Indoor Air Quality in Academic Settings

How Pollutants Affect Students and Staff

Nowhere in America are school buildings free from contaminants that have the potential to cause indoor air pollution. Whether it be germs from sick preschoolers, pollen drifting into a portable elementary school classroom, mold growing in a high school locker room, or fume emissions from a chemical experiment in a college laboratory, impurities can exist anywhere. Though common, pollutants can cause significant problems for staff and students if measures are not taken to provide clean, fresh air.

Those Affected

The American Lung Association estimates that one out of every five Americans spend their days inside a school building. This includes students, faculty, and staff at learning institutions ranging from small, neighborhood nursery schools to large state universities and everything in between. Everyone studying, working, or participating in extra-curricular activities has a right to clean air while on school property.

If IAQ (indoor air quality) is poor, students’ health and ability to learn will be vulnerable. Similarly, indoor pollutants can pose an occupational risk to those who work in academic settings.

Where Pollution Resides

Schools face unique challenges in providing healthy indoor air. Academic buildings are usually crowded places and often provide multiple uses of spaces, including classrooms, cafeterias, gyms, studios, and laboratories meaning, there are many potential sources of pollutant emissions.

It is not only large numbers of people within close distances that can create a less-than-ideal IAQ, but the activities within academic buildings themselves.

Here is just a sampling of academic building locations where air quality can be compromised:

Athletic centers
Locker rooms and gymnasiums
Laboratories
Art studios
Science classrooms
Agricultural buildings, greenhouses
Storage rooms

Additional Risks

Beyond health complications and diminished learning and working environments, inhaling indoor pollution in school buildings can create additional problems, such as:

Increased school liability
Potential for community mistrust
Negative publicity
Impact on student attendance and performance
Reduction in faculty and staff attendance and performance
Increased potential for site closures
Reduction in site use and efficiency

How to Remedy Poor Indoor Air Quality

Most schools have their own set of standards to maintain air quality on their premises, such as routine maintenance of HVAC systems and proper ventilation. To improve existing IAQ measures, the EPA recommends a multi-layered approach that can include air cleaning, filtration, and source control. As such, schools can, where space and funding allow, add portable HEPA filtration products – such as our Extract-All® AMB1 Portable Air Purifier – to their existing IAQ protocols.

Our portable HEPA filtration air cleaning systems come in three different models, with filtration and recirculation capabilities ranging in room sizes as small as your typical classroom to multi-use areas up to 2000 sq. ft. At AIRSInc, we serve our customers who work in school environments by providing indoor air quality management solutions in addition to stellar IAQ products. Contact us today for a free air quality assessment with one of our skilled and experienced indoor environmental specialists.