CO monitoring making kids feel safer — and smarter 2

Monitoring carbon dioxide levels isn’t just a good way to measure Covid risk in the classroom — one Auckland school had found it is also an excellent way to learn science and maths.

Students at Glen Taylor School in Glendowie have been checking out the freshness of the air around their school, from the middle of the field to the back seat of a crowded car.

They’ve been using portable Aranet carbon dioxide (C02) monitors, which are being provided by the Ministry of Education to all schools in New Zealand.

Low CO2 levels mean a room is well-ventilated, so coronavirus can’t build up in the air.

The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States advises a well-ventilated room should have CO2 levels below 800 parts per million.

The students found in the middle of the school field, C02 was 413ppm; even in a full classroom with doors and windows open it climbed to only 494ppm.

With the windows closed and 1m social distancing, it rose to 595 within five minutes.

However, when the class crowded into the principal’s office, it climbed to more than 1000ppm within five minutes.

Soane Savieti, 12, was among six Year 8 students who piled into a car with the windows up. Within 5 minutes, the reading had climbed to 5010ppm, he said.

“Once we got out of the car my legs were wet from sweat.”

Starship paediatrician Dr Alison Leversha said the message used to be that Covid spread in droplets, which travelled only a short distance. But it was now known there is 100 times more virus in aerosols than in droplets.

Principal Chris Herlihy said students had got right into the experiment, looking at the science of breathing and the dangers of high CO2. “Now they’ve got the science in behind it, it makes them feel a bit safer in coming to school.”