Help protect our kids with clean indoor air in british columbia’s classrooms

It used to be that parents just had to hope their kids wouldn’t get sick and pass it along to other family members when they started a new school year, and bugs began to circulate. Then along came COVID-19, and everything became much more serious. Now, kids can get really sick, and some get long-term debilitating illnesses or even die. And to be clear, it’s not just about the COVID-19 virus.

There’s a whole host of nasty viral bugs that are circulating. In some parts of the school year, there may also be wildfire smoke to worry about. It should no longer be acceptable to society that this is an annual thing that we must just cope with. The simple fact is kids keep getting sick because of poor indoor air quality in classrooms. This can be prevented.

The good news is that multiple groups of health science and engineering experts worldwide agree. They say that ventilation rates indoors in classrooms need to go way up. Compared with what is recommended in the guidance from these experts, most BC classrooms would be considered under-ventilated; many are poorly ventilated. Something needs to be done.

There will be new information out soon from BC Health Authorities and the Ministry of Education and Child Care that is mindful of this new guidance from the experts. But it may take school districts some years to take up this advice. There is already a long queue of things they want to spend their limited funds on.

To speed things along school districts must be shown how easy and affordable it is to upgrade their classrooms. This can be done by having pilot-scale demonstration projects in as many of BC’s sixty school districts as possible.

This is the key point of the crowdfunding campaign. Greenlight Canada is a social enterprise based in metro Vancouver. You can read more about us at this link. Our technology offering has the best possible features for classroom applications, meets the new guidance and standards requirements, and is very affordable. We are ‘good to go’ to do the demonstration projects. We need financial support.

We will use your contribution to import and warehouse the materials for the demonstration projects and work with school districts to undertake these. For about $700, we can provide the materials to be installed in one classroom. We can also provide the school with monitors that show how the indoor environment improves with increased ventilation.

All contributors can let us know if there is a particular school district and school that they hope might participate in a demonstration project. We will do our very best to engage with the school district and make this happen. Contributors will also receive a monthly newsletter providing topical news about indoor air quality in schools and the progress Greenlight is making. This will enable them to share this news in their social circles to spread the word actively.

We hope you will join us on our mission to ensure our schools have the best indoor air quality possible. We would truly appreciate it if you could subscribe and contribute to this campaign. And please tell our story to other parents, uncles, aunties and grandparents of kids in school who will share your concerns. Everyone benefits if we keep our kids safe and well.