Abstract:

Although air quality in Europe has improved over the last decade, there are still many places where concentrations of such pollutants as particulate matter (PM) or benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) significantly exceed WHO guidelines and EU norms. Pollution with PM2,5 only was responsible for 436 000 premature deaths in EU-28 countries in 2013. As research shows, air pollution is not only a problem of large urban populations. Air within rural regions is often even more polluted, especially in the heating season. This in particular relates to such pollutants as PM and carcinogenic BaP or dioxins – as they are released when coal, wood or waste is burned in household heating appliances (European Environment Agency, 2018), (Krakowski Alarm Smogowy, 2016). One of the worst air pollution hot spots in Europe covers CEE countries, including Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania (European Environment Agency, 2018). Localities from these countries top all rankings of air pollution with PMs or benzo[a]pyrene in Europe. The main reason behind high pollution levels in CEE is reliance on solid fuels (coal, wood) for heating. The household sector constitutes the largest single source of PM10 and B[a]P emissions in the countries across the Europe. A large portion of households continue using sold fuels (low quality coal and wood) for space heating, which remain the cheapest source of heat energy. They are often mixed with waste, which significantly aggravates the problem and health effects.

The article presents the CleanAir project (www.cleanair-project.eu) which focusing on the raising awareness of rural communities about the problem of air pollution, its reasons, health effects and possible solutions that can be taken by inhabitants in order to mitigate the problem and reduce local air pollution. This objective is achieved by providing training for teachers from rural areas in the topic of air pollution and equipping them with education materials that they can use to teach their pupils and students about the problem.

Keywords:

clean air, interactive learning modules, video materials, training, curriculum, Erasmus+