Event: Austin-area residents can learn how candle smoke, air fresheners and other common household items make indoor air less healthy during a free, interactive workshop hosted by students from the Indoor Environmental Science & Engineering graduate program at The University of Texas at Austin.
When: Saturday, April 28, from 2-4 p.m.
Where: Applied Computational and Engineering Sciences (ACES) building, Room 2.302 (the auditorium).
Background: The average American spends 18 hours indoors for every hour outdoors, often exposed to higher concentrations of harmful substances than exist outside. To help Austin residents breathe healthier indoor air, students in the first U.S. graduate program focused on the indoor environment are providing a free workshop about topics such as reducing exposure to cleaning solutions and other everyday products whose chemicals can affect health.
The workshop will begin with a 30-minute overview of indoor air-quality issues. From 2:30-3:30 p.m., attendees will watch demonstrations given by the students and learn about the indoor environment from poster presentations. A 30-minute wrap-up session will follow, where a HEPA air purifier will be given away.
During workshop demonstrations, attendees will see how well an air filter cleans an area, learn about cleaning products that create different concentrations of harmful, air-borne chemicals and view air flow within a five-foot-long, plexiglass model of a house. Nearby posters will cover topics related to air hazards inside the home, car, office and other locations. Topics discussed will include the release of tiny particles from a burning candle that can travel deep within the lungs, and the buildup of high carbon dioxide levels that a 2001 study found in some Texas elementary schools.
Graduate students from the multidisciplinary program who will lead the workshop are: R.J. Briggs and Tess Stafford in Economics; Diana Hun in Civil Engineering, Michael Waring in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering; and Scot Waye in Mechanical Engineering. The novel Indoor Environmental Science and Engineering graduate program is funded by $2.9 million from the National Science Foundation.
