Sharing Challenges and Opportunities to Improve Air Quality in Schools
The Ask: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sought to assess and synthesize decades of research on air quality in schools around the world. This involved casting a wide-net literature search, led by MDB’s library scientist, and screening nearly 2,000 articles for relevance and inclusion.
The Solution: MDB science writers led the development of a comprehensive 155-page contractor report on indoor air quality in schools that summarized the body of literature, including detailed overviews of 11 common pollutants (e.g., particulate matter, volatile organic compounds), including sources of exposure, measurement and monitoring strategies, impacts on the health of students and school staff, intervention and mitigation strategies, and barriers and challenges to implementation.
Notable Outcomes: MDB’s Creative Director and science communicators also developed a suite of eye-catching outreach materials to help share the findings more broadly. These materials included an interactive school map to be posted on a new EPA webpage, with several different rooms within a school building (gym, pool, technology room, art room, classroom, supply closet, etc.) with clickable pop-out windows featuring indoor air quality concerns in each room.
