C&EN Uncovered: Indoor air monitoring goes to school

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Craig Bettenhausen: Craig,
welcome to CNN uncovered. I'm

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Craig Bettenhausen. CNN
uncovered is a podcast series

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from stereo chemistry. In each
episode, we'll take another look

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at a recent cover story in
chemical and Engineering News

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and hear from CNN reporters
about striking moments from the

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reporting, their biggest
takeaways and what got left on

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the cutting room floor at the
beginning of the COVID 19

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pandemic. One of the chief
concerns was how to get children

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back in schools safely once
health officials publicly

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accepted that the virus was
primarily transmitted through

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the air, schools made concerted
efforts to monitor and improve

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the air quality in their
classrooms to make them safe for

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students. In a story that
appeared in the September 2

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print issue of CE and today's
guest looked at ongoing programs

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in Colorado and Massachusetts
designed to help schools

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identify, monitor and mitigate
air quality issues in their

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classrooms. We'll put a link to
the story in today's show notes.

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I'm here with CNN assistant
editor Fiona Samuels, who wrote

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the article. Hello, Fiona, Hi.
Thanks for having me. So for

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anyone that hasn't had a chance
to read the story yet, can you

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give a brief recap of what's in
the article?

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Fionna Samuels: Essentially, I
talked to two researchers who

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are continuing to do indoor air
quality monitoring programs with

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schools in Colorado and Boston,
Massachusetts, and then sort of

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tied it all together with a
little bit about the ongoing

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sorts of pushing for regulations
that's happening across the

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country,

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Craig Bettenhausen: and what
attracted you to this as a story

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topic,

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Fionna Samuels: I think that I,
like many other people, got very

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concerned about the indoor air
quality around me during the

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COVID pandemic, and I knew that
Mark Hernandez, one of the

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researchers that I talked to,
started working with schools

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during the COVID 19 pandemic,
and I was really interested in

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following up and seeing where
that research was now. And it

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turned out that they basically
have finished installing indoor

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air quality monitors across
Colorado, and now they're really

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digging into how indoor air
quality might be affecting

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absenteeism. And from him, I
learned that there's other

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programs in other places in the
country, like the one in Boston,

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which sort of led me on to talk
to Patricia Fabien. And then

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again, I wanted to know what the
state of regulation was, which

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is when I talked to the EPA
folks. So the

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Craig Bettenhausen: COVID 19
pandemic was the catalyst for

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all this monitoring. How has
that evolved now that we're

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settling into something like a
new normal?

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Fionna Samuels: The major point
is just because COVID 19 sort of

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put a focus on indoor air
quality, that doesn't mean that

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indoor air quality has improved
since then. Indoor air quality

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has always been important, and
it's just that the pandemic sort

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of spotlighted that importance
for the general public. Now I

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feel like the focus has really
shifted towards sort of the idea

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that indoor air quality more
generally is important to

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monitor and improve, rather than
sort of hyper fixating on COVID

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specifically.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So what
steps did schools take to

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improve air quality in the
classroom? In

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Fionna Samuels: Colorado, across
the state, schools have

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installed HEPA filters, portable
HEPA filters, as well as indoor

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air quality monitors. And then
in Boston, specifically, in that

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one school district, schools
have done the same thing. And

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this is not unique to Colorado
or Boston. There are other

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schools in the country who are
installing or the districts are

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installing, air quality monitors
and HEPA filters. One thing that

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didn't make it into the story
was that in the middle of the

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pandemic, at the height of the
pandemic, schools had a lot of

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funding to improve indoor air
quality, and what ended up

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happening is that companies sold
indoor air purifiers that were

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not actually effective. There's
been some litigation surrounding

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that sort of exchange of money
for ineffective indoor air

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purifiers, but HEPA filters do
work. HEPA filters and

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ventilation are the two big
trends. So just getting the air

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that's inside out and exchanging
inside air for outside air if

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the outside air is clean.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So Mark
Hernandez's team in Colorado set

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up monitoring systems with the
air purifiers. What were they

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measuring? Exactly?

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Fionna Samuels: In Colorado,
they measure temperature,

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humidity, VOCs, carbon dioxide
and particulate matter, but they

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have measured particulate matter
in two sizes. They do pm 2.5 and

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pm 10. So that's particulate
matter that is smaller than 2.5

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micrometers in diameter, and
particles that are smaller than

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10 micrometers in diameter,
those have slightly different

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health effects, but both of them
are not good for you,

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Craig Bettenhausen: for vs.
These again, where do these

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pollutants come from? Especially
in the home,

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Fionna Samuels: vocs can come
from a lot of places. It's

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actually very interesting and a
really broad area of research

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for indoor air chemistry. Vocs
come off your skin. They come

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off of your cleaning products.
So anything that smells that's

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like a voc. So if you have a
really pungent perfume. That's a

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voc. I had some friends who were
atmospheric chemists, and they

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were doing some indoor air
quality monitoring at Colorado

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State University. One of the
researchers had to be told to

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stop wearing such pungent
sunscreen, because the sunscreen

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was showing up in their data.
Easy answer is, anything that

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smells is probably a voc. Not
all of them are, you know,

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terrible for you, obviously.

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Craig Bettenhausen: As a side
note, when I was reading the

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story, I loved coming across the
term DAB pens and see any you

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know, cannabis is becoming more
mainstream every year, but it's

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still surreal for me to hear
that sort of thing discussed

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openly. Well, that

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Fionna Samuels: was something
that Mark said. He said that

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they can always see when the
students are smoking anything,

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and I guess students or
teachers, when anyone is smoking

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anything in the building that
shows up. So I guess, don't

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smoke around indoor air
monitors. You're trying to be

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sneaky.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So what are
the negative consequences that

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can arise from from not doing a
good job at this, from not

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having good air quality?

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Fionna Samuels: There's a lot. I
mean, the obvious one is

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increasing respiratory disease.
We all experienced that with

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COVID. I guess one thing that is
important to highlight with this

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is that there's not so many
standards yet. So, for example,

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there's not a standard for what
bad levels of CO two means

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there's not a number. But
something that Patricia Fabian

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brought up was that during the
pandemic, there was this idea

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that 1000 ppm of CO two so 1000
parts per million of carbon

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dioxide, meant that you were
more likely to get COVID. But

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that doesn't totally make sense,
because if you're standing next

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to someone with COVID, you're
probably going to catch it,

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regardless of what the
concentration of carbon dioxide

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is when we're talking about,
like, what are the negative

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consequences of bad indoor air?
There's not enough research at

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this point, really, to say
anything more than you know, you

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don't want to be in a space
where there's a bunch of virus

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particles. You don't want to be
in a space where there's

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potential carcinogens that are
floating around in the air. You

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don't want to be in a space
that's full of smoke or

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particulate matter that can get
down in your lungs and cause

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pulmonary issues. But beyond
that, there's not a lot of

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concrete numbers. Can't say it's
safe to be in a space that's

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less than 100 or 1000 ppm of CO
two, right?

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Craig Bettenhausen: So we've
talked a fair amount about

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Colorado already, but you also
talked to folks in Boston. How

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is the program different there,
and what's the status?

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Fionna Samuels: The biggest
difference is that the general

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public can actually access all
of the air quality monitoring

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data in Boston, whereas in
Colorado, as far as I can tell,

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that's sort of privately held
for the schools to access, but

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not necessarily the public. The
other thing is that Boston

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doesn't measure VOCs. They
measure carbon monoxide, and the

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reason they measure carbon
monoxide it's just because

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that's a super dangerous gas.
But other than that, they're

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very similar. You know, the
researchers are trying to help

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interpret data for the school
districts, and in both cases,

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there's a really big push to
inform the school districts

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before potentially informing the
public. For Boston Public

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Schools, you can go and see how
the indoor air is in every

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single school in that district.

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Craig Bettenhausen: Yeah, the
transparency is really

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interesting, a plug for your
story. Again, at the bottom, you

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have a link to this tool, and
you can, just like, zoom right

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in. It's a map, and it has the
numbers right there in Boston,

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in Boston, yeah, at the same
time, raw data can be scary,

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especially for parents that
might not have a scientific

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background. How good a job are
the schools doing at putting the

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context out with the data?

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Fionna Samuels: The point is
that this resource is there so

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that parents who are involved
can sort of push the school to

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act on it. It's a really good
resource for building managers.

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But like you're saying, building
managers are going to have to

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have some level of understanding
of how to read graphs, which

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might be challenging, but I
think that there is, I mean, the

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scientists that I talk. To were
very enthusiastic about trying

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to inform and help in any way
they could in terms of teaching

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people how to use these tools,
people being the school

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administrators, the building
managers and everyone who's sort

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of involved in keeping the
building safe.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So what has
been the overall effect of the

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Purifiers in the Colorado pilot
program? The

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Fionna Samuels: overall effect
of the Purifiers seems to be

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that they very effectively
remove particulate matter. And

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there's a there's a significant
difference before and after the

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Purifiers are used. More
importantly, again, is the

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ventilation the indoor air
purifiers are an important

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aspect of the story, but
probably the more important

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piece is the monitoring, because
with the monitoring, Mark and

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Patricia can both say pretty
confidently that ventilation

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makes a difference, or This
purifier is making a difference.

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Without the monitoring, we would
have no idea. My sort of

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interpretation is that, yes, the
technologies to clean the air

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are good and helpful, but more
important is to monitor

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everything so that you can
actually see if they're good and

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helpful, rather than not good.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So another
person in your story is Patricia

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Fabian at Boston University. Can
you talk about their work?

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Fionna Samuels: So Boston Public
School District installed a

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bunch of monitors in their
schools, as well as filters, and

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Patricia saw in a news article
somewhere that all of this

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monitoring was happening and she
really wanted to get involved in

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analyzing that data. And so her
whole focus is taking the data

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from the monitors and basically
digesting it into something that

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is able to be used by the
schools and the administrators,

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building managers, whomever, to
basically get more funding to

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address specific problems at
those schools and to identify

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the problem areas so that things
can be fixed in a way that makes

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the most sense, basically
triaging the worst case rooms

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first, rather than focusing on
ones that are fine. Yeah,

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Craig Bettenhausen: that's an
interesting nuance in your story

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to talk about how even within
the same school building,

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sometimes there were one
classroom that was great in one

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classroom that was in a real
rough state. So

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Fionna Samuels: that variability
is why she thinks that it's

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really important to put a
monitor into every single

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classroom and every single
really important space so they

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have it in the nurse's office
and the administrative offices.

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In Colorado, they don't put them
in every single classroom, but

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in both cases, you can see
variability based on what

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Patricia was saying. Like you
can literally see one classroom

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is much warmer than the
classroom next door.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So when I
think of air quality, one of the

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first entities I think about, is
the EPA, but the EPA hasn't been

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able to step in yet. Why is
that?

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Fionna Samuels: They don't have
any regulatory power in indoor

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spaces. So we have the Clean Air
acts for outdoor spaces, where

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the EPA can do some regulating,
but there's no sorts of

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regulatory power for indoor
spaces. And I mean, I would

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assume it's because indoor is
considered private. I see that

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might change, though, yeah,

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Craig Bettenhausen: I was gonna
say because your article

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mentioned that there's some
legislation in the works that

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could change, that the

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Fionna Samuels: legislation
that's in the works is basically

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focusing on trying to basically
enable regulatory bodies to get

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into public spaces and do
something about the indoor air

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quality in public buildings.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So there
would be a new law that would

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give the EPA authority in that
space.

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Fionna Samuels: Yeah, so the law
actually will give the EPA an

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ability to get into those indoor
spaces and have a say about what

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is considered good or bad air,
and they have some pollutants

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that are on the list that need
to be monitored. And the bill

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will also allow the EPA to add
more pollutants as more

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information and data are
acquired by scientists, and

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Craig Bettenhausen: that's at
the federal level. Is there a

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bill name you can point us to?
Yes.

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Fionna Samuels: So the bill is
called the indoor air quality

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and Healthy Schools Act of 2024,
and it was introduced by

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Congressman Paul Tonko of New
York and Brian Fitzpatrick of

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Pennsylvania. It seems like
something that aligns with what

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a lot of the indoor air
scientists are hoping to

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Craig Bettenhausen: see. So from
a very practical sense, what

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resources are available now to
schools that want to improve

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their ventilation and
purification systems.

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Fionna Samuels: So right now,
there are still potentially

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unspent ESS er grants from when.
And the Biden Harris

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administration was funding
schools, specifically elementary

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and secondary schools, to reopen
during COVID In addition to

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that, there's the inflation
Reduction Act, and also the

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White House has this thing
called the clean air and

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Buildings Challenge, which also
has some funding resources. And

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the EPA has been funding a lot
for scientists who want to get

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involved in helping learn more
about indoor air quality, but

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that's sort of a separate thing
than schools. Yeah,

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Craig Bettenhausen: so this is
going to be hard to answer,

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because schools come into
different sizes, but I wonder if

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you could give a sense of the
costs that an average sized

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school would be looking at to
overhaul their ventilation

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system. What does it cost to
really fix these problems in a

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normal school building?

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Fionna Samuels: It can cost a
lot to fix the ventilation or to

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fully replace the ventilation.
That can be a very significant

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amount of money, like $10,000 or
something, something Mark

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Hernandez was very adamant about
was the fact that when you break

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down the cost of installing
indoor air quality monitors and

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the short term solution of these
HEPA filter based air cleaners,

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it breaks down to about the cost
of a cup of coffee every day per

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student, because there are so
many students that if you

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consider every student, you kind
of disperse the cost across a

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lot of young people. So I mean,
it seems like it would be worth

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it, and especially if you can
use the grants that are

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available from the federal
government to sort of subsidize

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or to cover those costs.
Slightly

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Craig Bettenhausen: distracted
by the idea someone clipping out

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that one audio clip and having
Fiona endorses a cup of coffee

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for every student.

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Fionna Samuels: Every student
should have a cup of coffee. I'm

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terrified

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Craig Bettenhausen: of what
would happen if you put some of

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these air quality monitors,
especially for VOCs, in a

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chemistry lab. Speaking of other
spaces that might give you

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unpleasant results, yeah,

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Fionna Samuels: I would be
worried about that too. I mean,

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I think that that's and that
windows don't open, usually the

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windows don't open, some of the
vent hoods don't work. It's

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probably even more important to
be monitoring those spaces. I

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guess that's true, especially
when you don't know the kinds of

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things that are going to end up
in the air depending on the

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reactions that you're running
again. While this story focused

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on schools specifically, it's
not unique to schools, so

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installing indoor air quality
monitors is something that,

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especially Mark Hernandez
thinks, is something that we

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should be doing across the board
in all public spaces, just

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because information is power we
spend, you know, a huge amount

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of our life in buildings. We're
constantly at the ACS office

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right the other day, I was
smelling lemongrass in the

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hallway, and I had no idea where
it was coming from. So it would

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perhaps be nice to be able to
look at a dashboard and say,

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like, okay, even though I smell
this weird thing right now, I

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can tell that we've got enough
ventilation that the air

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exchange rate is high enough to
protect me from any sort of bad

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pollutant, or offer some measure
of protection against bad

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pollutants. Monitoring is power,
and that's kind of the overall

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point, beyond just schools
Fiona, thanks

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Craig Bettenhausen: for diving
deep with us on this. You're so

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welcome. So listeners can find
me on social media as at Craig

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of waffles. How can listeners
get a hold of you? My

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Fionna Samuels: email is on the
CNN directory, which is totally

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open to anybody. Anybody can
email.

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Craig Bettenhausen: So you can
find Fiona's cover story about

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air quality in schools, on CNNs
website, or in the September 2

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print issue of Cen we put a link
in the show notes along with the

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episode credits. We'd love to
know what you think of CNN

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00:19:09,060 --> 00:19:11,700
uncovered. You can share your
feedback with us by emailing

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cenfeedback@acs.org This has
been cn uncovered, a series from

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00:19:17,760 --> 00:19:20,780
cn stereo chemistry. Stereo
chemistry is the official

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00:19:20,780 --> 00:19:23,480
podcast of chemical and
Engineering News. Chemical

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Engineering News is an
independent news outlet

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published by the American
Chemical Society. Thanks for

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listening. You.