The indoor climate in public schools
It is now no news that the indoor climate in Danish primary schools is facing a huge challenge with their indoor climate.
91% of the country's primary schools exceed the recommended CO2 level during a school day. The poor indoor climate goes beyond the children:
ability to concentrate and perform which decreases by up to 10%; it gives
higher risk of asthma and other respiratory diseases and
more frequent physical problems such as headaches and irritated mucous membranes
It actually turns out that if the children's performance increases by up to 10%, they can skip the entire 9th grade – or more popularly said; get a free extra school year. However, we have never really seen progress - but we still call ourselves a knowledge society.
Long-term solutions for the indoor climate
Indoor climate is intangible - and we humans are actually only designed to feel temperature and humidity changes in the indoor climate, since we lived in caves where the CO2 level was not a problem. But after we've moved inside, we'll have to focus more on it.
Fortunately, a great deal is being done for the indoor climate in primary schools and fortunately there are many solutions. You can set up ventilation systems, renovate schools, make laws on mechanical ventilation and much more, but what are we going to do while we wait? What can we do tomorrow to make it a little bit better?
3 quick ways to improve the indoor climate from tomorrow
Ventilation - the first thing we can ensure is to open the windows and air out the classes - for example during breaks.
Give the room a break - distribute yourself during the lessons when there are no blackboard lessons. The fewer people there are in the room, the better the indoor climate will be, other things being equal.
Think about what you have in the class - there are likely to be more people in the room than there should be, so be careful with what is in the room. Hang out outerwear and avoid sofa groups, curtains or carpets.
It is such a small change in everyday life that it takes to make a huge difference in our lives.
What do you do to maintain a good indoor climate?
