and black carbon; and 4) revising the GO3 online curriculum to be smaller "bite-sized" modules, each of which can be completing in an hour or less, and awarding digital badges for completion of each module. Individuals, who earn all GO3 Air Quality digital badges, including those awarded for participation in a trek and for achieving a prescribed level of activit on the GO3 network, will be awarded a Mozilla Open Badge that can be included in their digital resume. The commercialization plan expands GO3 Treks to include citizen monitoring by environmental advocates and local government agencies in addition to schools and proposes rental of instruments at a fee of only $50/week. A business model is proposed that provides exponential growth of the project by continuous reinvestment of all but 5% of profit in new inventory. Model results using reasonable assumptions show that in four years GO3 Treks could be grown to annual rentals of ~$3M with servicing of ~10,000 organizations from an inventory of ~2,000 instruments.

Public Health Relevance Statement:


Public Health Relevance:
The GO3 Treks project allows citizen scientists, including students, hobbyists, environmental advocates and local government officials, to measure air pollutants such as ozone, black carbon, particulate matter (PM2.5) and CO2 along treks in their local communities. A Personal Air Monitoring Module (PAMM) will allow measurements made, using any air quality sensor to be uploaded via a cell phone app for display on Google Earth within a public blog for data sharing and public discussion.

NIH Spending Category:
Bioengineering; Climate Change; Climate-Related Exposures and Conditions; Global Warming Climate Change

Project Terms:
absorption; Achievement; Acid Rain; Advocate; Age; Air; air monitoring; Air Pollutants; Air Pollution; Algorithms; Area; Award; base; Bite; Businesses; Calibration; Carbon Black; Carbon Dioxide; Cellular Phone; citizen science; climate change; Coal Mining; commercialization; Communication Tools; Communities; Commuting; Computers; cost; Data; Data Display; Data Quality; Databases; design; Development; Devices; digital; Drops; Educational Curriculum; Electronics; Environmental Health; environmental justice; Environmental Monitoring; Equipment; Equipment and supply inventories; expectation; falls; Fees; Fire - disasters; Fracture; Government Agencies; Government Officials; Grant; Growth; Health; health literacy; Health Professional; Healthcare; Hour; Housing; Image; improved; Individual; Infrared Spectrophotometry; instrument; interest; Internet; Investigation; Job Application; Learning; learning ability; light scattering; Local Government; Measurement; Measures; Methods; miniaturize; Modeling; Monitor; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; Online Systems; Optics; Output; Ozone; particle; Particulate Matter; personal exposure monitor; Phase; pollutant; Pollution; Process Measure; programs; public health medicine (field); public health relevance; Qualifying; quality assurance; Quality Control; Research; Rewards; Rural; Schools; Scientist; sensor; Services; sharing data; Signal Transduction; Site; Source; Stratosphere; Students; System; teacher; Testing; Time; tool; trafficking; tropospheric ozone; urban area; voltage; web site