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The world is facing the problem of anthropogenic climate change and air pollution. Despite many years of development, already established methods of influencing behaviour remain ineffective. The effect of such interventions is very often a declaration of behaviour change that is not followed by actual action. Moreover, despite intensive information campaigns, many people still do not have adequate knowledge on the subject, are not aware of the problem or, worse, deny its existence. Previous attempts to introduce real change were based on providing information, persuasion or visualisation. We propose the use of multi-sensory virtual reality to investigate the problem more thoroughly and then design appropriate solutions. In this paper, we introduce a new immersive virtual environment that combines free exploration with a high level of experimental control, physiological and behavioural measures. It was created on the basis of transdisciplinary scientific cooperation, participatory design and research. We used the unique features of virtual environments to reverse and expand the idea of pollution pods by Pinsky. Instead of closing participants in small domes filled with chemical substances imitating pollution, we made it possible for them to freely explore an open environment - admiring the panorama of a small town from the observation deck located on a nearby hill. Virtual reality technology enables the manipulation of representations of air pollution, the sensory modalities with which they are transmitted (visual, auditory, tactile and smell stimuli) and their intensity. Participants’ reactions from the initial tests of the application showed that it is a promising solution. We present the possibilities of applying the new solution in psychological research and its further design and development opportunities in collaboration with communities and other stakeholders in the spirit of citizen science.

Air quality affects health and, unfortunately, has been deteriorating rapidly recently. The problem is significant in smaller towns where the important source of pollution is the heating of households and water from individual sources. Therefore, the inhabitants have an influence on a significant reduction of pollution in their area, but at the same time, they are very often not aware of it. Raising awareness about household-related air pollution plays a vital role as systemic solutions proposed by state and local authorities require the support of local communities. The situation has recently become even more serious as we are facing a crisis caused by the Russian war in Ukraine, which has led to an increase in energy and fuel prices and has postponed restrictions on the use of solid fuels or even incentives to use inferior fuels. Pathologies, such as burning garbage in old-style furnaces, have still not been eliminated. One of the ways of raising citizens’ awareness was to be public, easily accessible information about air quality. Many portals, services, and applications currently provide local air quality data, but few people use them. One reason may be that the figures and graphs can be confusing or unattractive to audiences who are not used to reading scientific reports. Visualizing air quality with augmented reality overcomes these obstacles. A mobile application that can use local elements as triggers and a symbolic representation of air quality based on data read in real-time from sensors is simple, attractive for non-experts, and has an additional educational value. We present the experience of creating such an application and prototype tests with the participation of potential users. Unfortunately, the collected results confirm the low awareness of excessive pollution in a given area and its negative impact on health. However, the interest of potential users and positive opinions about the tested prototype fill with optimism.

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