schools

Indoor air quality (IAQ) is increasingly accepted as a leading factor in human health, and the ventilation of our indoor spaces is a key modifier of IAQ as the principal means by which indoor pollutants are diluted. Knowledge of the ventilation rate is essential for understanding and modelling our indoor environment, yet quantifying the ventilation rate for regular operational spaces remains a challenge.

The BENEFIT project seeks to assess indoor environmental quality and occupant comfort in energy efficient non-domestic Irish buildings with the aim of developing ventilation guidelines for future retrofits and new builds. The project, in collaboration with SEAI’s Pathfinder programme, aims to conduct a comprehensive and scientifically robust assessment of the impacts of energy-efficient policies in non-domestic settings across Ireland, with a particular focus on newly constructed energy-efficient buildings.

Improving air quality in existing classrooms can be difficult if retrofitting a mechanical ventilation system is considered too expensive or cannot be implemented due to other reasons, e.g., heritage protection. Especially in the cold winter months, window airing initiated by pupils or teachers is often not sufficient.

Identifying factors that affect classroom concentrations of particulate matter is important for enabling effective mitigation of the associated negative health and cognitive effects, of which children can be especially susceptible. This study examines particulate matter concentrations in school classrooms from across the UK which have participated in the Schools’ Air quality Monitoring for Health and Education (SAMHE) project. Data from the 2023/2024 academic year is analysed and outdoor sources of particulate matter (PM) are shown to be a key source of PM in classrooms.

The challenges posed by climate change and related thermal discomfort in school classrooms are a worldwide challenge. Recent research indicates that numerous low energy school buildings do not comply with comfort criteria and suffer from overheating. This study aimed to determine when indoor air temperature conditions in classrooms were vulnerable to overheating risk. Secondly, quantify the contribution and correlation of outdoor air temperature and individual building features on the indoor air temperature in Irish low energy naturally ventilated schools.  

With many existing Austrian school buildings to be renovated in the coming years, there are debates between stakeholders, about which ventilation strategy to pursue in existing schools. Therefore, different intervention strategies such as retrofitting ventilation systems, installing CO₂-monitoring signals, or raising awareness among teachers and students should be evaluated. This paper presents the preliminary results of the project “DIGIdat” on air quality measurements in the first quarter of 2023.

Today, more than 26 million European children are living in unhealthy homes putting them at higher risk of experiencing health problems. Good air quality, sufficient access to daylight and adequate ventilation are important for creating a healthy indoor environment in any home, with the effects reaching far beyond childhood. Our research is based on analysis of the Eurostat microdata from the EU-wide survey “Income and Living Conditions in Europe” (EU-SILC).

Indoor environmental quality in educational buildings is recognized as a crucial aspect for the achievement of the learning outcomes for students. Nevertheless, indoor school conditions are often found unsatisfactory in several European countries, including Italy, especially as regards indoor air quality IAQ. For instance, taking CO2 concentration as IAQ indicator, the threshold of 1000 ppm is often overcome, suggesting insufficient ventilation rates.

Nowadays people spend an average of 87% of their time inside buildings. Schools are a particularly delicate type of buildings for several reasons. Firstly, their primary occupants such as children, boys and girls are more vulnerable than adults, and spend a large portion of their time in schools. Secondly, pupils, but also teachers and other school personnel have often little or no control on the indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Thirdly, school buildings are usually either old and cannot ensure an adequate IEQ (e.g.

In the UK, people spend over 90% of a day indoors. On weekdays, when outdoor air pollution concentrations peak in the morning and in the late afternoon, people are usually either in non-domestic premises or on their way to/from non-domestic premises. Therefore, establishing the distributions of indoor air pollutant concentrations in non-domestic environments is essential to model human exposure to hazardous air pollution, especially for vulnerable populations, such as schoolchildren or patients in hospitals.