Students at Hillcrest
Elementary in Ogden, Utah, have adopted a new program to educate students and
the community about air quality. The pilot program, which launched today,
serves as a big step in integrating environmental education into the classroom.
Students will check the air quality every morning and
then raise a flag on the flagpole in front of the school. The flag color
corresponds with the local air quality forecast. A green flag indicates good air quality. A
yellow flag means moderate quality. An orange flag warns of unhealthy air for
sensitive groups, including those people with asthma. A red flag indicates the
air quality is unhealthy fore everyone.
The
flag program was developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and is
supported by the Utah Department of Health.
“We would like to encourage
as many schools in the valley as possible to take on this program. My own kids
go to Hillcrest, so I had a vested interest there. (Principal) Eric Markworth
has been very supportive of this program,” Jaqualine Lowry, member of the Cache
Clean Air Consortium and a parte of students at Hillcrest said in an interview
with The Herald Journal. “We're looking at it as being the pilot school and
seeing what works, what doesn't work and how can we improve that through other
schools in the valley.”
The Utah Department of Health
hopes to expand the flag program to other schools in the state and expand the
program to include recess guidelines.
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