Digital canarybirds measure airquality in classrooms
By ALEXANDRA LYBAERT
Overview
Why do we breathe? Every time we breathe, 20% oxygen enters our brain. Every time we breathe, we breathe oxygen in and breathe out carbon dioxide. When many children and their teacher sit in a classroom for a long time with inadequate ventilation, soon there is not enough oxygen in the room and there is too much carbon dioxide and other pollutants, such as covid-19 in the air. Too little oxygen causes children to become drowsy and tired, have lower grades and be less concentrated. But also the chance of a kid or a teacher to infect the whole class increases. In Belgium there was a case of a superspreading event at school where one infected teacher in a classroom with a ventilation system has infected 16 out of 28 children.
That is why we have developed a CoronaBreak indicator. If the LED light is yellow , the oxygen in the classroom is approximately equal to the oxygen in the outside air. If the LED light is green, the indoor air is about the same as the outdoor air and there is a small chance of Covid-19 contamination. You can keep the classroom longer in the green zone by putting windows on tilt and the door slightly open. By doing this on opposite walls you can 15 to 40 times better create a continuous gentle breeze in the classroom. When the LED light is blue the oxygen drops rapidly and the risk of covid-19 increases. This is when it is appropriate to take a CoronaBreak. During a Coronabreak, windows and doors are opened wide. Doing this in opposite walls allows you to change the air in the classroom 15 to 40 times faster, and therefore you will have fresh air again faster. It is advisable to leave the room to limit risk of covid-19 contamination. As soon as the LED light is yellow again you may re-enter your classroom. Have you ignored the blue light then you will hear an occasional tweet gently inviting you to take a corona break. If you have ignored both the blue light and the tweet(s), the LED light will turn red and an alarm will sound. Then you must evacuate. This will not only prevent Covid-19, but also other infections.
To attract the children’s attention and have them actively engaged in monitoring the air, 4 high-quality processors are hidden in a digital canary that was baptized LittleLilly. The LittleLilly continuously sends the measurements to both the screen in the classroom , so that the teacher can toggle between less plan and the graph , and to the prevention advisor.
Because of this, the LittleLilly has an impact on 3 levels
1) Management and parents and teachers, have peace of mind that the light stays in green and blue
2) Teachers, they integrate the LittleLilly in their educational programs.
example1: the children stand around the LittleLilly and are quiet, talking and singing. So they see that with more activity, much more CO2 is released and also COVID-19 risk rises faster.
example2: The children experiment with windows and doors in different positions themselves and follow the result of their experiment live on the smartboard ( learning by doing)
example 3 : The children learn how a graph is constructed point by point ‘ living graph’
example 4: to our surprise even toddler can interprete the graphs and they love it, it will be interesting to see if this will lead to more girls and boys that are attracted to STEM education
3) Prevention Advisor gets active collaboration from teachers and kids to keep the indoor air healthy. Because in addition to CO2 and covid-19, there are many other harmful substances in the classroom including Volatile organic compounds from board markers, building materials, paints, furniture, plastic. Proper ventilation keeps children healthy and also gives them a better chance of growing old healthy later on.
In all nursery and elementary school of Beringen, a former mining village in Belgium and in all nursery and elementary schools of the SGPIT school group in Beringen and surroundings, 2 swarms of 30 LittleLillys descended. Since the schools does not yet have enough budget to permanently install a LittleLilly in every classroom, they work with measuring campaigns of 2 weeks. The teaching packages are already partially available but ideally they should be adapted to each age group and link to STEM, mathematics, biology, health, link with climate change and air pollution outside, healthy coming to school etc.
The birds are partly financed by the school and partly they received a donation from the local Rotary club.
In the implementation in other schoolgroups we learned that it is important that this is supported by the school management and teachers, that there is IT support, and that the project is led by the prevention advisor in close consultation with educational coordinators.
The results are very positive and important insights have already been discovered. For example, that it is especially difficult in kindergarten classes to stay in the blue. With dances and songs, windows and doors are already opened preventively. Or that it is neccessary to also open a door in the corridor to ensure fresh outdoor air can enter the classroom via minimal two openings.
The LittleLilly’s get their own nest in the classroom, and also travel with a logbook in which the most important findings are shared. After a stay in the classroom , a diploma with key learnings is hung up in the classroom and the children already look forward to the next visit.
Because the LittleLilly’s come down in swarms, the entire school community is heavily involved in monitoring and managing air quality. Moreover, the children often watch how the LittleLilly’s are doing in other classes, so that cooperation is encouraged.
The investment in a CO2 and airquality system is considerable less then in a ventilation system, with proven superior results. Moreover installing and maintaining ventilation systems takes time and money, filters need to be replaced often and tubes need to be cleaned as well regulary. Studies have indiced the latter often also fails in school , so air quality can become even worse over time. Moreover ventilation systems are often installed in school that receive more funds leading to inequality. If you taken the educational benefits into account , it becomes an educational ressource instead of a building maintenance. It can be adapted to age groups, but also regional educational focus, although I beleive there would be a great benefit of creating and sharing crowdsourced educational material globally that starts from measurements with LittleLilly. This can help to spread the idea that the air that we breathe locally is the same air as what other people breath in other areas of the world. I did a test by connection on primary school in Belgium with one in Finland, exchanging there experiments and results by skype. The finisse school told us they had to be broken down because it was built so airtight for saving energy they couldn’t manage to breath clean and fresh air.
Looking for educationals partners and funding charities to scale up locally and internationally , learning people how to ventilate is not only best prevention for covid-19 also for general health as indoor air is often even worse then outdoor airpollution, although they are interlinked . That is why with my students I also did science projects on healthy energy and healthy hydrogen.
DREAM : quickly make from my small scale citizen project a global citizen science project on airquality making it personal , relevant and accionable, to learn people how to ventilate and take coronabreaks to prevent covid-19 spread and for health promotion + explaining why too much outside CO2 makes it difficult to keep inside CO2 low and is linked to airpollutioin ( link with global warming and clean air)
Expected Impact
- Children are less tired and feel less drousy
- Better concentration / easier to teach
- Improved cognitive performance ( cfr Havard studies) / better grades
- Teacher have also less traditional cold, flue, infections
- Childern are more motivated to learn ( intrinsic motivation increases, relevant education )
- Better compliance of managing CO2 levels below 800 PPM ( parts per million) in more classrooms
- in the pilots with 100 LittleLilly’s we had zero covid-19 contaminations
- During Coronabreaks children move , with all health effects and also positive effects on their cognitive performance, weight
- Children learn about importance of ventilation for brain en health prevention and take this learnings home
Adopt & Adapt
The birds are partly financed by the school and partly they received a donation from the local Rotary club.
In the implementation in other schoolgroups we learned that it is important that this is supported by the school management and teachers, that there is IT support, and that the project is led by the prevention advisor in close consultation with educational coordinators.
The results are very positive and important insights have already been discovered. For example, that it is especially difficult in kindergarten classes to stay in the blue. With dances and songs, windows and doors are already opened preventively. Or that it is neccessary to also open a door in the corridor to ensure fresh outdoor air can enter the classroom via minimal two openings.
The LittleLilly’s get their own nest in the classroom, and also travel with a logbook in which the most important findings are shared. After a stay in the classroom , a diploma with key learnings is hung up in the classroom and the children already look forward to the next visit.
Because the LittleLilly’s come down in swarms, the entire school community is heavily involved in monitoring and managing air quality. Moreover, the children often watch how the LittleLilly’s are doing in other classes, so that cooperation is encouraged.