Hi @klodes
On the PurpleAir map, you can have your students navigate to the configuration menu and increase the “averaging period” setting. By default, this is 10-minutes.
However, there are limits to what is available on the map, and raising the “averaging period” will give you a longer average. A “1-hour” average will provide approximately 14 days of 1 hour averages, while a 6-hour average provides 90 days of 6 hour averages.
Given that your students are looking to get readings from a short lived event, those readings might not be appropriately reflected in 6-hour averages. If this is the case, they’ll have to query the API. If raising the averaging period doesn’t work for your use, please let us know. We would be happy to walk you through getting the data through the API.