What are airborne particles?

Airborne particles are tiny bits of stuff that float around in the air we breathe.

Imagine you're playing with a bag of lego bricks, some are small, some are big, and they all fall out when you shake the bag. Airborne particles are like those lego bricks, but super tiny, so tiny that you can't see them with your eyes alone. They come from different places: maybe someone sneezed near you, or a car drove by, or even dust from the floor.

Some airborne particles are good, like pollen from flowers, it helps plants make new babies. Others aren’t so great, like smoke from a fire or tiny bits of dirt from the road.

You can feel them when they tickle your nose or make you cough, especially if there's a lot of them in the air.

• Some are as small as a grain of sand
• Others are bigger than a poppy seed

They all float around until something catches them, like a blanket, a window, or even your lungs!