See What You Breathe: An Taisce's new European Air Quality Project with partners from eight countries

Banner images from Polish Smog Alert

An Taisce is a new partner in an exciting EU-wide air quality and public-health themed project for the next two years — 'See What You Breathe'. An an organisation, we are committed to using evidence-based learning to guide decision-making and to champion initiatives that reduce pollution and protect the environment and are delighted to have the opportunity to be joining the project.

An Taisce was invited to contribute as a result of the significant achievements and continued success of GLOBE Ireland's Air Quality Campaign. It is one of the programme themes, others include River Ecosystems and Climate Resilience. Their air quality citizen-science work assesses traffic-related air pollution at schools. This is an educational project designed to raise awareness about air pollution, engage students in the scientific process, promote action around clean air and showcase the potential of citizen science to gather unique datasets and insights into our environment. There have been 10 campaigns since 2019, with over 800 teachers registering to participate.

'See What You Breathe' is a stand-alone project. It allows An Taisce to contribute to a shared EU-wide public-awareness campaign on air quality with the other European partners. 

The lead organisation is Polish Smog Alert, who were Earthshot Prize finalists for their work on air quality advocacy in Poland.

The other partner organisations are;

Over the span of the project, air quality samples will be taken in Dublin during year one and Cork in year two. Each partner country will take their samples over the same four-week period, share the results and run a public campaign on air quality. It will be interesting to learn, compare and share the different challenges we face when it comes to air pollution reduction.
For further information:

Results from GLOBE Ireland's latest air quality campaign are available to view in map form. The campaign for 2026 is taking expressions of interest from schools for the next term. Schools registered to participate in a GLOBE Ireland Air Quality campaign receive monitoring tubes to measure nitrogen dioxide. The tubes are positioned at three locations at each school: one near a main road, one at a car park/drop off location and one in a relatively sheltered area. The tubes are left up for a four-week period and then sent for testing with the results subsequently shared and used as the basis for learning.

Colleagues in GLOBE Ireland, Safe Routes to School and Green-Schools collaborate on air quality projects and especially during the annual Clean Air Week events in November. Green-Schools have a full suite of resources that include surveys, live webinars, videos, air quality challenges and activities on the theme.

Citizen science air quality projects are an engaging way to explore school air quality at drop off and pick ups times to better understand more about any additional emissions from car idling and how positive changes to air quality can be made.

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