Clean Air Carnival
14th June 2023
On Thursday June 8th, we held a Clean Air Carnival, as the culmination to our Spring Science Fest!
Hundreds of children from local schools came to Lambeth’s Elmgreen School to explore a wonderful world of clean air. They took part in the many clean air-related activities we provided, including a science trail, drawing lungs with street artists and learning about the power of their lungs from a brass orchestra, with the musicians showing the children how to harness their puff and make some noise.
“ It truly was an inspirational event. Very heart warming indeed.”
ScienceFest!
The carnival was the culmination of our ScienceFest, a collaboration between schools and scientific institutions exploring the impact and effects of air pollution, and what we can do to reduce it.
We were really pleased to see how much the children were interested in the science trail, a quiz that helped flesh out the issues around air pollution and lung health. They loved it so much that we had to quickly make more copies! Dr Ian Mudway from Imperial College and Dr Rosamund Dove from the Queen Mary University of London CHILL Pollution study were on hand to give information about air pollution and our health.
And we were visited by The Smogmobile, a zero-emission, mobile air quality monitoring laboratory fitted with next-generation, state-of-the-art instruments. Thanks to Asthma and Lung UK and Let’s Go Zero for inspiring and educating us all at their stands.
“What a wonderful burst of joy the event was!”
Bikes, bubbles, music, art and ice cream
Children and adults alike were excited to try out the bikes, whether that was with the Herne Hill Velodrome coaches helping young children to cycle, or PeddleMyWheels hiring electric bikes to teachers and school staff and OurBike UK running cargo bike test rides.
In between eating amazing ice cream from The Sicilian’s ice cream bike the children enjoyed being shown how to spray chalk the road and pavement by Linett Kamala of Lin Kam Art.
All this happened whilst surrounded by bubbles from the world’s tallest bubbleologist, beats from the Thornton Heath Afrobeats Orchestra, and harmonies from Zoie and the singers from the South London Singing Mamas group!
Children’s air pollution questions answered
Children also had the chance to pose their air pollution questions to Helen Hayes MP, Rezina Chowdhury, Lambeth’s Cabinet Member for Sustainable Lambeth and Clean Air and Catherine Rose, Southwark’s Cabinet Member for Leisure, Parks, Streets and Clean Air. They very much enjoyed holding the mic and grilling our local policy makers!
Thank you!
Many thanks to all who volunteered to make this event such an amazing success, from the people running the squash and biscuit stall, to those who stuck stickers onto bubble bottles, to everyone helping the children with the science trail. We couldn’t have done it without you! Extra special thanks go to all at Elmgreen School, who have been so helpful and accommodating over the last few months.