Green School, Healthy School? The Role of Children in Post-Occupancy Evaluation to Determine Indoor Air Quality in Classrooms

Issues of internal and external air pollution, common diseases afflicting children, and concerns for optimizing learning potential are all important factors to consider in post-occupancy evaluations of air quality in schools. However, children’s perspectives on air quality are largely overlooked. Developing an appropriate methodology to include children is both important and institutionally difficult. This paper examines childfriendly methods of conducting post-occupancy examination of indoor air quality in school settings. It proposes interdisciplinary work on post-occupancy methodologies, engaging with social-science literature on research with children. The paper identifies barriers to the development of an inclusive post-occupancy methodology that can collect both qualitative and quantitative data. It also incorporates children’s experiences by citing research findings from a pilot project that is taking place in a central Iowa school.