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Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

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Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#51

Post by conformist »

mmooss wrote: post #30
Aurornis wrote: post #9

I'm all for installing air filters in classrooms for a number of reasons, but I also think the extreme results from this study aren't going to hold up to further research. From the paper: > To do so, I leverage a unique setting arising from the largest gas leak in United States history, whereby the offending gas company installed air filters in every classroom, office and common area for all schools within five miles…

Based on your comment, the effect could be larger as well as smaller. All research is met on HN by people who know better and will tell you why it's flawed. There isn't a greater collection of expertise in the history of the world than on HN. Edit: I meant to add: What value can we find in this research? It wasn't published as scripture, the perfect answer to all our problems. It's one study of some interesting event…

Conditional on “the study being published and getting attention” the real effect is likely smaller and not larger.

Eg if you assume there is a real effect plus a lot of noise, given the study has been published etc the noise will have more likely acted in the favourable direction.

IMHO given the relatively large size of the effect it seems quite likely that the noise part is in fact potentially large (this is much more subjective) which makes is less clear that there is measurable signal at all here. I’d have to see a lot of replication or a very strong explanation of the underlying mechanism to believe the magnitude of the effect, but will very easily believe the sign (with a small magnitude).

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#52

Post by noosphr »

mmooss wrote: post #30
Aurornis wrote: post #9

I'm all for installing air filters in classrooms for a number of reasons, but I also think the extreme results from this study aren't going to hold up to further research. From the paper: > To do so, I leverage a unique setting arising from the largest gas leak in United States history, whereby the offending gas company installed air filters in every classroom, office and common area for all schools within five miles…

Based on your comment, the effect could be larger as well as smaller. All research is met on HN by people who know better and will tell you why it's flawed. There isn't a greater collection of expertise in the history of the world than on HN. Edit: I meant to add: What value can we find in this research? It wasn't published as scripture, the perfect answer to all our problems. It's one study of some interesting event…

https://xkcd.com/882/

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#53

Post by fasthands9 »

Aurornis wrote: post #9

I'm all for installing air filters in classrooms for a number of reasons, but I also think the extreme results from this study aren't going to hold up to further research. From the paper: > To do so, I leverage a unique setting arising from the largest gas leak in United States history, whereby the offending gas company installed air filters in every classroom, office and common area for all schools within five miles…

It also seems possible that students do better on tests when the air is cleaner, but that doesn't necessarily mean the students learned more.

Imagine if some schools installed air conditioning in their gym one year. Running times around an indoor track would improve considerably, but mostly because conditions at the point of testing improved. Not necessarily because the air conditioning made the students actually improve their stamina or speed.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#54

Post by amluto »

jedc wrote: post #50
amluto wrote: post #41

I wish there was more data on the effects of gasses in the air on people. We seem to know: - Elevated CO2 in rooms impairs cognitive performance. - Elevated CO2 in submarines, at levels far higher than you would see in a normal room does not appear to impact cognitive performance. - Installing carbon filters (what this study actually looked at) might improve classroom performance. - People don’t like stuffy rooms. Al…

(Former submariner here.) Elevated CO2 in submarines absolutely impairs performance. One example: there was a guy on my boat who got migraines when CO2 got too high - he was useless. Luckily the fix is simple - just turn on another CO2 scrubber. There's nothing special about a submarine that makes CO2 somehow different than anywhere else.

I recall this study and maybe another one:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29789085/

I’m definitely not an expert.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#56

Post by Jensson »

mmooss wrote: post #39
bawolff wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science succeeds when people lean towards the side of cynicism instead of optimism. Scientific research should be read critically.

Critical thinking and skepticism are good, but much of what happens on HN is not that. Thinking critically includes, most of all, finding value - you need to think critically (and skeptically) to avoid assigning value to things that don't have it, but you must find value. The goal is to build knowledge - just like the study author needs to find knowledge among flawed data, you must find knowledge among flawed studies…

> Focusing on the flaws and trying to shoot down everything is just craven recreation.

No, its a valuable job to find flaws because its much easier to fix and work on known flaws than to stumble in the dark.

Removing flaws and problems is one of the easiest ways to add value.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#57

Post by frognumber »

amluto wrote: post #41

I wish there was more data on the effects of gasses in the air on people. We seem to know: - Elevated CO2 in rooms impairs cognitive performance. - Elevated CO2 in submarines, at levels far higher than you would see in a normal room does not appear to impact cognitive performance. - Installing carbon filters (what this study actually looked at) might improve classroom performance. - People don’t like stuffy rooms. Al…

CO2 is a proxy for many other gasses. Cheap CO2 sensors sense volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and use those to estimate CO2.

Many of those gasses do impact cognitive performance. It's not obvious to me why CO2 would, but if CO2 is going up, so is everything else we breathe out. CO2 where I am is somewhere in the ≈400ppm-1000ppm range -- 0.04% or 0.1% -- and it's pretty inert. I'm not sure what harm it does.

If it does to harm, rising CO2 levels should be much more concerning than "just" climate change.

But I suspect it's other gasses.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#58

Post by aetherspawn »

I’m so confused why they installed HEPA filters to filter out LNG and methane.

And HEPA filters don’t really scrub CO2 that effectively, even with a carbon membrane, so can we really expect lower CO2 levels?

Considering this, what’s the actual takeaway here? Cleaner air (dust/virus free?) is better for productivity?

I am asking because I want to buy the same filter for work, but I am doubtful that the $700 HEPA filter sounds like the same filter they used, even though the article mentions they used readily accessible 5 stage filters.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#59

Post by eru »

mmooss wrote: post #30
Aurornis wrote: post #9

I'm all for installing air filters in classrooms for a number of reasons, but I also think the extreme results from this study aren't going to hold up to further research. From the paper: > To do so, I leverage a unique setting arising from the largest gas leak in United States history, whereby the offending gas company installed air filters in every classroom, office and common area for all schools within five miles…

Based on your comment, the effect could be larger as well as smaller. All research is met on HN by people who know better and will tell you why it's flawed. There isn't a greater collection of expertise in the history of the world than on HN. Edit: I meant to add: What value can we find in this research? It wasn't published as scripture, the perfect answer to all our problems. It's one study of some interesting event…

> Based on your comment, the effect could be larger as well as smaller.

Yes, but since we know that there's a huge bias to publish and publicise larger results, you know what way to bet.

Re: Installing air filters in classrooms has surprisingly large educational benefits (2020)

#60

Post by sebastiennight »

hollerith wrote: post #15

Install air filters in classrooms in Los Angeles has. Places with clean outdoor air probably won't see much benefit.

Which begs the question. How many of those places are there, and how many large groups of humans with children would you believe live in such places?
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