Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave's On the Ground Kalamazoo series.

KALAMAZOO, MI — The Institute of Public Scholarship’s Air Quality Monitoring team hosts Kick Back and Breathe on the fourth Wednesday of every month. The free event offers a welcoming space for members of the community to gather and explore an important issue: the quality of the air we breathe every day. 

Taylor ScamehornEntrypoint table with free air filters and literature on air quality safety, impacts of pollution on human health and the environment.The event offers a platform for the Institute to share findings from their research with locals, and also a chance for community members to raise questions they might have about air quality during the time of year when drifting smoke from wildfires is becoming almost as common as that of backyard barbecues and Fourth of July fireworks.

What is the Institute of Public Scholarship and its Air Quality Monitoring program?

The Institute of Public Scholarship is a local nonprofit organization that conducts research and develops policies and programs to address environmental and social issues. The Air Quality Monitoring program is one of the nine community-focused projects the institute runs as part of its mission to “elevate historically excluded voices by cultivating environments where young people, creatives, scholars, and community leaders co-create new narratives for justice and liberation.” 

Taylor ScamehornInstitute team leaders Dr. Michelle S. Johnson and Denise Miller discussing air pollution in Kalamazoo“The Institute of Public Scholarship is a nonprofit that works at the intersection of the humanities, science, and the arts, and so we have a range of programs that represent those various fields,” according to the Institute's director, Dr. Michelle Johnson. The Institute’s environmental programs include the Air Quality Monitor Program,  the Black and Brown Environmental Impact Program, the Young Scholars Youth Development Program, the Artist Production Program, and the Ampersee Home Start Initiative, to name a few.

The Air Quality Monitoring program works to collect and interpret local air quality data and to communicate its findings to the public through its website and community events like Kick Back and Breathe. Through the institute, you can sign up to host an air quality monitor on your property. All you need to have is an outdoor electric outlet and a reliable wi-fi connection. The institute also provides free air filters to help remove dust and debris inside your home; one per household can be provided upon request.

Taylor ScamehornKennedy Williams, co-lead of the Air Quality Monitoring programThe Air Quality Monitoring program specifically began as a pilot program in 2021 after questions posed by the community around the health of the air and soil around the HOTOP/Ampersee homeless encampment eventually led to the installation of air quality monitors around the city to assess for potential contaminants. At the beginning, the project only had enough funding for ten monitors, but since then, the initiative has expanded to incorporate data from a whole network of air monitors.

PurpleAir Monitors

Government agencies like the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) operate a few high tech air monitors such as one located at mayor's fairground which can provide a benchmark reading, but in general government issued air monitors are often sparse and can be prohibitively expensive to install at a wider scale. Having more monitors to collect data across different neighborhoods and types of terrain can provide a more complete picture of what’s happening in the air. 

“Our goals are to address air pollution in minority Black and Brown communities, because that is the most affected population for air pollution,” says project co-lead Reeta Chandler.

Taylor ScamehornInformation provided at the Kick Back and Breathe eventBut to get a full picture of the data, they also need to place air monitors in a variety of locations, including “near water and trees and in neighborhoods that have flourishing vegetation.”

“Hopefully we'll get monitors in every single neighborhood in Kalamazoo, but we also aim to have them anywhere in Kalamazoo County,” she said.

The Institute primarily utilizes publicly accessible data by tapping into a national network of air monitors by a for-profit company called PurpleAir to gather a more complete picture of air quality in the region. 

Taylor ScamehornGuests viewing an informational poster about asthmaAll PurpleAir monitors are part of a citizen science initiative that uses low-cost, real-time air quality monitors placed at sites across the country to measure and share data about air pollution at a hyper-local level. They use a special sensor to measure tiny airborne particles, known as PM2.5, which can include anything from dust, smoke, and soot, to pollen or minuscule drops of liquid. 

After someone installs a monitor, it is added to PurpleAir’s national network, where the information is compiled into a live map. That data is publicly accessible, and free to access, so scientists and advocates like those at the Institute of Public Scholarship, as well as everyday people looking for a reliable source of information about what's in the air around them on any given day, can use it to understand more about air quality in their communities. 

Just because the data is accessible, though, doesn’t mean it’s always easy to understand. Looking at different sources can often yield conflicting advice about what constitutes moderate or more harmful levels of pollution in the air. Dr. Binney Girdler from the Air Quality Monitoring team explained a few reasons for this confusion. One is that not all air quality monitors measure the same things.

Taylor ScamehornInstitute team member Denise Miller speaks about the impact of air quality in poor and black communities“Some metrics use only particulate matter (tiny solids that can lodge in your lungs), while others also take sulfates, nitrates, and ozone into account,” Girdler explains in an email.

“What makes matters more confusing,” she says, “is that different sites and researchers use different averaging windows! The ‘best practice’ EPA guidelines suggest eight-hour windows, but many sites use daily averages. That means if a plume of smoke comes through, it might be super unhealthy for some hours, but then those values are averaged with the previous or subsequent hours, and then things look ‘moderate.’”

If you just look at those daily averages for Kalamazoo, "it looks like we have perfect air quality. Like no one's going to have any problems, but too bad for the person that went outside on that day or over that week and breathed [those particulates] deep into their bronchi.” 

Taylor ScamehornInstitute Team members Reeta Chandler and Kennedy Williams presentingGirdler says she prefers to use a ten-minute averaging window to get a more accurate picture of what’s happening in the air at a given time.

Reviewing the cumulative data collected from a whole network of monitors over an extended period of time will help to highlight patterns or recurring trends that can be used to make long-term policy recommendations as well as more immediate suggestions to locals about when they should consider taking precautionary steps to protect themselves against poor air quality. 

Taylor ScamehornKennedy Williams presenting at a Kick Back & Breathe event.While they are still in the data collection stage of the process, Girdler says they’ve already begun to identify some specific times and events that cause spikes in air pollution levels, such as the Canadian wildfires, which blanketed Southwest Michigan skies with a grey haze of secondhand smoke in early June.

Another time of year when air pollution notably increases is around July 4th fireworks celebrations.

“The worst day of the year is 10:40 p.m. on the 4th of July,” says Girdler.“The spike at 4th of July downtown in the City of Kalamazoo is very, very discernible.”

When pollution levels do rise, you can take steps to protect yourself by shutting your windows at home, using an air filter, and wearing a face mask when you’re outdoors.

Meet the Team

The Institute’s director, Dr. Michelle Johnson, remembers being impacted by air quality from an early age. Johnson, who is also the CEO of local nonprofit Playgrown, grew up in Saginaw, Michigan.

“Almost every place that we lived, we lived either across the street, or around the corner, a block or two over from the automobile plants.”

Taylor ScamehornEntry at the Institute for Public Scholarship at its location on 313 N. Burdick StreetJohnson remembers seeing firsthand the impacts of industry on her childhood home.

“You could see the soot from the plant on the lilac tree, or our cars, or our porches, our houses,” she says.

Those early memories stuck with her, and after moving to New Mexico for a couple of years to work in the recycling industry, she returned to Michigan to pursue a PhD at the University of Michigan. As the Institute for Public Scholarship’s director, Johnson has a hand in all of their programming and describes her role as a combination of  “cheerleader and supervisor” for the institute’s many ongoing projects.

Reeta Chandler and Kennedy Williams are the Air Quality Monitoring program’s co-leads. Chandler works with the data collected from the PurpleAir monitors placed throughout the community. She helps organize the program, incorporates community feedback, and ensures that the monitoring efforts address areas of concern, especially in neighborhoods most heavily impacted by pollution. She focuses on community involvement and communicating the team's findings both to the public and to those with the power to influence policy and decision-making.

Taylor ScamehornReeta Chandler, co-lead of the Air Quality Monitoring projectWhen Williams first started at the Institute of Public Scholarship, she worked as an executive assistant before taking on the role she has now as co-lead for the Air Quality Monitoring program. Williams says that the classes she took in order to earn her environmental science degree from Western Michigan University helped root her interest in working on environmental justice issues close to home.

“I love the city. I really care about, just everybody in it. I want everybody to be happy and healthy,” she says.  Everybody should be “protected, regardless of your race, gender, you know, economic status. It's like, you're human. You get to be alive and you get to enjoy this world the way everybody does.”

Girdler’s role on the team is primarily focused on data analysis, mapping, and the other more technical aspects of air quality monitoring. She crunches the numbers to create visuals, including maps and graphs, to help community members and policymakers better understand and interpret the data the team collects. 

Taylor ScamehornLiterature on partners and work being done by the Institute of Public ScholarshipThe institute also does advocacy work around policy and provides educational opportunities, such as Kick Back and Breathe, to communicate air quality information to the wider Kalamazoo community.

For anyone interested in learning more about the institute’s work, or sharing their own questions or concerns about air quality, or about how they can get a free air purifier or host an air monitor on their property, the institute will be continuing to host Kick Back and Breathe events on the fourth Wednesday of every month. The next Kick Back and Breathe will take place on July 23rd from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at 313 N. Burdick St.