School Children At Special Risk For CO2 Toxicity

The same research team noted that most classrooms in California have CO2 levels over 1000 parts per million, also enough to interfere with thinking. When school budgets are cut so that more students have to packed into the same classroom, and there aren't improvements to ventilation (or, in Texas and in most states in the southern United States, the ability to open a window), student performance will suffer. But what is the solution to the problem?

Some of the same researchers subsequently tested the effect of "green" and "green-plus" building design. A "green" building, in their study, has a ventilation system capable of delivering 20 cubic feet of outside air per person per minute. A "green plus" building has a ventilation system capable of delivering 40 cubic feet of outside air per person per minute with lower level of chemicals emitted by fabrics and cleaning chemicals. The researchers recruited 24 professional-level workers (architects, designers, creative marketing professionals, engineers) and offered them $800 to do their work in the specially designed cubicles for six hours, followed by two hours of cognitive testing, over three days. They would spend one day in a conventionally ventilated building, one day in a "green" building, and one day in a "green plus" building.

The study found that measures of intelligence were 61 percent higher after a day in the "green" building than in a conventionally ventilated building. Cognition scores were 101 percent higher after a day in a "green plus" building than in the conventionally ventilated building. 

For over 40 years, builders have tried to make buildings more energy efficient by blocking contact with outdoor air. The result has been the proliferation of cases of "sick building syndrome," which can cause symptoms like those of colds and flu that go away when the person goes outdoors, headaches, and difficulty concentrating. For most of those 40 years, researchers assumed that these symptoms were caused by chemicals trapped in indoor air. What these and perhaps 15 other studies reveal is that the real culprit may be carbon dioxide. Some classrooms actually have CO2 levels approaching those doctors find in hypercapnia requiring treatment, but the vast majority of North Americans now spend 90 percent or more of their time in buildings that block the most basic need for human life, fresh air.

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The same researchers who conducted the previously mentioned studies compute that spending $40 per person to increase ventilation rates can boost productivity to earn employers an additional $6,500 per year. There are probably similar savings to be made in schools. The way to dramatic improvements at school or work seems to be simple:

• If you can, open a window every day.
• If you can't open a window, turn up the fan to bring in more outside air.

As the CO2 levels of the earth's atmosphere continue to increase, it will become more and more important to provide adequate ventilation. The easiest way to raise smart kids, to deal with senile dementia, and to encourage higher productivity on the job may be simply to provide more air.