Citizen Science Salon is a partnership between Discover and SciStarter.org.
A few years ago, Alvaro Antonio Vanegas, a software engineer and avid cyclist, got tired of the air pollution problems in his hometown of Bogota, Colombia. He decided to join forces with an activist already researching the problem, Daniel Bernal, who he’d heard was building his own rudimentary air quality sensors and using them to track pollution at a local level.
Working together, they tapped open source software and off-the-shelf hardware to create a new kind of air quality monitor. The devices empowered citizen scientists to track air quality with cheap sensors tied to their Bluetooth-connected cell phones and home WiFi signals.
They named their project CanAirIO, from the Spanish word for canary — the proverbial bird in the coal mine that tells you if the air is safe.
