Back to School – What’s in the Air Your Kids are Breathing?

As kids around the country head back to school, parents are checking off supply lists, meeting new teachers and settling into routines. There’s been a growing and welcome awareness around what’s in our children's lunches, like processed foods. While we’re asking what’s on their lunch tray, we also need to ask: What’s in the air they’re breathing?

Why Air Quality in Schools Matters

Kids spend about half of their waking hours in school. That’s over a thousand hours each year breathing air that may be filled with gases and particles that can harm the lungs, trigger asthma or even impact learning. It’s estimated that pollutants are two to five times higher indoors than outdoors.

Most of these pollutants are too small to see with the naked eye. Some are so small that they can reach deep into your lungs, cross into the bloodstream and be carried throughout the rest of your body. Pollutants like particle pollution and ozone pollution (or “smog”) can cause harm to the lungs and heart and even increase the risk of premature death. High carbon dioxide levels and poor ventilation, which is the case in many buildings, can adversely affect concentration, cognitive ability and test scores.

Children face special risks from air pollution because their airways are small and still developing. They also breathe more often than adults. This makes them especially vulnerable to air pollution. That’s why it’s so important to ensure that a school’s indoor air is clean and free of harmful gases and particles.

Where Does This Pollution Come From?

It’s easy to think of school buildings as sealed bubbles, but they aren’t. Outdoor air travels in, bringing with it a whole mix of pollutants. For example:

• Cars, trucks and buses produce particle pollution, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides, all of which are harmful to health. Idling cars and buses, and busy roadways near schools, may expose students to these harmful pollutants.
• Factories and power plants produce air pollutants like particle pollution, nitrogen oxides and VOCs, which can irritate the lining of the nose, throat, and lungs, worsen asthma and other respiratory diseases, and cause developmental harm.
• Ozone pollution is produced when VOCs and nitrogen oxides “cook” in sunlight and can spike on hot days. Ozone is a powerful lung irritant that can worsen asthma symptoms.
• Wildfire smoke contains a complex mixture of pollutants, including fine particulate matter (PM2.5). It is becoming more common in many parts of the country.
• Residential wood-burning and prescribed burns release particulate matter and other harmful pollutants that can get deep into the lungs.

It’s not just the air outside. Indoor sources of pollution in schools include:

• Construction processes and products, like paint and carpets, that can make the air indoors unhealthy.
• Fuel-burning appliances including cooking stoves, furnaces and water heaters can create emissions that are harmful to health and the environment.
• Excessive moisture indoors can cause mold problems and can also promote the growth of dust mites, cockroaches, bacteria and viruses, which can impact health.
• Cleaning products, air fresheners and paints can release VOCs.
• Pet dander, dust mites and rodents can trigger allergies and asthma symptoms.
• Radon is a colorless, tasteless and odorless gas that causes lung cancer.  One in five schools has at least one schoolroom with a short-term radon level above the action level.  
• Vaping or tobacco use by students or nearby adults can release VOCs and other pollutants that are harmful to health.

Learn more about what makes indoor air unhealthy.

So, What Can You Do?

Here are some steps parents, educators, and communities can take to improve the air our kids breathe:

• Back to school with asthma? Make sure your child has an updated asthma action plan.
• Stay informed. Use tools like AirNow to track daily air quality so you can ensure you are aware when the air quality is poor.
• Advocate for policies that reduce exposure to pollution, like zero-emission vehicles, cleaner energy sources and indoor air quality (IAQ) management plans for schools.
• Encourage your child’s school to join the Clean Air School Challenge, a program to help schools assess and develop energy efficient indoor air quality management plans.
•  Find other ways you can take action at lung.org/takeaction.

Clean air in schools is an important part of creating a healthy learning environment, especially for children’s developing lungs. Let’s make clean air part of the back-to-school checklist. For more resources, visit Clean Air at School Resources.