Last year, USA Today ran a series of articles looking at the issue of  Toxic Air and America’s Schools. Working with researchers and scientists, they analyzed the extent of industrial pollution outside 128,000 schools across the nation. They have even created an easy search tool so that you can check out your child’s school for air toxicity.

What USA Today discovered is frightening. School children throughout the United States are breathing in extreme levels of toxic chemicals on a routine basis. And these are chemicals that can cause all sorts of health problems, from asthma to cancer, as well as trigger learning disabilities.

As a result of Today‘s investigative reporting, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the other day that it now plans to monitor the air that schoolchildren breathe at 62 schools in 22 states in an effort to determine exactly how toxic the air is.

Starting mid-April, the air surrounding chosen schools will be monitored for at least 60 days. The results will then be analyzed, allowing the EPA to evaluate the health risks students at each school might be facing.

You can find a list of the 62 schools to be tested here, and bookmark this post for timely updates in the future.

Image: duchamp