Atmos Nairobi

Air and Waste: A Free Lesson Pack for Kenyan Schools

Three 40-minute lessons for upper primary and junior secondary. CBC-aligned. Print this pack and use as-is, or adapt freely.

Teacher note for the whole pack: keep the tone curious and practical, not frightening. The message is that air can be measured, understood, and improved, and that pupils can be part of improving it. Avoid framing any reading as a danger to the class; frame high readings as a problem the school and community can act on.

Why This Pack Exists

The Sustainable Waste Management Act, 2022 (Cap. 387C) requires it. Section 34, "Integrating waste management into school curricula," states: "The Cabinet Secretary shall, in consultation with the Cabinet Secretary responsible for matters relating to education and the Authority, develop a curriculum on sustainable waste management within one year of the coming into operation of this Act." Waste and its effects on air and health are not an add-on to what Kenyan schools teach. The law says they belong in the classroom.

There is also a reason this pack can be built today, in your own compound. Nairobi County runs a public network of air quality sensors, and dozens of the stations sit inside school grounds and clinics across the city, from Tumaini Primary to Kasarani Primary to St. Mary's Primary. Readings are free and public at airquality.nairobi.go.ke. That means many schools do not need to imagine air pollution as a distant problem. They can read a real number, from a sensor on their own compound, in the time it takes to open a browser tab.

This pack turns that number into three lessons. It uses only what an ordinary Kenyan school already has: a chalkboard or exercise books, and, where possible, one phone to check a website. Nothing here requires special equipment, a lab, or a budget line. It is built to be photocopied, adapted, translated, and handed to another teacher without asking anyone's permission.

It complements, rather than repeats, the environmental theme-packs already produced by organisations such as Eco-Schools Kenya, which cover water, waste, energy, biodiversity, and agriculture in general terms. This pack's specific contribution is narrow and local: it uses live sensor data from the school's own grounds and neighbourhood, so the lesson is not generic, it is about this school's air, this term.

How to use this pack: teach the three lessons in order over three weeks, or space them out across a term. Lesson 3 depends on a two-week logging period, so plan for that before you start.

Lesson 1: What Are We Breathing?

Objective: By the end of the lesson, learners should be able to explain what PM2.5 is, read their own school's (or nearest) air quality reading, and compare it to the World Health Organization's health guideline.

Materials: Chalkboard or flip chart. Exercise books. One phone or any internet-connected device (optional but recommended, can be the teacher's). Printed copy of this lesson if no device is available.

Step-by-step activity

1. (5 min) Ask learners: "What is in the air we breathe, that we cannot see?" Take answers. Write "dust," "smoke," "exhaust" on the board as they come up.
2. (5 min) Introduce PM2.5: tiny dust particles, so small that 2.5 of them side by side would not cross the width of a human hair. They are small enough to enter the lungs and, over time, the bloodstream. PM2.5 is measured in micrograms per cubic metre of air, written µg/m³.
3. (10 min) Introduce the WHO guideline: the World Health Organization says a healthy daily average for PM2.5 is under 15 µg/m³. Write this number on the board and keep it there for the rest of the lesson.
4. (10 min) If your school hosts a Nairobi County air sensor, or you know one nearby, look it up together: go to airquality.nairobi.go.ke, or use the lookup tool at atmosnairobi.github.io/school-lookup.html to search for your school by name. Read out the current PM2.5 number. If no device is available, use this printed reference instead: as of a snapshot taken 5 July 2026, schools such as Tumaini Primary, Woodley Secondary, and Kasarani Primary recorded PM2.5 readings between 47.8 and 81.0 µg/m³, all several times above the WHO guideline of 15.
5. (5 min) Compare: is today's reading above or below 15? By how many times? (Simple division: reading ÷ 15.)
6. (5 min) Discuss: what would explain a high reading near a school? Take answers (traffic, burning, dust, weather). Do not resolve this yet; it sets up Lesson 2.

Lesson 2: Where Does Smoke Come From?

Objective: By the end of the lesson, learners should be able to name common sources of smoke near their school, state that open waste burning is illegal in Kenya, and identify the gap between the law and everyday practice.

Materials: Chalkboard. Exercise books (each learner needs a blank page to sketch a simple map). Pencils or pens. No phone or internet required.

Step-by-step activity

1. (5 min) Recap Lesson 1's closing question: what might explain a high PM2.5 reading? Guide the discussion toward burning as one major source.
2. (10 min) Teach the law plainly: under the Environmental Management and Co-ordination Act (EMCA), section 87, open burning of waste is prohibited. It is not a grey area or a matter of local custom; it is against the law everywhere in Kenya, including in residential areas and near schools.
3. (15 min) Map exercise: each learner draws a simple sketch map of the area between their home and school (or just the area around the school compound). On the map, they mark any spot where they have seen or smelled rubbish being burned; this can include roadside heaps, market waste, or a neighbour's yard. Learners work individually or in pairs.
4. (5 min) Share out: ask two or three learners to describe one marked spot each. As a class, count how many different burning spots the class identified in total.
5. (5 min) Discuss the gap: if burning is illegal, why does it still happen near so many homes and schools? Guide toward answers like: few people know the law, collection services are unreliable or absent, and enforcement is rare. Emphasise that this is a real gap between what the law says and what happens, not a reason to think the law does not matter.

Lesson 3: Class Science: Our Air Diary

Objective: By the end of the two-week activity, learners should be able to collect and record a simple daily air quality log, represent the data as a graph, and interpret a pattern in the data.

Materials: A logbook or exercise book kept in the classroom. One phone or device to check the sensor reading each day (can be shared with the whole school). Squared paper or a simple hand-drawn grid for graphing. Ruler.

Step-by-step activity

Session 1 (40 min, set-up):

1. (10 min) Explain the task: for the next two weeks, the class will keep a daily "Air Diary." Each morning, one assigned learner (rotate the job daily or weekly) checks the school's sensor reading at airquality.nairobi.go.ke or atmosnairobi.github.io/school-lookup.html and records: the date, the PM2.5 number, and a one-word weather note (dry, rainy, windy, still).
2. (10 min) Add a second column: "Smoke observed?" Learners note yes or no, and where, if they smell or see burning on the way to school or during the day.
3. (10 min) Rule up the logbook together as a class so the format is consistent. Assign the first few days' recorders.
4. (10 min) Introduce the mystery to think about during the two weeks: in many Nairobi neighbourhoods, air quality readings are worst between about 10 p.m. and 2 a.m., a pattern that does not match daytime traffic. Ask learners to think about what could cause bad air mostly at night, and to note any early-morning smoke smell they notice on their way to school (which could be leftover from night-time burning).

(Two weeks pass; the class keeps the daily log.)

Session 2 (40 min, after two weeks):

5. (15 min) As a class, transfer the two weeks of PM2.5 numbers onto a simple bar or line graph: days along the bottom, PM2.5 reading up the side. Draw a horizontal line at 15 µg/m³ to mark the WHO guideline, so learners can see at a glance which days crossed it.
6. (10 min) Discuss the graph: which day was highest? Lowest? Did smoke observations line up with high readings?
7. (10 min) Return to the night-time mystery: explain that this pattern (worse air late at night, roughly 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.) matches when open burning is hardest to see and least likely to be reported, since most people are asleep. Discuss as a class why burning at night might be harder to catch and report than burning during the day.
8. (5 min) Wrap up: ask learners what one thing their two-week diary shows that a single day's reading could not have shown.

Teacher's Back Page

Bad-Air-Day Protocol (Quick Reference)

Your school's sensor reading, read at airquality.nairobi.go.ke, tells you what to do that day.

Where to Report Burning

Open burning of waste is illegal under EMCA section 87. If you see or smell burning near the school, report it to the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA):

• Email: incidence@nema.go.ke
• Or use the free complaint helper, which writes the report for you: atmosnairobi.github.io/complaint-helper.html
• Phone: 0786 101 100

Include the location, the time, and a photo if it is safe to take one.

Two Habits That Make This Work

Assign one staff member to check the school's sensor reading each morning at assembly time; it takes about 30 seconds on any phone. Keep a simple log of red days in the school diary; a pattern of red days over a term is exactly the evidence a school board or a county representative should see.

Prepared from public data by Atmos Nairobi (atmosnairobi.github.io). Copy freely.