Project description:

Schools represent a category of buildings in which a wide variety of activities, including very heterogeneous activities and educational functions, take place and are rapidly progressing. They differ from other types of social buildings in that the infrastructural ‘value’ and ‘quality’ of the facilities, their adaptability, connectivity and high occupancy rate have a strong impact on health, education and work profiles. In such environments, there are a number of sources of health risks for students, teaching and support staff, technicians, administrative and non-teaching staff (school staff, external workers, etc.).

Identifying and quantifying the main indoor air pollutants present in school buildings and estimating human exposure to these pollutants during the hours spent in these environments is a priority from the point of view of public health protection. Air quality in schools depends on a number of factors, including not only substances that enter classrooms from outside, but also all those compounds released by building materials, furniture, paints and cleaning products. In addition, humidity, poor ventilation and high temperatures facilitate the increase of other allergens such as dust mites, moulds and pollens, as well as causing an increase in the concentration of certain volatile chemical pollutants.

In the school year 2021/2022, Eco Research supported monitoring (and training) activities directly in the classrooms of a fifth grade class of the Istituto di Istruzione Secondaria Superiore ‘G. Galilei’ in Bolzano. The results of the study and the scientific output proved to be of particular interest and, thanks to the proactive involvement of the classes concerned, were presented directly by the students at the Ecomondo fair in Rimini in November 2022.

In the school year 2023/2024, the monitoring of several school premises was repeated by the students of a fifth class of the Liceo Scientifico E. Torricelli. The results are still being studied.

The collaboration with schools represents an important example of Citizen Science, i.e. participatory science in which researchers and citizens (in this case students who are trained to become tomorrow’s researchers, as well as teaching staff) work together to create new knowledge. The activity, carried out in particular with the Istituto G. Galilei, has been very fruitful and in the three-year period 2023-2025 we want to extend this experience also to the ‘Delai’ Technical Institute (formerly the surveyor school). The study planned for the three-year period 2023-2025 envisages broadening the spectrum of chemicals to be analysed in school environments and studying feasible solutions for improving air quality in the classroom. The course includes not only the explanation of the theoretical concepts underlying the study of air quality, but also the training of students in applied analytical techniques with a practical approach to the use of laboratory analysis instruments, so that they acquire the skills for measuring the concentration of substances found in the air and analysing the results for their objective and scientific evaluation. The study also includes the conception and design of relatively simple systems to increase air exchange in the classroom.