Measing the air quality with your ‘sniffing bike’: ‘You don’t expect this’

Milou and Pien screw together a state -of -the -art sensor on the wheel and convert Milou’s bike into ‘sniffing bikes’. “I’m going to measure for a few weeks how much fine dust there is in the air during my bike ride to school,” says Milou. “I cycle for 25 minutes from Prinsenbeek, through a piece of polder and along a busy road. If the sensor turns blue, the air quality is good. If it turns yellow or red there is a lot of particulate matter in the air, such as exhaust gases. That is not good for your health.”

The students of the third year VMBO-T are divided into groups this day. They consider which route they want to measure. In a few weeks they have to present their findings to people from the municipality and Globe Nederland. “The sniffel bike project is part of Globe, a worldwide research program for high school students in collaboration with NASA, RIVM, KNMI and universities,” explains teacher Yvonne van Haaren. “The municipality pays for the sensors. RIVM uses the data for scientific research.”

It is not the first time that Milou has taken the measurements. In the fall, during the first part of the research, she also had the sensor on her bike. “Then the sensor only did well for a few days,” she laughs. “I think because he was not properly charged. But we could see from the results that there is more particulate matter along a busy road, then he smashed yellow. We are curious if the second measurements are different, because we now measure in another season.”

Linn also has a sensor on her bike and adds: “I cycle through a neighborhood and in rural areas. It is important for the municipality to measure air quality. Employees of the municipality use this information to make new policy for better air quality. That is better for our health.”

Yvonne van Haaren shows that the students can see their route on the website KnowYraR.NET. “You can compare several days with each other. Then you see that it matters what it is again. In the rain, the air is cleaner and therefore healthier. There were some surprising results from our fall research.”

One of the students adds: “We thought that the air quality in a park would be very good. But he did yellow. You don’t expect that. But the park is close to a busy road.”

The students have also hung tube tubes on lampposts for the second time to measure air quality. Fifty to be precise. They are about seven centimeters long. There is a chemical on a gauze that can bind nitrogen dioxide. The polluting substance gathered in the chemical.

“When we did the autumn measurements, students thought it would be better than expected with the pollution at the bus station. Because it is further car -free in that area. But that was disappointing. We saw a very high concentration of nitrogen dioxide. That was a moment of realization,” says Van Haaren. “Our measurements also came out on average if you compare it to measurements from other schools in the Netherlands. Some schools have measured in places where the air is even more polluted.”

The KNMI will compare the measurements from autumn and spring of all schools with nitrogen measurements by satellites. In this way, scientists can see if there is a difference between measuring on the ground or higher. Yvonne hopes to give the students a bit of awareness. “Air quality has an impact on your living environment and your health. You can do something to contribute. Our students can give advice during their presentations. It would not surprise me if one of the advice was: Work on more awareness.”