Center Offers Air Quality Information to Elementary and Middle Schools
05/18/10 by Staff Writer
The Center for the Environment has distributed 15,000 air quality bookmarks for every elementary and middle-school student in the Salisbury-Rowan Schools as well as 663 air quality posters for every elementary and middle-school classroom.
The ozone season in this area runs from April 1 to October 31. Next year, it will begin on March 1. “Many of our children suffer from asthma, so we need to make sure they understand which days they should bring their medication or consider not playing outside during the peak ozone hours,” says Shelia Armstrong, the Center’s air quality outreach coordinator.
The bookmarks are intended to be take-home reminders for students about the Air Quality Index, which explains ozone-alert days, and actions they can take to help clean up the air. Some of the practical things they can do to reduce air pollution include car pooling or riding the bus.
Tina Mashburn, director of middle grades education, calls the partnership between the Center and the Rowan-Salisbury Schools “a great opportunity to educate more and more people” about ozone pollution.
“It’s important to educate our youth because they will be the ones who will have to face these challenges as they get older and have their own children,” she says. “The more we are able to educate our students and our community, the greater the likelihood that they will take steps to become better stewards of our environment.”