Re “We Are Serious About Pursuing Cleaner Air at El Marino”
I just watched a video on the Advocates for Clean Air El Marino Language School’s (A4CAEM) website showing parent Dr. Rania Sabty-Daily leading parent volunteers in taking various air samples at El Marino on Feb. 22.
On This, We Can Agree
We can all agree with Dr. Sabty-Daily’s physical assessment when she explains to one of the parent/volunteers helping take the readings on the playground and fields that active students playing outside are “taking in more air, more frequently and more pollutants.”
Heavier Breathing, Cough, Cough
Students’ air-intake does increase as their physical activity does. With physical exertion, breathing increases, possibly doubling or tripling, as needed. Each breath is deeper, and the volume of pollutants taken into a child’s lungs would be much more than in a relaxed classroom setting.
Physical Ed Factor
If El Marino students, as suggested by Dr. Sabty-Daily, are engaged in physical activity for an average of 1½ to 2 hours a day during their two scheduled recesses and daily Physical Ed classes, then for those two hours their lungs are being exposed to perhaps two or three times the pollutants during their outside physical activities.
Do the Math
Two hours a day, 4½ days a week (Wednesday is a half day), adds up to nine hours.
These nine hours of deeper, heavier breathing would need to be multiplied by Dr. Sabty-Daily’s “more air, more frequently, more exposure” toxic-respiratory factor of three times the “normal exposure.” That would mean these nine hours may be equivalent to almost 27 hours’ worth of classroom-like breathing. This nearly equals the 33 hours or an average of 7 1/3 hours that Scott McVarish estimated yesterday El Marino students spend in their classrooms daily.
Show and Tell
Here is the link to A4CAEM’s Feb. 22 video on their website (http://cleanairem.org/Videos.html) showing Dr. Sabty-Daily leading a few parents in taking air samples with a borrowed but impressive-looking P-Track instrument.
Selective Reporting
While watching this video, the viewer should take note that while the samples are being taken on the playground, the position of the P-Track collector is pointed, upwind, into the breeze. Later, when readings are being taken on the other side of the 405 Freeway, the P-Track instrument is pointed downwind. This may not seem like much of a change, but the 180-degrees deviation in direction could cause an inaccurate reading and later force an inaccurate comparison of conditions.
Moving On
In answer to Scott McV’s thinking that my proposal to move El Marino is “provocative,” I would suggest it is a more pro-active approach .When I suggested “moving El Marino,” I meant that the language program could be phased out over time from its current, seemingly toxic, site and re-established at the District’s other elementary schools, much further away downwind from the continuously offending 405 Freeway.
Spreading the Scholastic Magic
The District successfully has expanded the immersion program to La Ballona Elementary. Why not expand it to all our other elementary schools and phase it out at the El Marino site? The preliminary samples taken by A4CAEM seem to indicate this school site is unsuitable for the health of younger, still developing, children.
Mature Learners
Bringing the Immersion Language program’s scholastic magic to the other elementary campuses could draw new students to our District and eliminate the annual need for a lottery to get into the program.
Instead of just abandoning the El Marino school site altogether, it could be set up for the use for another group of more physically mature learners, Adult Ed students.
Mr. Laase may be contacted at GMLaase@aol.com
