Search

Indoor sources of air pollution worsen indoor and outdoor air quality. Thus, identifying and reducing indoor pollutant sources would decrease both indoor and outdoor air pollution, benefit public health, and help address the climate crisis. As outdoor sources come under regulatory control, unregulated indoor sources become a rising percentage of the problem. This American Thoracic Society workshop was convened in 2022 to evaluate this increasing proportion of indoor contributions to outdoor air quality. The workshop was conducted by physicians and scientists, including atmospheric and aerosol scientists, environmental engineers, toxicologists, epidemiologists, regulatory policy experts, and pediatric and adult pulmonologists. Presentations and discussion sessions were centered on 1) the generation and migration of pollutants from indoors to outdoors, 2) the sources and circumstances representing the greatest threat, and 3) effective remedies to reduce the health burden of indoor sources of air pollution. The scope of the workshop was residential and commercial sources of indoor air pollution in the United States. Topics included wood burning, natural gas, cooking, evaporative volatile organic compounds, source apportionment, and regulatory policy. The workshop concluded that indoor sources of air pollution are significant contributors to outdoor air quality and that source control and filtration are the most effective measures to reduce indoor contributions to outdoor air. Interventions should prioritize environmental justice: Households of lower socioeconomic status have higher concentrations of indoor air pollutants from both indoor and outdoor sources. We identify research priorities, potential health benefits, and mitigation actions to consider (e.g., switching from natural gas to electric stoves and transitioning to scent-free consumer products). The workshop committee emphasizes the benefits of combustion-free homes and businesses and recommends economic, legislative, and education strategies aimed at achieving this goal.

An emerging research base has highlighted various roles and responsibilities that parents of students with disabilities accept when they enroll their children in online schools. Since finding and using online texts and using various programs and applications that require search and evaluation skills to do work are typical for online learning, it follows that part of parent responsibilities in many families might involve using basic technological literacies or even more advanced digital ones. To focus on the range of technological literacies that parents employ, researchers gathered self-report data from parents about how they engage with online education technologies while working with their children with disabilities. Interviews with (n = 32) parents across six states in the West, Midwest, and Southern United States revealed that parents employ various skills with a specific set of purposes in mind. Literacies were used to (a) perform basic technological computing tasks, (b) evaluate information to supplement existing instructional materials, and (c) communicate with the school about children's needs. Reported purposes for using these skills emerged as (a) instructing, (b) monitoring, (c) advocating, and (d) learning school expectations. Implications of this study include the potential for literacy-based approaches to parent preparation for supporting vulnerable children in online settings.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, schools had been adopting digital instruction in many parts of the world. The concept of digital literacies has also been evolving in complexity alongside the digital technologies that support it. However, little is known about what guidance available to support various levels of government in supporting digital literacies alongside digital instruction in local schools. The purpose of this study was to determine what guidance for digital literacies U.S. state departments of education had made available through their websites to local schools just prior to the onset of the pandemic. Using qualitative content analysis techniques, digital literacies guidance information was located on U.S. state departments of education websites and analyzed. Most states did not indicate that they used guidance from professional organizations about digital literacies. The 16 states that did have guidance used standards from the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), which have not been positioned by the organization as "digital literacies" standards, but instead reflect traditional understandings of Information Computing Technology (ICT). Implications of this study highlight potential strategies educational ministries might use to acknowledge and support digital literacies.

Rationale: Avoiding excess health damages attributable to climate change is a primary motivator for policy interventions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However, the health benefits of climate mitigation, as included in the policy assessment process, have been estimated without much input from health experts. Objectives: In accordance with recommendations from the National Academies in a 2017 report on approaches to update the social cost of greenhouse gases (SC-GHG), an expert panel of 26 health researchers and climate economists gathered for a virtual technical workshop in May 2021 to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis and recommend improvements to the estimation of health impacts in economic-climate models. Methods: Regionally resolved effect estimates of unit increases in temperature on net all-cause mortality risk were generated through random-effects pooling of studies identified through a systematic review. Results: Effect estimates and associated uncertainties varied by global region, but net increases in mortality risk associated with increased average annual temperatures (ranging from 0.1% to 1.1% per 1°C) were estimated for all global regions. Key recommendations for the development and utilization of health damage modules were provided by the expert panel and included the following: not relying on individual methodologies in estimating health damages; incorporating a broader range of cause-specific mortality impacts; improving the climate parameters available in economic models; accounting for socioeconomic trajectories and adaptation factors when estimating health damages; and carefully considering how air pollution impacts should be incorporated in economic-climate models. Conclusions: This work provides an example of how subject-matter experts can work alongside climate economists in making continued improvements to SC-GHG estimates.

Special education technology and its use has largely focused on student concerns with accessing instruction. Where teachers have received attention, it has focused on classroom practices and their understanding of how to use technologies to support students. While some conversations have recently turned to the importance of "student" identities regarding technologies in special education, the identities of special education "teachers" in relation to technology use has received less attention. This study takes a narrative inquiry approach to describe a special education teacher who claimed multiple intersecting cultural/ethnic identities and a disability status. The findings from this 2-year engagement highlight how the teacher grappled with using technologies, not just for student learning, but for broader commitments to justice in special education contexts. Implications of this study elaborate on the need to plan special education teacher preparation and support for technologies that honors commitments to equity.

Instructional coaching in schools has historically operated as both a professional role and as a strategy used to support teachers. While the work of instructional coaching was already shifting in response to educational trends and political pressures, the conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic brought additional challenges and opportunities. The purpose of this self-study of teacher education practice (S-STEP) was to learn about the relational work of two instructional coaches and a university supervisor of those coaches' graduate work. The findings of this study emerged from our collaborative learning where we used the Greek myth of Niobe to think about the relational work of serving individual teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. We end this paper with implications for preparing instructional coaches to support teachers and suggestions for future research.

When parents enroll their children who qualify for special education services in fully online schools, that decision was an exercise of agency. Less is known about how parents understand and negotiate their agencies "after enrolling." Researchers interviewed 18 parents of children with special educational needs in fully online schools in the United States. Parents described using their agencies to blur the boundaries between their bodies and their children's bodies so that schoolwork could be completed and so that their children's bodies could be made more acceptable in the online school setting. Findings centered on being alone, but together with their child physically during online work, collaborating to maintain mutual engagement of bodies in online schooling, and the will to be successful to maintain these agencies.

Ensuring accessibility is an important concern for students with disabilities in online learning environments, including virtual schools. Previous research suggests that there is widespread confusion about what constitutes accessibility when designing instructional materials and who should be in charge of ensuring materials are accessible. Also, accessibility is often conflated with concepts like personalization, aesthetic appeal, and engagement. Accessibility is a critical issue as state educational agencies enable fully asynchronous classes with low levels of interaction between learners and teachers. As virtual schools come under corrective action failing to provide appropriate services to students with disabilities, learning about accessibility in those contexts is particularly vital. Moreover, states may begin to consider policies they made many years ago and determine their efficacy. In this study, 111 teachers from six virtual schools that were facing corrective action due to low graduation rates participated in a survey about their perceptions of the accessibility of the instructional materials for their online courses. The survey yielded a 42% response rate. Responding teachers perceived that their instructional materials were "somewhat" accessible with a wide dispersion of response data. Implications for these findings in light of previous research and in light of their corrective action status are offered. The study also stands as an example of a state reconsidering policies made before there was sufficient research to support a decision and the implications for critical data points like graduation rate.

In this teacher practitioner article, we share our experience presenting a humanities lesson in which students created a remix, or mashup, by combining contemporary fiction with historical documents. Theoretical underpinnings of this project included the work of linguists Kress and Van Leeuwen, who noted that texts are shaped by multiple recontextualizations or remediations by different creators and users in different places at different times. Kellner's work exploring how readers use history to read texts and texts to read history also informed our practice, as did Bakhtin's conceptualization of the intertextual linkages and nesting of ideas. Our context was a private school in the southwest U.S., which began as an institution for assimilating indigenous youth. We presented this lesson to a racially, ethnically, and economically diverse 12th grade class of ten students. The remix activity encouraged students to engage with the documents and to explore the tense relation between the ideals of our country and current realities. The lesson resulted in students grappling with current examples of racism in their lives and in society at large and producing works that showed understanding of the how the past is woven into the fabric of the present.

Teachers and students require a range of tools to engage with visual texts. Using "The Great American Dust Bowl" by Don Brown (2013) as an exemplar text, we outline four conceptions of visual literacy: rhetorical, instructional, industrial and visuo-spatial and discuss their use in our literacy education practice. In addition, we provide a brief model of a second text, "The Arrival" (Tan, 2013) and a list of suggested texts for students at different levels (elementary, middle, and high school). We argue that these tools have the potential to deepen conceptions of visual literacies and empower teachers and students to understand the many ways in which visual texts operate to send message and evoke response and engagement.

With increases in the number of students enrolling in virtual schools, increases in students with disabilities can also be expected at virtual schools. Further, not all of these students enrolling in virtual schools will live with their biological parents. As students with disabilities move online, they continue to be protected under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). However, these students spend much of the day with their parents or caregivers, if they are supervised at all, which raises questions about the depth and breadth of services that students with disabilities are receiving through their virtual schools. The purpose of this case study was to learn how a foster parent of a student with a disability in a fully online virtual middle school program perceived the school's response to her child's needs, as well as how she imagined that the school perceived her. This foster mother determined that virtual school educators could not educate her son in accordance with IDEA. The study offers implications for improving students' and parents' virtual school experiences.

Wildland fires are diminishing air quality on a seasonal and regional basis, raising concerns about respiratory health risks to the public and occupational groups. This American Thoracic Society (ATS) workshop was convened in 2019 to meet the growing health threat of wildland fire smoke. The workshop brought together a multidisciplinary group of 19 experts, including wildland fire managers, public health officials, epidemiologists, toxicologists, and pediatric and adult pulmonologists. The workshop examined the following four major topics: 1) the science of wildland fire incidence and fire management, 2) the respiratory and cardiovascular health effects of wildland fire smoke exposure, 3) communication strategies to address these health risks, and 4) actions to address wildland fire health impacts. Through formal presentations followed by group discussion, workshop participants identified top priorities for fire management, research, communication, and public policy to address health risks of wildland fires. The workshop concluded that short-term exposure to wildland smoke causes acute respiratory health effects, especially among those with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Research is needed to understand long-term health effects of repeated smoke exposures across fire seasons for children, adults, and highly exposed occupational groups (especially firefighters). Other research priorities include fire data collection and modeling, toxicology of different fire fuel sources, and the efficacy of health protective measures to prevent respiratory effects of smoke exposure. The workshop committee recommends a unified federal response to the growing problem of wildland fires, including investment in fire behavior and smoke air quality modeling, research on the health impacts of smoke, and development of robust clinical and public health communication tools.

When school buildings closed in Spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many teachers began instructing with online technologies. Schools in the United States remained obligated to provide all students access to learning under federal laws in these challenging circumstances. The purpose of this study was to learn from teachers of students with disabilities who were striving to ensure that their students would benefit from instruction using various technologies amid shifting instructional modalities. These teachers taught kindergarten, grade 3, grade, 6, and grade 10. The time periods of the study included the (1) Spring 2020 initial shutdown, (2) return to online learning in Fall 2020, (3) partial return to school buildings using a form of hybrid instruction in Spring 2021, and (4) so-called 'return to normal' in Fall 2021. Teachers focused their efforts on facilitating the inclusive use of technologies; evaluating and modifying digital instructional materials; and managing the tension between wanting the autonomy to choose technologies, while needing organized, sustained support. Implications of this study include considerations for the supporting teachers in sustaining the use of technologies that they enjoyed using and found useful for students.

This study investigated special educators' perspectives about an online toolkit that offers teachers example goals and objectives statements to use in service plans for students with special educational needs as well as teaching strategies and assessments. Special education teachers in a large school district in a Pacific Northwestern state answered a short survey (n=19). Some respondents also participated in group interviews (n=6). The research questions were: what are special education personnel's perspectives about the online toolkit materials for writing goals and objectives for children with special educational needs; and, what do special education personnel perceive to be online toolkit's limitations as well as weaknesses? Results indicated that the participants preferred to use the online toolkit for identifying initial ideas for goals and objectives statements in the disability service plans. However, the teachers desired more professional learning and collegial dialogue to learn about instruction, strategies, and assessment tools. The authors also discuss implications and suggested next steps for online tools in professional learning for teachers.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought new tensions in determining how to enact representations of the professional and personal selves alongside digital technologies. In this paper, we explore those tensions as entangled enactments of agencies and identities related to simultaneous mothering and scholaring. Drawing on Barad's agential realist framework, our work acknowledges the inseparability of being and doing in its account for how our teaching, researching, feminist, maternal selves were constantly entangled with the thinking processes that occurred at the intersections of method-theory-data. This project does not adhere to conventional methodology or presentation expectations. We do not present this paper in the typified chronology comprising a clearly defined literature review, methods, and results sections. Instead, we invite readers into our project with a story. Then, we outline how our storytelling method and theoretical knowings emerged as data during our being and becoming in an in/visible pandemic-centered context.

Metaphors are powerful windows to gain insight into EFL teachers' professional identity constructions. This study examined 33 Chinese EFL student teachers' (STs) self-generated metaphors about teaching before and after their student teaching. Before their teaching practicum experience, they were: (a) optimistic, but had naïve perceptions about their roles, (b) worried about their inadequacy to teach professionally, and (c) anxious about their relationship with cooperating teachers. Post-practicum, we noted (a) increased transformative perceptions about their role, (b) professional knowledge growth, (c) the participants explicated a broad array of challenges of building good student relationships, and (d) the placement-school contexts exert a significant influence on their identity formation. Implications for facilitating EFL student teachers' professional identity (trans)formations during the field experiences are discussed.

As more K-12 students with disabilities enroll in online courses, virtual schools and programs are working to make courses accessible through stronger course design. When course designers approach the issue of accessibility, they must comply with legal requirements and mitigate the challenges many students with disabilities face for literacy and learning. These challenges include a lack of vocabulary support and complex text in online course materials. This study describes qualitative research that sought to uncover strategies course designers used to meet accessibility standards and promote literacies online for all students, especially students with disabilities. Three strategies emerged as findings: (1) composing clear articulations of learning objectives, (2) promoting personalized and contextualized learning, and (3) planning for visual and audio representation of concepts. While the course designers displayed emerging understandings of accessibility, they were less adept at addressing the interplay between literacies that promote access and accessibility features that promote literacies.

As K-12 online learning continues to grow for all student populations, so should knowledge of best practices related to teaching students with diverse learning needs, including students with disabilities. The absence of a strong literature base provides a unique opportunity to explore teacher knowledge in these settings, particularly as they consider their role in the call for highly skilled, high-quality instruction for all students, regardless of disability status. This study explored descriptions of practice from fully-online teachers in their instruction of students with disabilities. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews of online teachers across a variety of grade levels. Analysis involved both thematic and theoretical elements to identify concepts for interpretation. Findings were divided into two major concepts: (1) online teachers' learned practices about working with students with disabilities; and (2) online teachers' sources of knowledge about "good" teaching practices when working with students with disabilities.

As online coursework become more popular, students with disabilities that need vocabulary support for reading comprehension will be among the increase in cyber school students. Researchers have some evidence that certain types of vocabulary support strategies are more efficacious for students with disabilities. The purpose of this article is determining if what was known about strategies for supporting vocabulary was being applied to online learning coursework. A content analysis of types of vocabulary and types of support strategies was performed on science courses from three online course vendors. The results of this study indicate a need for online course vendors to pay more explicit attention to the types of words supported and the strategies they use to do so and for those who support online learners (teachers, parents) to be more proactive about vocabulary support deficiencies that are likely to be present in the courses.

Although it is well accepted that air pollution exposure exacerbates preexisting airway disease, it has not been firmly established that long-term pollution exposure increases the risk of new-onset asthma or chronic obstruction pulmonary disease (COPD). This Workshop brought together experts on mechanistic, epidemiological, and clinical aspects of airway disease to review current knowledge regarding whether air pollution is a causal factor in the development of asthma and/or COPD. Speakers presented recent evidence in their respective areas of expertise related to air pollution and new airway disease incidence, followed by interactive discussions. A writing committee summarized their collective findings. The Epidemiology Group found that long-term exposure to air pollution, especially metrics of traffic-related air pollution such as nitrogen dioxide and black carbon, is associated with onset of childhood asthma. However, the evidence for a causal role in adult-onset asthma or COPD remains insufficient. The Mechanistic Group concluded that air pollution exposure can cause airway remodeling, which can lead to asthma or COPD, as well as asthma-like phenotypes that worsen with long-term exposure to air pollution, especially fine particulate matter and ozone. The Clinical Group concluded that air pollution is a plausible contributor to the onset of both asthma and COPD. Available evidence indicates that long-term exposure to air pollution is a cause of childhood asthma, but the evidence for a similar determination for adult asthma or COPD remains insufficient. Further research is needed to elucidate the exact biological mechanism underlying incident childhood asthma, and the specific air pollutant that causes it.

With the large increase in online instruction, including remote instruction with online materials during the COVID-19 pandemic, there also was an increase in the use of instructional materials that were made to be displayed online or were digitized for online use. However, teachers have not had access to guidance about how to select and evaluate online instructional materials for classroom use. The lack of guidance has the potential to harm historically excluded populations of students and could frustrate teachers as they learn to teach with digital materials. The purpose of this paper is to share the 4A Framework for evaluating online instructional materials. The framework is organized around the premise that quality online instructional materials are accessible, promote active engagement, advocate for inclusion, and are accountable for their relationships to standards and data privacy. Each feature is discussed and examples of teacher work in applying the framework are shared.

Children learn literacies as social practices in context. Increasingly, these contexts include technological tools. Moreover, children engage with psychosocial identity tasks that involve more than cognitive growth. With the rapid rise in digital personalisation, there is a need to consider ways to ensure that digital technologies attend to literacies using understandings about psychosocial development. In this paper, we share ideas from Erik Erikson about the psychosocial tasks children must achieve in their communities from infancy and we relate these to literacy. The psychosocial tasks are trust, autonomy, initiative and industry. We explain how digital personalisation efforts might contribute to holistic psychosocial development that are also supportive of expansive literacies. Then, we make three recommendations for enhancing the digital personalisation efforts. These include attending to identity tasks, considering multiple types of growth simultaneously and involving multiple systems (eg, parents, caregivers and community) in planning, implementing and evaluating personalised instructional materials for young children.

Online teacher professional development (oTPD) researchers have been concerned with design features, teacher change in practice, and student learning, as well as establishing guidelines for directing funding support. Even so, previous work suggests that high-quality instructional support for all students with disabilities is still on the horizon. As a response to the need for better instruction, professional development for SWD has emerged in all settings, including teachers who are not just receiving oTPD, but who are online teachers themselves. The purpose of this study was to use online teachers' descriptions of their oTPD for SWD to learn about the professional learning opportunities available to teachers around serving SWD and their families. Teachers and administrators from various online/virtual learning schools around the country participated in this study. Even though teachers had SWD in their courses and were directly responsible for SWD, most teachers and administrators described few professional development opportunities for learning to teach SWD in the online learning environment beyond giving and receiving information about legal compliance. Findings also raise concerns about the tensions between macro- and micro-development opportunities available to teachers and whether they are positioned to take advantage of these to build strong professional networks.

Adolescents need help locating and evaluating information about immigration that reflects a panoply of views -- particularly views that have been ignored in traditional texts. The purpose of this study was to gain insight into adolescents' engagement with online texts on the topic of immigration and associated concepts as they worked to develop critical digital literacies. The research question for this study was: How do adolescents make meaning about the political issue of immigration as they engage with and respond to online texts? As a theoretical framework, we used Barthes' notions of "punctum" and "studium" to illuminate how meaning was made in moments of deep engagement versus momentary reflection. During this study, meaning was made as students (1) clarified collective understandings in small groups, (2) confirmed or contrasted using personal experiences, and (3) held conclusions against a multiplicity of conceptual understandings about "immigrants" and "immigration." These findings illustrate the need to support adolescents, not only with multiple texts but also with multiple opportunities to consider and reconsider the texts in the context of their own experience with immigration.

Air pollution poses a great environmental risk to health. Outdoor fine particulate matter (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 μm) exposure is the fifth leading risk factor for death in the world, accounting for 4.2 million deaths and > 103 million disability-adjusted life years lost according to the Global Burden of Disease Report. The World Health Organization attributes 3.8 million additional deaths to indoor air pollution. Air pollution can harm acutely, usually manifested by respiratory or cardiac symptoms, as well as chronically, potentially affecting every organ in the body. It can cause, complicate, or exacerbate many adverse health conditions. Tissue damage may result directly from pollutant toxicity because fine and ultrafine particles can gain access to organs, or indirectly through systemic inflammatory processes. Susceptibility is partly under genetic and epigenetic regulation. Although air pollution affects people of all regions, ages, and social groups, it is likely to cause greater illness in those with heavy exposure and greater susceptibility. Persons are more vulnerable to air pollution if they have other illnesses or less social support. Harmful effects occur on a continuum of dosage and even at levels below air quality standards previously considered to be safe.

Although air pollution is well known to be harmful to the lung and airways, it can also damage most other organ systems of the body. It is estimated that about 500,000 lung cancer deaths and 1.6 million COPD deaths can be attributed to air pollution, but air pollution may also account for 19% of all cardiovascular deaths and 21% of all stroke deaths. Air pollution has been linked to other malignancies, such as bladder cancer and childhood leukemia. Lung development in childhood is stymied with exposure to air pollutants, and poor lung development in children predicts lung impairment in adults. Air pollution is associated with reduced cognitive function and increased risk of dementia. Particulate matter in the air (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 μm) is associated with delayed psychomotor development and lower child intelligence. Studies link air pollution with diabetes mellitus prevalence, morbidity, and mortality. Pollution affects the immune system and is associated with allergic rhinitis, allergic sensitization, and autoimmunity. It is also associated with osteoporosis and bone fractures, conjunctivitis, dry eye disease, blepharitis, inflammatory bowel disease, increased intravascular coagulation, and decreased glomerular filtration rate. Atopic and urticarial skin disease, acne, and skin aging are linked to air pollution. Air pollution is controllable and, therefore, many of these adverse health effects can be prevented.

During the spring of 2020, institutions of higher education (IHEs) closed their buildings but continued to offer instruction through emergency remote teaching procedures in the United States of America. Although students and teaching faculty received much attention for their mutual under preparedness for remote learning using online tools, instructional designers at IHEs were working to support both groups. Using grounded theory, the purpose of this research was to identify instructional designers' perceptions of their abrupt shift in roles and responsibilities during this transition. We also gathered data to understand instructional designers' expectations for supporting future course design and delivery as IHEs revise their distance education plans to prepare for re-opening in the fall of 2020 and beyond in the United States of America. Overall, their role shift focused on building relationships within the university community. Specific efforts included gathering, organizing, and distributing resources, designing faculty course development workshops, providing technology support, and advocating for students and for their profession.

Universal design for learning (UDL) is a research-based framework intended to optimise student learning by including student choice of content, process, and product in design. The UDL model recommends presenting course content in multiple ways, providing students various options for engagement, and then facilitating choice in expressing knowledge and skills. While previous research has shown that higher education instructors benefit from professional learning about UDL, little is known about the social and intellectual investments instructors make during these professional learning events. This study used qualitative research methods and a sociocultural definition of investment to investigate faculty development in a highly-ranked liberal arts university in the Midwest United States during a series of UDL workshops. Instructors invested in accordance with their beliefs that UDL could improve student engagement, enable them to teach more content, and develop important professional relationships with other instructors who also attended the workshops.