Playing outside, practicing sports, riding bicycles, and hiking on trails are a few of the activities highlighted in artwork Santa Barbara County students submitted for the Air Pollution Control District’s inaugural art contest.
“It’s a way to bring awareness of the importance of clean air in our community and the progress we’ve made,” Air Pollution Control District Public Information Officer Lyz Bantilan said. “I think, for kids, it’s great for them to know the little things they can do make a difference, and that applies to air quality—like riding their bike or walking to school, if they can safely.”
Those individual adjustments can really add up quickly and help maintain Santa Barbara County’s positive progress toward strong air quality, she said. In its 50 years of operation, the Air Pollution Control District has seen ozone readings go down despite an increase in population.
“That’s a big deal. There’s a lot of counties that have made a lot of progress, but they are still working on those goals. But our county has made a lot of headway on that front,” Bantilan said. “This has been a joint collective effort of a lot of people, partners, and businesses and agencies.”
The art contest is meant to get students to think about air quality and why it’s important to them. Students can submit a drawing, painting, or a collage, which will be judged by Air Pollution District employees. Students will be divided by school category (elementary, middle, and high school) and can earn prizes, including a $100 gift card for first place, $75 for second, and $50 for third, art supplies, and an air purifier.
Winning artwork will be displayed at the district’s offices, including the new Santa Maria office off McCoy Lane. About a dozen students have submitted artwork so far, and Bantilan is hoping for more submissions before the Dec. 20 deadline.
“We want to give a lot of leeway, two-dimensional art is preferred—that could be digital art, drawings, paintings. … The student art contest needs to be family-friendly and nonpartisan,” she added.
This isn’t the only way the Air Pollution Control District works with the county’s student population. In spring 2019, it launched the Clean Air Ambassadors program, which brings undergraduate college students from around the county to local classrooms where they teach students between kindergarten and third grade about pollution and environmental protection—modeled after a similar program in neighboring SLO County and Cal Poly.
“We train college-age students to go into classrooms and teach air-quality themed lessons, … and that’s been a really fun and really impactful program over the last two years,” Bantilan said.
Lessons start with Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax to demonstrate how air pollution can affect people and the environment, then they step into learning about air filters and how children can be more sensitive to pollution and look at air quality monitoring to see how the district measures what’s in the air. This contest can hopefully be another way to reach younger demographics.
“I think we’d like to see what comes next from the submissions of this [art contest], and this will inspire future iterations of this one, but we are excited to showcase it in our offices so it can be shared even more broadly,” Bantilan said.
Submit artwork electronically to apcd@ourair.org. Visit ourair.org/art-contest for more information on required file size submissions, file types, and the rules. Winners will be announced early 2025.
Highlight
• Hundreds of volunteers are needed on Jan. 22 from 5:30 to 9 a.m. for the countywide 2025 Homeless Point-In-Time Count—the annual count of individuals and families experiencing homelessness on a given day. The count put on by the Santa Maria/Santa Barbara County Continuum of Care (CoC), in partnership with the county and The Santa Barbara Alliance for Community Transformation. Teams of volunteers will canvass assigned routes throughout Santa Barbara County and will briefly document who is experiencing homelessness. This information is used to plan local homeless assistance systems, justify funding, and raise public awareness. All volunteers are required to complete a one-hour training session where they will learn about the importance of the count, review canvassing best practices, explore the Point-In-Time survey tool, and go through frequently asked questions. Online trainings are offered between Jan. 14 and 17. Only one training is required. Sign up to volunteer at countyofsb.pointintime.info. Volunteers can register as individuals or in teams until Jan. 17. Email pit@sbact.org for Spanish training by Jan. 13.
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor at toconnor@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 12-22, 2024.