The Center for Sustainable Urban Development’s (CEDEUS) project seeks to improve regulations for learning spaces through different tools and actions.
By: Paulina Véjar Valdés, Journalist – Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS) / paulivejar@udec.cl
Images: Courtesy of CEDEUS
After heavy rain and strong winds affected schools in the region and nationwide, the problems of infrastructure, humidity, and cold in educational establishments became even more prevalent, which has concerned members of the school communities.
The Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS) has been working on this problem for some time through the “Resilient and Healthy Educational Environments” (AERS, in Spanish) project. This project addresses environmental challenges that affect schools’ quality and academic performance, focusing on factors such as temperature, humidity, air quality, and ventilation.
To progress with this project, a pilot was implemented at the end of August to measure air quality at the Republic of Peru School. The pilot includes different instruments installed in several parts of the school.
“We installed environmental quality measurement equipment to measure particulate matter, CO2, VOCs, and relative humidity. We also placed different sensors in three rooms, which record the different environmental variables,” said researcher María Isabel Rivera.
The sensors collected data both inside and outside the school for a month, which will be reviewed by the center’s researchers and professionals. “Once the statistical data are ready, we will more comprehensively analyze the classroom behavior from the environmental point of view, then the data that could be compared with international standards will be contrasted to see if it falls outside or within domestic and international standards.”
For the school community, this fundamental initiative will provide objective data on conditions that teachers, students, and parents/guardians already perceived: “The importance of this pilot project has to do with measuring particulate matter that we can, sometimes subjectively, appreciate in our institution. The difference is that now we will see it more objectively with the installation of this equipment in three rooms of our school,” said Elizabeth Oporto, Principal of the Republic of Peru School.
Healthy educational environments
Measuring the environmental quality of schools is only one of the stages of AERS, which is being developed in three main phases: the first consists of creating a database by reviewing national and international literature, along with a comparative analysis of legislation on school infrastructure and air quality. In the second, environmental variables and participatory methodologies are defined, and in the third, environmental conditions in educational establishments are evaluated, measures are implemented, and community action plans are prepared to be applied in a pilot establishment.
With CEDEUS’ work, led by the researchers María Isabel Rivera, Academic from the University of Concepción’s Faculty of Architecture, Urbanism and Geography, and Maureen Trebilcock, Architect of the University of Bio-Bio, the aim is to evaluate the environmental conditions of schools and propose new standards to progress toward the generation of educational environments oriented to the health and well-being of academic communities, in addition to helping these spaces contribute to climate resilience and natural events.
