Protect: Indoor Air Quality |
New research shows that indoor plants don’t clean indoor air effectively. A summary of the study here explains that past studies done in laboratory settings don’t match conditions in normal classrooms where you'd need close to 10 plants per square foot before they could approximate cleaning the air at the same rate it’s removed via exchange with outdoor air. The authors recommend future research efforts shift to environments that have the basic indoor process of exchanging air with the outside. Until then, if you want cleaner indoor air, the authors recommend opening a window. Read the full article here. So it would take hundreds of indoor plants to produce measurable improved air quality in a classroom. But we still like this “Plants in Every Classroom” project to teach students to propagate and care for plants that offer many benefits to indoor spaces. |
Learn Ask your mentor to do a presentation, then click on these links to learn more about growing classroom plants. Do Plant Projects
Teach Ideas for sharing student indoor air quality knowledge
Document Project(s)
Sample Project: Make a Self-Watering Planter |