Lots of parents, teachers and students have found themselves recently with a timely project: making homemade air filters for classrooms and school spaces to help protect from the spread of COVID-19.
Staying for 2 h in a closed room with a highly infective person, we estimate that the inhaled dose is reduced by a factor of six when using air purifiers with a total air exchange rate of 5.7 h.
Though Corsi calls it “embarrassingly simple,” the Corsi-Rosenthal box delivers significant reduction in particulate spread in indoor settings.
Having good ventilation and air filtration in schools is very important to reduce COVID-19 and other diseases that spread through the air. Improving indoor air quality also creates a healthier school environment by limiting exposure to harmful chemicals and wildfire smoke. In addition, better air quality increases student performance and attendance.
Version 4. Additions: new concerns addressed, pdf with hotspot links to references. Interactive pdf.
Making health and safety curriculum-friendly
University of Maryland faculty and students are building and distributing cost-effective air filtration Corsi-Rosenthal boxes.
“Math scores went up by 0.20 standard deviations and English scores by 0.18 standard deviations” in classrooms fitted with portable air filters compared to those without.
