12 February 2021
The third year environmental service group has spent the beginning of this term finding out what data sources we currently have and how we can utilise the data collected.
- We have our own Raspberry Pi collecting information on pollution by measuring particulate matter. We now have three months’ worth of data from our diffusion tubes measuring nitrogen oxide and we have used the Met Office website to harvest weather data to enable us to cross reference spikes in pollution with the weather as well as with particular events such as bonfire night or the weekend of Black Friday.
- We also wanted to try some hands on chemistry. Our fab science technicians (Mrs Downes and Mr Ball) made and sent out ozone testing strips to the team. We did our first data collection this Monday and spent Tuesday’s session working out an approximation of ozone levels by comparing our strips to the Schoenbein colour chart, factoring in humidity and working out the approximate ozone levels in our gardens. We are planning on comparing five consecutive Monday’s worth of data and will hopefully continue to measure throughout the year and into the summer when higher Ozone levels are to be expected.
Many thanks to Mr Fisher who has been a great help on the Science front this term with continued input from Mr Thomas and the sixth form pupils who deal with the coding of the Pi.
