When the Eaton fire swept through Pasadena, fourth graders at Washington Elementary came to school with questions — about air quality, about lead contamination, about the testing equipment they’d seen on their own campus grounds. Their teacher, Jodie West, saw an opportunity. Using her PEF Teacher Grant, she purchased air quality testing instruments and put the answers directly in her students’ hands.
Instruments in hand, the fourth graders got to work testing the air both inside and outside of the classroom. West’s students also tested different variables that affect air quality like plants and air filters at different distances. The results sparked something bigger than a single class unit. Students were so energized by their findings that the project itself has now become an ongoing collaborative experiment for West’s class. The fourth graders who started this project will continue to record data findings in their fifth grade year and in turn help the incoming fourth graders set up for their own year’s worth of air quality observations. West and her students will be slowly compiling the data about the air quality near Washington over time and are excited to see the long term results.
West’s students are compiling their findings into real recommendations such as advising the principal on recess timing based on air quality data, and collecting data for the school nurse to help them take care of classmates with asthma or other breathing conditions. It’s student science with real world applications, and a reminder that some of the best learning happens when the classroom extends into the world around it.
