HalesAir Digital Air Quality Monitoring
T Level students building, deploying, and analysing real environmental sensors around Halesowen College.
About the Project
HalesAir is a seven-month STEM partnership project bringing together Halesowen College's Digital T Level (Data Analytics) programme, supported by James Williams (Research Fellow, University of Nottingham) as STEM Partner, to investigate long-term air quality in the Halesowen area.
Students take ownership of every stage: building and programming Raspberry Pi Pico W sensor units, selecting deployment sites around the college, collecting and cleaning data, building visualisations, and ultimately presenting evidence-based recommendations to local stakeholders and community groups.
Academic mentorship is provided through a STEM Partner embedded in the college, guiding students in data science methodology, statistical analysis, and science communication.
Project Phases
From concept to community impact — five stages, January to July 2026
Students design sensor enclosures and plan deployment sites around the college.
Assembling Raspberry Pi Pico W devices with BME680 environmental sensors.
Installing monitoring units at locations around Halesowen College.
Collecting and interpreting real-time air quality data over seven months.
Presenting findings via interactive dashboards to local stakeholders.
What We Measure
The Waveshare BME680 sensor captures four key environmental parameters.
early deaths every year in the UK linked to air pollution.
No hyper-local air quality monitoring data exists for Halesowen. The students at Halesowen College are collecting it.
Source: Royal College of Physicians, 2016 "Every Breath We Take"
Partnership & Funding
This project is funded by a £3,000 educational grant and delivered through collaboration between Halesowen College and Dr James Williams as STEM Partner.
This project was initiated by Dr James Williams during his time as Lecturer in Computer Science at Birmingham Newman University, and continues under his current position as Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham. Dr Williams participates as STEM Partner — a technical advisory and mentorship role — with Halesowen College leading all delivery.