School daze! More than 53 million children and about 6 million adults spend a significant portion of their days in more than 120,000 public and private school buildings.
Many of these buildings are old and in poor condition, and may contain environmental conditions that inhibit learning and pose increased risks to the health of children and staff.
Our children's ability to learn and concentrate can be affected by environmental practices in the classroom. Below are tools for assessment and consideration.
School environmental hazards can result in:
health problems in students and staff such as asthma attacks, lead poisoning, and other chemical exposures;
productivity and performance losses in students and staff;
closures due to spills, accidents, or other preventable environmental, health and safety issues;
costly building clean-ups;
regulatory enforcement actions by state or federal agencies;
community concern and resource-draining media attention.
School resources are available online
to help schools evaluate and correct possible hazardous conditions. Healthy-Kids-Go-Green.com has compiled resources for parents and educators to easily seek out the help and information they need.
Poor indoor air quality (IAQ) is of primary concern and is considered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to be one our nations most serious health concerns.
This video clip shows an exciting outdoor classroom. Sign me up!
Have you heard of No Child Left Inside? Watch this---
Check out The Arbor Day Foundation's Poster Contest Winner for 2008. If you are a 5th grade student this year, you can enter this great contest!
How Does Indoor Air Quality Affect a Child’s Ability to Learn?
Read the following information or download this Indoor Air Quality pdf.file to share with others.
Evidence is continually emerging, showing that poor indoor air quality (IAQ) can cause illness which leads to absence from school, and can cause acute health symptoms that decrease performance while learning. In addition, recent data suggests that tasks requiring concentration, calculation, or memory may be directly effected by poor IAQ and this condition may reduce a person’s ability to perform specific mental tasks.
Air in most indoor environments contains a variety of particles and gaseous contaminants. These contaminants are commonly referred to as indoor pollutants when they affect human health and performance.
Indoor temperature and relative humidity can also affect health and performance directly, and can affect human performance indirectly by influencing the airborne level of molds.
There is also good evidence that moderate changes in room temperature, even within the comfort zone, affect children's abilities to perform mental tasks requiring concentration, such as addition, multiplication, and sentence comprehension.
Overall, warmer temperatures tend to reduce performance,
while colder temperatures reduce manual dexterity and speed.50 In general, the need to avoid extreme conditions and to provide for as much individual temperature control as possible is strongly supported.
In addition to poor indoor air quality (IAQ), a range of environmental issues can affect the classroom environment including:
Asbestos
Chemicals
Lead
Mercury
Mold and Moisture
Pests
Radon
Pound for Pound Students are More Vulnerable!
Children are far more vulnerable pound for pound than adults. They play in grassy areas and fields which may have been treated with chemicals, including dangerous toxic pesticides. They live low in classrooms and may come into contact with harsh chemicals used to clean floors, carpets and desks.
Most parents consider school a safe place. We certainly want to consider it safe! But parents may need to double check the health situation of their child’s classrooms and not be afraid to voice their concerns. This is particularly true if your child is displaying signs of chronic illness and experiencing a lot of absenteeism. Your child has a right to be safe!
Visit our
School Resources page
to find additional EPA resources for classroom evaluation, including the Healthy School Environments Assessment Tool and the Indoor Air Quality Kit.
Have you seen the Global Warming 101 website created by Arctic explorer, Will Steger? This is a great resource for the classroom! Check it out at:
Will Steger is an Arctic Explorer. Check out his website above and this video for interesting and indepth research on Global Warming's effects on the Arctic.
