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Students around the region may soon be participating in a citizen science project that demands little more than carrying some extra weight on a backpack as part of a new initiative from the local nonprofit Sustainable Silicon Valley.
The BackpAQ initiative, by Sustainable Silicon Valley’s Clean Air Equity Project, is conducting a pilot project to pair up to 100 Bay Area students with personal air quality monitors they can carry around with them to track particulate matter and gas-related compounds in the air.
Specifically, the low-cost monitors will track pollution from a variety of sources, including traffic and wildfires, by measuring particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, carbon dioxide, temperature, pressure, relative humidity and GPS coordinates.
Sustainable Silicon Valley is a local nonprofit that focuses on water and air as well as decarbonization in the Bay Area. Its leaders call it a “think and do tank,” emphasizing its hands-on problem-solving approach.
Chief scientist with the organization, Anthony Strawa, said in an interview that the project grew out of some of the findings from an earlier initiative by Sustainable Silicon Valley, called Smart TA, or transportation analytics. In that project, the nonprofit set up air monitors at three locations in East Palo Alto to track air quality related to vehicle emissions and other air pollutants.
Over about four months of monitoring air quality there, Strawa said, they found that there was a connection between traffic and air quality, but in general, the air quality was good most days, although it occasionally dipped into the “moderate” category. It spurred them to dig deeper into studying a variety of air quality metrics both at a hyperlocal level and at an affordable price point.
As part of that effort, Sustainable Silicon Valley scientists tried out different sensors to measure the air quality and ultimately became interested in developing a low-cost sensor to measure both particulate and gas-based pollutants.
They were also inspired by a journalism project published by the New York Times in December 2020 that tracked the air pollution exposure two children faced living in different neighborhoods of Delhi, India over the course of a single day using a variety of air quality sensors.
Strawa teamed up with Andrew Clark, board chair of Sustainable Silicon Valley and director of air quality and mobility programs, to develop a small, lightweight, low-cost sensor. They wanted it to be easy to carry around and easy to use, so that it could tie into STEM-based learning opportunities for local high school students.
Clark then developed software that enables readings from the air sensors to be accessed via smartphone, Strawa said. The sensor they developed, which is estimated to cost about $85, now comes with an app, called “BackpAQ,” which offers Wi-Fi connectivity and an open source design that can be viewed online for easy classroom use. Importantly, the BackpAQ app shows the air quality data being collected in real time from the sensor.
Since then, Sustainable Silicon Valley completed a feasibility study to test out the monitors with 10 Bay Area students, six in Dublin and four in East Palo Alto and have them weigh in on the experience. The East Palo Alto youth who participated were recruited from Youth United for Community Action, an environmental justice nonprofit based in East Palo Alto.
Some students who participated in the feasibility study reported that using the devices helped them feel empowered, motivated to explore their communities more and eager to take longer walks or get outside more often, according to the feasibility study report.
The Clean Air Equity Project aims to expand to 100 students based in the Peninsula, South Bay and East Bay. The program also aims to teach students about air quality, the scientific method and data analysis. Students will be expected to identify and walk a neighborhood route regularly throughout the course of the program to track air quality variations over time.
One concern that the Sustainable Silicon Valley team took efforts to tackle was student privacy, Strawa said. While the coordinates of each sensor are a critical part of the data they’re collecting, the researchers don’t know which student is associated with which sensor.
“We don’t want to know who has those sensors,” he said.
Students or school districts interested in participating in the program should reach out to Strawa at airquality@sustainablesv.org.
