Strengthening Community Science: Engaging Youth to Build an Open-Source Educational Air Monitoring Tool

The South Bronx in New York City is an economically disempowered community that is overburdened by environmental injustice, including traffic-related air pollution. Through a partnership between South Bronx Unite, a local nonprofit organization 1 , the Laboratory School of Finance and Technology (X223), and Columbia University, a STEM initiative was launched. Together the team developed a curriculum in which high school students used the Arduino open electronics platform to build air monitors. The students then engaged in grass-roots efforts to launch the installation of the monitors to create a locally managed air monitoring network in the South Bronx. Here we describe the development of a curriculum as an educational air monitoring tool and explore the increased capacity of youth to address environmental health concerns.