Indoor Air Quality: Moisture, Microbes and Materials

CIV 1298H

We spend most of our time indoors exposed to a variety of organic and inorganic compounds. Accounting for and minimizing potentially harmful exposures is critical to indoor air quality. Through this course, students will gain new knowledge in the field of indoor air quality and develop skills to engineer solutions to create healthy, sustainable and equitable indoor environments. Focus will be given to moisture transport through materials, water activity, the impact of moisture on organic indoor contaminants such as bioaerosols, and methodologies to prevent, remediate and monitor indoor mould growth. Further, this course will investigate tools, such as next-generation sequencing and bioinformatics, used to characterize indoor microbiomes and bioaerosols. Interest will also be given to issues in indoor environmental quality specifically in Indigenous housing as well as low-socioeconomic communities in Canada. Through a course project, students will engineer a solution using resources and skills developed throughout the course for a particular issue of interest in indoor air quality.

Instructors

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