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Apr 13, 2024

Jenetsy Herrera, a senior at the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics, demonstrates how to set up the AtmoTube app on her phone. Herrera experiences transportation pollution every day on her way to school, she said. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

Editor’s note: This story first appeared on palabra, the digital news site by the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

By Keerti Gopal

During his 15-minute walk to school in the southwest Bronx on the morning of June 7, 17-year-old Shirra Jenkins noticed he was having a hard time breathing. That day, smoke from Canadian wildfires blanketed the Northeast and New York City’s air quality ranked worst among the world’s major cities. By the afternoon, skies were blood orange and city officials warned residents to stay indoors.

“I never took into consideration that air quality … actually affects the human body,” Jenkins said later that day while sitting in class at the Bronx Center for Science and Mathematics (BCSM), where he’s a senior. “Usually when I go outside when I’m sick, I can breathe a little better, but today I wasn’t able to do that.”

Although that day was extreme, air quality impacts Jenkins – along with the over 1 million students in the New York City school system — daily. Even on an average day, the city’s air contains particulate pollutants and ground-level ozone that has been linked to asthma and other respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, cancers, cognition problems and other health issues.

On the afternoon of June 7, New York City’s skies were blood orange and thick with smoke. Many commuters and outdoor laborers wore masks and struggled to breathe. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

But low-income communities of color, which have often endured decades of environmental racism and government neglect, are hardest hit. Majority Black and brown neighborhoods in the Bronx, for example, have been saddled with toxic dumps, waste transfer stations, highly polluting highways and traffic intersections. The Bronx has the highest rates of asthma-related hospitalizations in the city; child asthma hospitalizations are particularly alarming.

While residents know their communities suffer disproportionately from air pollution, they frequently lack access to data about precise conditions where they live, work and go to school. That’s something Jenkins and his peers at BCSM — a top-performing public high school that serves a majority Black and Latino student body — have been learning this year. In assistant principal Patrick Callahan’s Advanced Placement environmental science class, students are taking a direct role in monitoring their air. Alongside Columbia University researchers, Callahan’s class has embarked on a participatory air quality monitoring study in which students collect real-time air quality readings using small, low-cost sensors.

The study, supported by funding from NASA, is part of a broader push for participatory air quality monitoring, a form of citizen science in which non-scientists work with researchers to collect pollution data. Around the world, participatory air quality monitoring projects have helped residents address toxic air in their communities through behavioral changes, structural interventions and advocacy.

Assistant principal Patrick Callahan assists students as they review sensor data on laptops and smartphones. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

A growing body of research links air pollution to cognitive decline, mental and physical health issues and even aggression or violence. Yet indoor air quality in schools, where 77 million students currently spend a significant portion of their day, have been relatively understudied. In addition, researchers say there’s much yet to learn about how air pollution in and around schools affects students’ academic performance, explained Dr. Carolynne Hultquist, who leads the Columbia project. She is an adjunct research associate at Columbia University and a lecturer in spatial data science at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently awarded $53.4 million to community air monitoring projects across the country, the largest-ever EPA investment in such projects. However, only five of the 132 recipients are school-based projects.

In New York City, the Columbia initiative is one of several major projects involving students in air monitoring; Fordham University researchers have launched a similar initiative. An immediate goal for both is to bring students into participatory science and empower them to understand their local context.

In the U.S., most official air quality information comes from remote sensing of particulate pollution and from EPA ground monitoring. The EPA uses regulatory grade sensors that can accurately measure major pollutants harmful to human health, including PM 2.5 — particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers in diameter.

But these reference monitors are expensive, costing up to $50,000 each and requiring highly trained staff. They’re also stationary and far apart, relying on estimation and averaging across large areas.

Joseph Li and David Reyes, seniors in the science club at Cristo Rey New York High School, used legos to make models of protective cases for air quality sensors. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

Participatory air quality monitoring initiatives are gaining popularity as low-cost and mobile sensors proliferate. These more user-friendly technologies allow communities typically excluded from scientific data collection to get specific, actionable information about their environment.

“I feel like we’ve created this whole dichotomy between scientists and communities that doesn’t have to be there,” said Hultquist. She noted that communities often have local knowledge — like where or during what time of day air pollution tends to be worst — that can aid data collection.

Air quality in public schools is particularly under-researched, Hultquist added. That’s problematic, since exposure to poor air quality — especially in low-income urban areas — has been linked to developmental challenges, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and childhood asthma.

Hultquist and her partners provided BCSM students with mobile Atmotube air quality sensors — portable sensors that detect very small, inhalable particles like PM1, PM2.5, and PM10, in addition to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) — and report them to a smartphone app. They’ve also installed PurpleAir sensors inside and outside of the school building. It’s hands-on learning that allows students to do real science in the service of their communities.

“We spend so much time talking about the negative about what’s happening in (environmental science),” said Callahan. “So (the students) want to really focus on solutions (to) mitigate these problems that we have. … What can they do and what can their neighbors do? And what can we do as a school?”

Fordham University physicist Dr. Stephen Holler holds a PurpleAir sensor that uses an internet connection to upload results to an interactive online map that provides real-time data worldwide. Holler says that low-cost air sensors can help people understand the immediate impacts of climate change. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

Jenkins and his classmates received their mobile sensors from the Columbia research team on May 17. Sitting on an eclectic mix of couches, beanbags, a rocking chair, and school tables in a dimly lit classroom plastered with colorful posters and math puns, the students learned how to use the Atmotube monitors, which can be clipped onto backpacks.

Over the next few weeks, students used the monitors in their daily lives: on their way to and from school, during visits with friends and family and while running errands. On June 7, amidst smoky wildfire haze, they began reviewing their data on personalized maps tracking each point where the Atmotube sensor had recorded their air quality.

Jenkins was one of the first students to set up his map. Sitting on a couch at the front of the classroom, he studied this computer screen, where a smattering of data points were concentrated around BCSM, lining his walk home along traffic-clogged streets. Jenkins was pleasantly surprised to observe that on most days, the air quality in his neighborhood was better than expected.

Shirra Jenkins analyzes the sensor map that indicates the air quality in his neighborhood. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

Still, he’s aware of longstanding impacts of pollution. Jenkins lives in Morrisania, the same neighborhood where BCSM is located. Growing up, he knew older people with respiratory issues, and he’s observed recent changes in his neighborhood that he believes affect health.

When he walks out his front door, Jenkins sees a new apartment building where a small garden used to be. Jenkins feels the loss of green space deeply.

“(That) gardens help our health is enough, but (when) you remove a piece of that community, you’re removing a piece of that memory. You’re taking away something that people grew up with.”

As he’s learned more about systemic inequality, in Callahan’s class and beyond, Jenkins sees health disparities related to air quality as part of a broader conversation around safety and well-being for people of color. He referenced intersections between lack of green spaces, gentrification, inequities in educational options and instances of violence.

Callahan said student interest drove class participation in the project.

‘It’s about how air quality is affecting communities of color, how big corporations have allowed for their companies to be polluting, to be heating up the planet, knowing that it has all these negative effects’

“Year after year, the topic (students) are concerned with most is air quality,” Callahan said. “Their little brothers and sisters and cousins and people they know have asthma, and they know about (the) environmental injustices that their communities have endured.”

Jenkins, who is graduating this year, plans to advocate for environmental justice around issues like air quality.

“It’s the younger generation that really has to make the change in the world … not only for ourselves but for future generations,” Jenkins said.

This is one main goal of school-based participatory air quality monitoring: to empower students to feel like they can drive change, Hultquist said.

Participatory air quality monitoring projects in other regions of the country have also helped residents address toxic air through behavioral changes, structural interventions, and even advocacy, and several other New York City schools are engaged in similar programs. At Cristo Rey New York High School, a Catholic institution in Harlem, Fordham University physicist Dr. Stephen Holler is working with students in the science club to place PurpleAir monitors inside their classroom and outside the school building. They’re also building their own customized sensor.

David Reyes, a senior, lives 45 minutes from Cristo Rey. He takes the subway from the Bronx to school.

“Asthma has been running through the family,” he said, adding that he connects their health issues to manufacturing and high rates of traffic pollution.

Holler and members of the science club at Cristo Rey New York High School troubleshoot code for their DIY air quality sensor. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

Holler’s work is part of Project FRESH Air (Fordham Regional Environmental Sensor for Healthy Air), a Fordham University participatory monitoring project that focuses on educational programming. It’s one of two related projects at Fordham University, the other a research study called Air Quality Partnership for NYC Schools, investigating how air quality affects academic performance in New York City schools. The latter is a collaboration among Fordham University, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), Resources for the Future (RFF) and two community groups: The Point Community Development Fund based in the Hunts Point area of the Bronx and TREEage.

High school students from TREEage, a youth climate justice organization, have been instrumental in recruiting schools for the study. Azucena Qadeer, TREEage’s Brooklyn borough coordinator, described how their own public high school in midtown Manhattan is frequently subject to fumes from paint and other activities from a taxi repair stand next door.

“Sometimes we have to evacuate because the fumes are giving people headaches, causing people to throw up,” said Qadeer, 17, adding that the school’s basement is evacuated as often as twice a month.

Qadeer sees the Fordham study as a way to investigate systemic inequities and give schools information needed for action.

“It’s about how air quality is affecting communities of color, how big corporations have allowed for their companies to be polluting, to be heating up the planet, knowing that it has all these negative effects,” they said.

As part of its involvement in the study, TREEage is organizing additional workshops for high schoolers to explore connections between air pollution and climate change: Extreme temperatures and stagnant air during heat waves can lead to higher levels of ozone and particulate pollution, and the combination of pollution and heat waves can exacerbate health problems and racial disparities. The workshops will break down scientific concepts and explain how students can use data to advocate for more just, protective policies.

Victor Davila, a community organizer for THE POINT Community Development Corporation and a leader in the Fordham collaboration, grew up in Hunts Point and said impacted communities are acutely aware of air pollution’s disproportionate impact on their health.

From left to right: Christopher Nelson, Beia Spiller, and Victor Davila consider locations for sensor installation at a school. Researchers said the collaboration between schools, the university, and community organizations is central to the study’s design. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

“They have to live with the symptoms every day. They have to live with relatives dying early. They have to live with increased rates of neurodivergence. They have to live with increased rates of asthma. They have to live with increased rates of cancer and heart disease, and all these cardiovascular issues,” Davila said.

Davila sees the study as a way to tackle systemic climate injustice by gathering hyperlocal data that can be used to steer funding toward schools with the highest need — like schools in high pollution areas without proper ventilation or indoor air purification.

“You cannot fix climate without dealing with environmental justice,” Davila said.

Real-time data from the country’s largest urban school system could be critical in advancing legislation to reduce pollution in schools.

“Access to a clean and a healthy environment is a human right, but how do we actualize that?” said NYCLU education strategist Kymesha Edwards. “To really hear from the folks who are faced with learning in a heavily polluted, heavily trafficked area, I think that’s (how) citizen science (can) push forward harder legislative change.”

Edwards added that site-specific data is valuable for advocacy, and can be used to bolster resident testimonies at public hearings. She also stressed that even without numbers, stories of lived experience are valid catalysts for change. Edwards and NYCLU work closely with students across New York City, and she said she often hears stories of how their learning has been directly impacted by poor air quality — with traffic pollution affecting concentration or triggering asthma attacks.

“The monitors just confirm what we know. We know that pollution is high. We know that it’s heavily trafficked. We know that the harms are there because these highways and byways have been constructed to serve as divisive and racist monuments in many ways,” she said. “It’s important to know that we have young people engaged in that process, understanding and asking questions (like), ‘What does this mean for the community that I live in, for the school that I learn in?’”

The NYCLU is pushing for the SIGH Act, legislation that would ban construction of new schools within 500 feet of a major highway and retrofit existing schools in that category to protect air quality. The bill got support from major environmental groups and legislators last year before it was vetoed by Governor Kathy Hochul, who said it would place too many restrictions on new school building projects. NYCLU continues to fight for its implementation.

“Why are we pushing back on ensuring that our young people have access to a clean and healthy learning environment?” Edwards asked. “It’s really baffling.”

Outside the premises of Cristo Rey New York High School, a Catholic college preparatory school in East Harlem. The school serves students whose families would not otherwise be able to afford private school. Photo by Keerti Gopal for palabra

Dr. Beia Spiller, a lead researcher for the Air Quality Partnership for NYC Schools, noted that community knowledge of air quality, without data to back it up, is often dismissed as anecdotal or unscientific, despite having real health ramifications for vulnerable populations.

“There’s a lot of policy that’s made because of lack of information, so having more information always helps to improve the policies,” Spiller said.

Studies show that the effects of childhood exposure to air pollution persist into adulthood, Spiller added, with implications for long-term community justice and well-being.

“If we think about intergenerational equity, reducing that air pollution is a first step to helping to build wealth,” she said. “It’s one way that we can start to reduce all these inequities in our city, by focusing on reducing exposure in these environmental areas.”

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Keerti Gopal is a multimedia journalist and emerging documentary filmmaker based in Brooklyn, New York, and a climate cohort fellow with the Solutions Journalism Network (SJN). She graduated from Northwestern University in 2021 and moved to Taiwan for a Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship, where she documented stories of climate action and resilience through photo, film, audio, and written media. In addition to her work with SJN, she’s now a summer fellow at Inside Climate News, the editorial fellow at The Lever, and a graduate of One World Media’s Global Short Docs Forum for international filmmakers. Keerti is interested in accountability and investigative reporting, climate and environmental justice, and centering marginalized voices.

Autumn Spanne is a journalist, editor and educator who writes about science and the environment. Her stories have been featured in The Atlantic, National Geographic, The Guardian, Reveal, Environmental Health News, the Christian Science Monitor, Inside Climate News and CNN. Previously, Autumn taught English and journalism on the Navajo Nation and later worked as an editor at Youth Communication, an award-winning educational publishing company in New York that trains young people in writing and journalism. She was a 2016-2017 Ted Scripps Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a 2006-2007 fellow of the Metcalf Institute for Environmental and Marine Reporting. Autumn currently serves as manager of newsletters and bilingual content for Environmental Health Sciences. She holds an MS from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, an MA in education from Western New Mexico University, and a BA in literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Originally from California, she now lives in Barcelona.

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