Gone to Dust: Building and Deploying a Particle Sensor

Abstract:

Using an Arduino microcontroller board and a commercially available optical particle sensor, we built particulate sensors and walked them around the school to evaluate where the highest levels of particulate matter (PM) were. As part of the Earth Explorers outreach program in Boulder, Colorado, we worked with a group of middle school students to build and use these sensors. The students were in 6^th and 7^th grade, and we met three times. Once to introduce the scientist and science they will be working on, the second time to actually do the hand-on project and, finally, to review what they learned in the experiment.

Arduino is an open-source electronics platform that is simple to program, using the Arduino programming language. There are example codes available for the particle sensors and they are easy to adapt to different uses. The sensor setup is straightforward and was built into a small footprint on a plastic toy brick with a handle for easy use. We pre-loaded the Arduino board with the necessary software, but had the students wire the sensor, Arduino, indicator lights and battery together and attached them to the brick. This gave the students an opportunity to learn about electricity and wiring, in addition to air pollution.

The sensor is not calibrated or quantitative, so only qualitative data was obtained. The qualitative data, however, was sufficient to allow the students to make predictions and test their hypotheses. While most of the students predicted outside, near the parking lot would have the highest PM levels, they learned that indoor pollution can be much higher, particularly in carpeted areas.