Frontiers Series launch: Our Environment and the Air Pollution Project

On Wednesday 14 October, Black in Academia and the UKBT Institute launched the Frontiers Series – 100 Years From Now. The first conversation, Our Environment, asked how we will design healthier places to live as our cities and environments change.

The Frontiers Series brings academics, technologists and communities into the same conversation to explore the ideas shaping our collective future. The launch took place online via Zoom.

Three speakers opened the series:

• Paulette Williams, Leading Routes · Black in Academia, on amplifying the visibility, influence and reach of Black researchers
• Mark Martin MBE, UKBT Institute, on the Air Pollution Project: data, technology and community knowledge
• Deborah Broomfield, doctoral researcher at Leeds Beckett University, on austerity in urban planning and its impact on women and marginalised communities

Amplifying Black researchers

Paulette Williams is the founder and managing director of Leading Routes, a social enterprise set up in 2017 with a mission to strengthen the academic pipeline for Black scholars.

Leading Routes supports Black students from sixth form to early-career research. Its Future Scholars programme guides Year 12 and 13 students from Black African and Caribbean backgrounds, and their parents, through university applications, personal statements and the move to university. Its 2019 report, The Broken Pipeline, found that just 1.2% of PhD studentships funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) over three years went to Black or Black Mixed students, a finding that helped prompt £8 million of funding to widen participation. Leading Routes also runs Black in Academia, which showcases Black-led scholarship and builds community among Black academics.

Applications for the next Future Scholars Year 13 programme close on 15 November 2026. Find out more →

The Air Pollution Project: from a school street to the world stage

Mark Martin MBE is the founder of UKBlackTech and the UKBT Institute, and an Assistant Professor in Computer Science and Education Practice. He is a teacher first, with years of experience in London classrooms.

Mark’s talk began with a street outside a school, and with what happens when you hand young people the tools to do something about the air they breathe there.

The scale of the problem is stark. Around 3.1 million children in England go to schools in areas above the World Health Organization guideline for fine particle pollution (PM2.5), and children in London are almost four times more likely to attend such a school (Mayor of London, analysis of 2019 government data, August 2021). Freedom of Information research by Mums for Lungs with London NHS trusts, published in August 2025, found that around 120,000 children in London were taken to A&E or admitted to hospital with serious breathing problems in 2024. These are breathing problems from all causes, not only air pollution, and because some trusts did not respond, the true figure is likely to be higher.

Polluted air also reaches the classroom. A 2025 study of a large school district in California linked rises in daily PM2.5 pollution to more pupil absences, more behaviour referrals and more teacher sick days. The effects were strongest for younger pupils and those from low-income families (Chung, Persico and Liu, National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 33549, 2025).

And the burden is not shared fairly. In 2019, 32% of the areas where Black Londoners are most likely to live were among the most polluted in London for nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) – that is, the quarter of areas with the highest levels. For the areas where White Londoners are most likely to live, the figure was just 4%. The report notes that these figures describe areas rather than individuals, and that the gaps have narrowed since 2013 as London’s air has improved. (Source: Air Quality Consultants for the Greater London Authority, Air Pollution and Inequalities in London: 2019 Update, Table 4, October 2021.)

Campaigners call this environmental injustice: the communities that contribute least to traffic pollution often breathe the most of it. In England, 40% of Black people live in a household with no car or van, the highest of any group, compared with 17% of White people (Department for Transport, National Travel Survey 2015–19, via Ethnicity facts and figures). The causes are structural, from housing near main roads to less green space. That is exactly why communities need their own data.

When Mark first proposed putting sensors, data science and AI into the hands of 13-year-olds, he heard every reason not to: “It can’t be done.” “We’re not ready for that yet.” “You could lose your job for that.”

So Mark and his students built it. Students at City Heights E-ACT Academy in Lambeth made their own air quality monitors from simple, low-cost parts: gas and particulate sensors on an Arduino, LED strips and a display showing the readings, and a Raspberry Pi to store the data. They calibrated the sensors, collected data from the streets they walk every day, analysed it in Python and pandas, and built an interactive dashboard using the Mayor of London’s monitoring data. The Mayor’s data showed why this mattered: in 2016, London’s monitoring sites recorded 4,002 hours above the hourly NO₂ limit, 1,270 of them on Putney High Street alone.

The students weren’t attending a workshop about air pollution. They were building the instruments, collecting the evidence and deciding what it meant. The project was supported by the E-ACT trust, the James Dyson Foundation, and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, through its Climate Champions programme. The James Dyson Foundation chose City Heights as the first school in the UK to host its new air pollution workshop, with 50 Year 8 students, in June 2022 (James Dyson Foundation, 16 June 2022). It has since been shared at Bett and the World Education Summit.

Mark also pointed to other projects that show what happens when children and residents can see their own data. In the Breathe London Wearables Study, around 250 primary pupils wore backpack sensors for a week. On average they were exposed to five times more NO₂ on the school run than at school, and 31% of the children changed how they travelled to school as a result of taking part (King’s College London for the Mayor of London, Breathe London Wearables Study, October 2019). In Newcastle, Sense My Street let communities choose which streets and schools to monitor. When people can see their own data, they can argue for change with evidence.

Key insights

• Give young people something real. When students build the tools themselves, they stop being participants and become innovators.
• Children carry the heaviest burden. Around 3.1 million children in England go to school in areas above the World Health Organization guideline for fine particle pollution, and in 2024 around 120,000 London children ended up in A&E or hospital with serious breathing problems.
• Pollution reaches the timetable. Research links dirtier air to more absences and more behaviour incidents, so it affects learning as well as health.
• The burden isn’t shared fairly. 32% of the areas where Black Londoners are most likely to live are among London’s most polluted, compared with 4% for White Londoners.
• Low-cost technology is enough to start. An Arduino, a few sensors and Python gave 13-year-olds real data about their own streets.
• Awareness leads to action. The Air Pollution Project raises awareness by putting data and science in students’ hands. Other research shows what that can lead to: 31% of children changed how they travelled to school after taking part in Breathe London, a separate air pollution project.
• Evidence makes the case for change. Tools like Street Futures let anyone test how trees, hedges or a School Street could change the air where people stand.

New tools to explore

Mark shared three interactive tools built through the UKBT Institute, which anyone can try:

• London Air: a live map of London’s air quality network, showing pollutants, green cover and how pollution moves through a street.
• Street Futures: pick a real London monitoring site, redesign the street with trees, hedges, traffic filters or a School Street, and see the estimated effect on the air where people stand.
• Inside a British Home: a 3D house that shows, room by room, where indoor air pollution comes from. It draws on the Chief Medical Officer’s 2022 report, which notes that adults spend over 80% of their day indoors.

Austerity, planning and who gets a say

Deborah Broomfield is a doctoral researcher at Leeds Beckett University. Her talk looked at how austerity has shaped urban planning, and what that has meant for women and marginalised communities. Her key takeaways:

• Austerity has shaped our communities. It has changed the story of communities and the places in which we live.
• Land is everything. Communities need to understand who owns the land around them.
• Collaboration and upskilling are key. Communities are stronger when they learn and work together.
• We need ethical technology partnerships. Technology should be developed ethically, in partnership with communities.

Resources from Deborah

Deborah shared these for anyone who wants to follow up:

• Historical documentaries: Slums (World in Action, 1963), on slum housing in London, and Bottom of the List (1968), on racism in council house allocations in the West Midlands. Deborah found both useful for understanding today’s housing problems.
• Land justice: Land for Who?, a podcast series from Shared Assets on the land debate.
• Clean air and environment: Centric Lab.
• Health, wellbeing and environment: With Nature in Mind.
• Regeneration, retrofit, DIY urbanism and doughnut economics: CIVIC SQUARE, Birmingham.
• Black land justice: a theme Deborah recommends exploring further.

Who gets to imagine what comes next?

Our environment is changing physically, and so is what young people can now reach. AI tools, academic expertise and industry are within touching distance. The Frontiers Series exists to make sure the people most affected by change are part of designing it.

Thank you to Paulette, Deborah and everyone who joined us. Over the coming months, the series will explore life sciences, artificial intelligence, critical minerals, energy, health and future cities.