Be Air Aware: An Air Pollution Education Program

About the Program

Category: Civic Education and Public Information (Best in Category)

Year: 2020

Educating young children about the environment and how the choices they make impact air quality is critical to achieving and maintaining lasting improvements. When we educate students about the importance of clean air, we empower them to help solve the air pollution problem in Maricopa County and become the next generation of environmental stewards.Be Air Aware: an Air Pollution Education Program is designed around the idea that our actions impact air quality in both positive and negative ways. Students explore air pollution issues through a series of engaging activities that are aligned to the Arizona Academic Standards.Through this program, the Maricopa County Air Quality Department (MCAQD) provides non-formal educators with lesson plans and resource kits containing all supplies needed to teach the lessons. These include both re-usable and consumable materials. The kits are available for check out from MCAQD at no cost. MCAQD staff train the educators who will then teach the students. This approach has expanded MCAQD’s capacity to reach more students with greater efficiency.MCAQD conducted a pilot program in 2019. Sixty after-school programs participated in the pilot, representing 15 school districts across the Phoenix metropolitan area. A total of 4,644 students were reached during the pilot phase.