Airpods won’t connect to my ipod. Ipod has IOS 6.1.6 and says that it up to date

In the iPod range (of Apple products) Airpods are only compatible with 6th and 7th generation models.

If your iPod is running iOS 6.1.6 then it's a 4th generation model. The reason that your iPod says it's up to date is because iOS 6.1.6 is the last version of the iOS that it can use. It isn't powerful enough to use later versions of iOS.

Your iPod Touch is now discontinued so you could no longer get the latest version. Also the Operating System or the iPod didn)t support AirPods since the iPod and the OS itself came first before the AirPods.