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FEATURE FOCUS: SCHOOL MAINTENANCE & DESIGN
It’s time to put wellbeing and sustainability technology at the centre of decision-making in education
I
n our third look at school maintenance and design this
month we’re delighted to hear from Pippa Boothman, VP Marketing & Communications at Disruptive Technologies, who shows how smart technology can help make our schools healthier, cleaner, and more sustainable.
While we think about the layout, comfort, and cleanliness of our homes, we do not extend the same favours to the other places where we spend time. Our children, for example, spend most of their time inside their classrooms. And while we ask them about what they learned that day in school or university, we don’t think to ask them about whether they felt too cold, liked the layout of their class, or felt tired before lunch. At the same time, we teach our students about the impact of climate
change. And while we all do our part to recycle and not be wasteful, we, at times, fail to ignore one of the largest pollutants, building operations, which account for about 28% of annual emissions worldwide. We live, teach, study and work in buildings that with some extra steps can become more efficient and sustainable.
The first step? Seeing how well we are doing to begin with.
Smart sensor technology is now more accessible than ever The first step in making our schools more safe, smart, and sustainable is to understand how they are currently performing. Some new schools are being built with smart building technology and building management systems as a backbone. But this is not the most effective or realistic solution, since the majority of existing schools were not designed with this technology in mind. This is where retrofitting comes in. To combat the challenges of climate
change and provide an optimized environment for students, one can now introduce technology to schools to turn them smart. Wireless sensors are a quick, reliable, and cost-effective way for any school to collect data about their building and environment, without disrupting learning or paying a fortune. For a long time, sensor technology was for the elite few with the budgets and capabilities to implement it. In the last decade, however, the landscape has changed. Sensors are now accessible to and affordable for schools of all budgets and sizes.
What can smart sensor technology do? Sensors can collect any kind of data from a school environment. Data on the temperature and humidity of a classroom, canteen, or lecture hall and different assets can form the benchmark for assessing the school’s energy performance. With the help of additional analytics, schools can answer important ESG-related questions, like whether their assets are overheated or if their HVAC system is energy-efficient. Air quality is also increasingly important. Having insight into the
classroom’s CO2 levels, for example, can be the basis of creating a learning environment with healthier air. There is an established scientific link between optimal air quality and increased cognitive abilities* and performance. Scientists have also found a correlation between CO2 levels and increased risk of airborne virus transmission. So, by optimizing CO2 levels, students feel less tired and perform better. Beyond environmental monitoring, sensors can also offer non-intrusive
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data about how students and staff use different spaces. By deploying sensors, maintenance staff can know remotely and at any time which doors are left open after hours, how many classrooms or restrooms are in use, or how many desks in a classroom are occupied. But this is not just information for information’s sake. By applying additional analytics, this data can be the basis of occupancy heatmaps to paint a picture of how effectively space is being used. In addition, the data can be used to make confident decisions about classroom and school layouts that make students and staff happier, reduce their carbon footprint, and save time and money. These decisions include space redesign or downsizing. There are now companies that offer smart cleaning tools which give
sanitary staff a full overview of all cleaning tasks, access to communication tools, and the ability to mark planned and solved cleaning tasks. By setting rules for how frequently the cleaning is done, schools can base cleaning and maintenance on actual usage rather than manual scheduling. A great example of this smarter sensor-based cleaning comes from the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences**, which boasts great cleaning quality and saves tens of hours per month in cleaning time. Sensor solutions can also help schools be more compliant and responsive
towards cleaning standards and student and staff feedback. Touch buttons are tactile sensors that anyone can press to anonymously give feedback on their environment or request cleaning and maintenance services, to which school staff can then respond in real-time. With this increased accessibility in what was once considered technology
for the elite few, and by applying analytics to optimize for student health & wellbeing and building sustainability, schools can be smarter, safer, and more sustainable and base decision-making about their learning environment on real data.
The bottom line As the impact from COVID-19 slows down and the climate change conversation continues, it’s time to start placing our children’s health and well-being and school buildings’ energy efficiency at the forefront of the conversation. And it’s time to rethink our priorities when it comes to strategic decision-making and budget allocation. Sensor technology, which is now more accessible and affordable than ever before, can help with making our schools healthier, cleaner, and more sustainable.
*
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac1bd8 **
https://www.disruptive-technologies.com/blog/smart-cleaning-sensor-technology- norwegian-university
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