Twelve second-graders​‌ from West Hartford’s Bugbee Elementary School created two DIY Air Cleaners, one of which was donated to the Bridge Family Center.

Submitted

Bugbee Elementary’s Girl Scout Brownie Troop 10488 rolled up their sleeves and became junior engineers and public health advocates this December, as the girls learned about the importance of indoor air quality and how to make DIY Air Cleaners, called “Corsi-Rosenthal Boxes,” using just a box fan, furnace filters, and duct tape at their latest meeting.

Troop co-leader and family nurse practitioner Marina A. Creed and her UConn public health colleague, Dr. Misti Zamora PhD, taught these community-oriented young citizens about sources of indoor and outdoor air pollution, how it can impact our bodies negatively, and how they can solve this growing problem using innovation and engineering.

“I think this will save the people on the planet from air pollution,” said Brownie Lucy Satlin, 8.

“This will help the air to be better to breathe so people don’t get sick,” remarked Evie Miller, 7.

Creed and Troop 10488 are pitching the “Corsi-Rosenthal Box” to the Girl Scouts Club of America for inclusion as an official merit badge in the STEM and Public Health categories

The girls have chosen The Bridge Family Counseling Center of West Hartford as the recipient of one of the two “Buzzbee”-themed Air Cleaners, which the girls decorated and named after their school mascot.  The second unit will remain at the school.

“Improved indoor air quality can dramatically reduce the transmission of infectious respiratory diseases like COVID-19, influenza, and RSV. This low-cost, high-efficacy air purifier works as well if not better than the $500 HEPA cleaners on the market and can be made by second grade Girl Scouts, fifth graders, basically any age level. Immediately improved indoor air quality is just 30 minutes and $60 away,” said Creed.

This recent event is part of the UConn Indoor Air Quality Initiative called the Clean Air Equity Response (CLEAR) Program, which has both the support of the Federal EPA and White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy.

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