“Our program gives students a way to work with real-world data—so they’re not just learning about air quality, they’re actually seeing it and responding to it,” said Janet Owen, Founder and Director of EarthMuseum Learn.
Through its collaboration with IQAir, EarthMuseum Learn, a not-for-profit focused on global, cross-curricular education, is piloting Air We Breathe—an air quality learning and monitoring program that helps students understand pollution in context and think more critically about what it means (1).
As part of a free wider learning program, schools use IQAir’s AirVisual Outdoor air quality monitors and AirVisual dashboard to measure the air around them and publish an analysis of those readings to a shared collaboration platform. Instead of relying on static examples, students work with live data—conditions that change throughout the day and can be followed over time.
For many, it’s the first time air pollution is something they can track directly using data generated by their own school.
Rather than focusing on a single location or data contributor, the program is designed to connect many, linking classrooms through a common learning framework and shared data.
Learning that starts with context
Developed with educators and subject experts, the Air We Breathe program is designed for students ages 7 to 14. It’s free for schools worldwide and built to fit into existing curricula.
The program moves between history, science, and present-day air quality. Lessons explore how air pollution has developed over time, from early human activity through the industrial period and into the present. They also look at how air quality connects to health, climate, and the way communities function, with an opportunity to think about local innovation and action. That shared structure makes it possible for schools in different locations to engage with the same material at the same time, creating a common starting point for comparison.
It’s not about delivering a fixed set of facts. Students are encouraged to question, discuss, and form their own views. As Owen put it, the program is built around “the ability to have conversations about what air quality and air pollution are, and what they mean in a worldview context.”
That foundation becomes more meaningful once students begin working with real-world data.
Working with data from their own environment
Each school uses an IQAir AirVisual Outdoor monitor to measure local air quality. Those readings feed into the IQAir platform, where they can be accessed through the AirVisual app, desktop dashboard, and global air quality map.
Students aren’t just checking the numbers. They follow how readings change over time, compare patterns across different days, and begin asking why those changes happen.
Owen described it simply: students are “playing with the data, looking at the data, comparing their data with others.”
For EarthMuseum Learn, the appeal of the system was not just the data itself, but how easily it could be used across different classrooms globally. Once tested, Owen said, “it was pretty straightforward to set up,” and “very communicative in terms of the data.”
The platform also places those readings alongside a much wider network of stations, contributed by governments, organizations, and individuals around the world. That context makes it easier to see how local conditions fit into a broader picture. In practice, each school becomes one point within a much larger network of observations.
Comparing across locations
Students have the ability to look at their own data alongside readings from partner schools in other regions, from nearby cities to entirely different countries.
Seeing those differences tends to raise immediate questions. Owen said students begin to ask, “Why are levels higher in one place than another? What local factors might be involved? How do infrastructure, geography, or policy play a role?” For the program, that exchange is central. It’s about “that ability to compare and contrast, to talk, to discuss, and to understand what’s happening in different places.”
What starts as a local exercise becomes something shared, and something that allows students to see their community in a global context.
Understanding how air quality data is created
Alongside real-time monitoring, students take manual readings at set intervals, recording and sharing those observations through EarthMuseum Learn’s developing collaborative platform.
For many, this is their first experience working with environmental data in a structured way. It makes them more comfortable reading the numbers and talking about what those numbers mean.
Because those observations are shared across schools, they don’t stay local—they contribute to a broader, collective view.
From observation to response
Students are encouraged to consider what their observations mean in practical terms—for themselves, for their school, and for the wider community. Sometimes that may lead to small changes in the school environment. In other cases, it can develop into campaigns or presentations shared with local decision-makers. Owen said, “Students see that data isn’t just something on a screen, or something collected in a vacuum. They see how it’s interpreted—and how it can help make an impact in their world.”
That thinking is shaped not only by their own data, but by what they see happening in other schools.
As Owen framed it: “What does that mean for me individually? What does that mean for us as a school? What does that mean for the community?”
Teachers involved in early pilots have already seen the conversation extend beyond the classroom. Students bring the subject home with them, and it starts to shape discussions with teachers, parents, and peers.
“There’s a real appetite… to have those conversations—not just with each other, but with teachers and with parents,” Owen said.
Building a connected model
Work with schools in the UK now includes international partners, with classrooms in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia beginning to take part. Additional school networks are in discussion.
As more schools install monitors and publish data, the project is gradually forming a distributed network of classrooms, each contributing its own data and perspective.
Because the same monitoring and platform infrastructure can be used across regions, schools are able to participate in a shared system without needing to adapt the technical setup each time. Over time, individual data points begin to form a connected system across schools.
For EarthMuseum Learn, the goal is not simply to grow, but to build something that keeps those classrooms connected rather than operating in isolation.
The takeaway
EarthMuseum Learn offers one way to bring environmental learning closer to students’ daily experience.
By combining real-time monitoring with classroom teaching and global data sharing, the program gives students a way to follow air quality through observation, comparison, and discussion. It also suggests a different way of teaching these topics—one where classrooms are connected through shared data and analysis instead of working in isolation.
