Category: Uncategorized

After almost 3 years of work, during which time we helped school leadership, teachers and students in around 40 schools “make invisible pollution visible” we are hitting the pause button because all schools are closed.

Instead, the 6,000 members of this mailing list will begin receiving emails from The Optimistic Futurist – same author, different mission, different focus. We will re-start The Pollution Detectives once schools have restarted, and school administration has enough bandwidth to engage with us on that topic again.

I am starting two new projects I’d like for you to know about.

All eyes are watching for the impact of one invisible threat to America.

There are actually two threats coming.

Some food will become hard to get.

America imports one-third of its fresh vegetables and more than half of its fresh fruit from countries that already have the coronavirus epidemic.
Importing food is not limited to acquiring food from other countries – the majority of America’s heavily populated east coast states import fruits and veggies from west coast states. [1] Continue Reading

There are no federal regulations requiring that schools be inspected on a regular basis for issues that might impact learning, such as mold, radon, lead in drinking water, or other indoor air quality issues which have been shown to lower student learning one or two letter grades. (1,2,3)

To make matters worse, only half a dozen states have any kind of requirement for periodic indoor environmental issues – the rest have none.

Most states require that when a home is sold, various kinds of inspections occur to make sure the home is safe for the new buyer. Since school buildings are almost never sold, they can harm children, or lower learning, over their entire life!

According to EPA, one-half of our nation’s 115,000 K-12 schools have indoor air quality (IAQ) problems. (4)