Clean Air Schools for HK 6-month Milestone Achievement

Clean Air Schools for Hong Kong, collaborated with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (IENV HKUST), has been collecting air quality data and promoting relevant knowledge to schools for over 6 months, and Clean Air Network (CAN) has arranged a community meeting. We are thankful to a community of principals, teachers, and parents who provide insightful feedback and encouragement for us to go further.

1. Exceeding Carbon Dioxide Concentration Lowers Students’ Learning Effectiveness

In the past 6 months (Aug 2022 – Jan 2023), some schools recorded carbon dioxide (CO2) levels exceeding 1000 ppm, and some even reached 2000 to 2500 ppm during work hours.

According to studies, these levels could exceed a threshold that affects students’ decision-making performance and respiratory function. For instance, the initiative, information utilization, breadth of approach, and basic strategy dropped to a dysfunctional level above 2500 ppm CO2. Maintaining good indoor air quality is essential to cognitive clarity which is affecting students’ learning effectiveness

Figure 1: Impact of CO2 on Human Decision-Performance, adapted from “An Approach for Meeting Room Activity Monitoring and Analysis” [1]

2. Introduction of Action Framework Helping Schools to Fight Against Air Pollution

The principal, teachers, and parents also exchanged precious thoughts with the team and raised concerns about future actions. With “action” being one of our project’s “data-knowledge-action” building blocks, we are proud to launch the “Clean Air Schools Action Framework”.

The Framework is a free online tool to help the participating primary schools to create a tailored  “Clean Air Action Plan”. The Action Plan will be designed upon completion of a 15-minute simple questionnaire. Stay tuned for the release in April 2023!

Kudos to the CAN and HKUST teams for investing great efforts in the project and bringing us appreciable achievement. The team will continue in the journey of creating a clean-air school environment.