Hydroponics for Education

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Originally appears in the Winter 2018 issue.

As much as teachers would love to claim that all students are motivated and involved in all activities at all times, this is rarely true. Sometimes students just don’t seem to be on board with the current task. There might be several reasons: boredom, health issues, attitude, or adolescence could be just a few of them. Another reason not as often considered may be poor air quality.

This is why Mr. Chris Slough, a secondary science teacher at Strothoff International School, likes to keep his classroom windows open during the school day. He maintains that the fresh air from outside improves his students’ concentration, effort, and overall behavior.

According to a 2012 study by Twardella et al. on the effect of air quality on students’ concentration in classrooms, it was determined that to “ensure a high level of [processing] accuracy, good air quality characterized, for example, by low CO₂ concentration should be maintained in classrooms.”