The STAIR project emphasized the critical need for clean air in educational environments, an often overlooked yet essential element for effective learning and health. By integrating STEM education, it provided instructions and knowledge on how to easily build at school an innovative Air Quality Monitoring System using an ARDUINO environmental microcontroller, in order to measure air quality both inside and outside classrooms. This analogical/digital hands-on educational approach, complemented by experiments like the Blue Sky Test and Ozone Testing, aimed to inform students, teachers, and parents about the risks of polluted air, including asthma, allergies, and airborne illnesses. The "STAIR Air Pollution Education Program" sought to educate school communities on the significance of maintaining clean air to foster a healthy learning environment. To achieve this, the project launched a multilingual ePlatform (https://www.stairs-erasmus.net/) offering free access to 3 toolkits, guidelines, and digital learning materials to promote innovative solutions for environmental challenges, encouraging simple actions to enhance air quality. This initiative also aimed to foster hands-on experimentation, teamwork, and tech use.
European Union has a specific interest in Indoor air quality (IAQ). The EFA report "The right to breathe healthy indoor air in schools, proves that IAQ has gained renewed importance in public awareness. In classrooms, regular ventilation is essential to reduce the concentration of pollutants, (particulate matter (PM) or volatile organic compounds (VOCs)), which are responsible for symptoms such as concentration disorders and headaches. However, young people have a diffuse idea of air pollutants. This can be explained by the fact that many of these air pollutants are both odorless and colorless and are only detectable using suitable sensors. The project addressed the need to sensitize Students and Teachers, providing a toolkit, guidelines and videos to provide a comprehensive picture of the topic of air quality and thus strengthen environmental awareness, combining declarative, conceptual and procedural knowledge. This was implemented through a STEM approach that included knowledge about coding (using and creating a Arduino muicrocontroller) and also offering analogic tools and engaging experiments (like creation of black carbon) for non-STEM teachers about pollutants, their effects and about strategies to sensitize students.