The Quality Air Collective

Community Air Projects

Does smoke build up in your neighbourhood on cold, winter nights? How bad does it get? How many people are affected? Does it get into your home? Your local school? What are your children breathing in? Are you affected by dust, or rural fires?

Often it’s difficult to know how serious these problems are, or whether you, or anyone else, can do anything about it.

Community Air is a family of connected projects and resources that empower local communities to discover, map and act to tackle poor air quality. We do this by providing support and guidance in the use of a range of different types of accessible air quality monitors, and how to correctly interpret the data they provide.

 

Community Air projects in 2026:

Schools Air Watch: Ōamaru, Wānaka and Hāwea

This winter The Air Quality Collective will be working with schoolchildren aged 9 – 13 in three Otago towns. Over 6 weeks they will manage a small fleet of air quality monitors making measurements inside and outside their homes and their school and creating an air quality map for their towns. Supported by learning and experiments in class they will become local air quality experts ready to share their learning with their peers, whanau and community.

Watch out for us on social media through the year!

Participating schools:

  • St Joseph’s School, Ōamaru
  • Te Kura O Take Kārara, Wānaka
  • Hāwea Flat School, Hāwea

Community Air Watch: Ōamaru, Wānaka and Hāwea

This winter The Air Quality Collective will be working with a small group of volunteers in three Otago towns. As well as providing technical support for Schools Air Watch (see above) they will be supplementing the monitoring by managing an additional set of air quality monitors, filling out a map of local air quality. We shall also support them to become local advocates and champions for air quality improvement in their areas.

Interested in joining?

If you live in Wānaka or Hāwea you can get involved in three different ways:

  • Host an air quality monitor at your home.
  • Join a trial of portable air cleaning appliance in your home.
  • Join our Mailing List to get news updates, hear about public meetings or plan for better air by joining our Community Action Group.

Just follow this link or scan the QR code to register your interest.