Alana’s Miss Awful Air Away Wins Traffic Pollution Competition

Alana Gove from Valley Road School has won South Oxfordshire District Council’s competition to design a Superhero for their Turn Off Your Engine campaign.

Miss Awful Air Away, Alana’s Superhero “sucks in dirty air and blows out good air. Her hands can suck in rubbish and teleport it to a rubbish bin. Her earrings suck in carbon dioxide and change it to oxygen.”

Leader of South Oxfordshire County Council, Councillor Sue Cooper surprised Alana on Monday this week in a school assembly announcing she’d won the competition and her design would be featured on posters, banners, stickers and key rings and presented her with a prize of a micro scooter and helmet.

Alana was very shocked and surprised when her name was called out in assembly.  Afterwards she said, ” I came up with the name myself.  I like drawing things and the ideas just came out of my brain when I was drawing her.  I was thinking that her ears would be really plain so I came up with the idea of the earrings sucking in carbon dioxide and changing it to oxygen.”  Her Dad said, “Winning a scooter is perfect timing as her old one is a bit too small for her.”

Cllr Cooper, said: ”Speaking to the students it was so good to see that so many children came to school by cycling or walking rather than by car.  It’s important for them to know that we should reduce polluting our atmosphere and stop wasting energy. By using cars less and by not wasting fuel or energy such as not leaving a car engine idling we can all do our bit to improve air quality and reduce pollution.”