Healthy Schools

School Environmental Effects on Student Achievement (SEESA)

From Left to right: UNL's Healthy Schools project team: Dr. Josephine Lau, Dr. Clarence Waters, Dr. Lily Wang, and Dr. Jim Bovaird
UNL's Healthy Schools project team (from left): Dr. Josephine Lau, Dr. Clarence Waters, Dr. Lily Wang, and Dr. Jim Bovaird


The University of Nebraska - Lincoln is one of seven grantees under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Healthy Schools STAR Program. Our project, “Evidence-Based Interactions between Indoor Environmental Factors and Their Effects on K-12 Student Achievement”, examines indoor environmental factors and their effects on the scholastic achievement of K-12 students.

The research results will establish how the indoor air quality, thermal, lighting and acoustic conditions in K-12 school buildings interactively affect student achievement, determine the relative significance of each environmental variable, and reveal how student demographics may affect these results. Armed with such results, school districts with limited funds will be able to make more informed decisions on how to improve their infrastructure to most impact student achievement, and the school design community will have a better understanding of how designing for optimal indoor environmental quality can benefit occupants.

Learn more about the project through the following links: