18 elementary students, teacher fall ill after dry ice experiment in Tennessee classroom
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/02/16/tennessee-dry-ice-experiment-elementary-students-teacher-hospitalized/72631912007/Open linkView original on lemmy.world183
Comments30
What the hell happened? Article is worthless behind headline
No other details have been released, but it's likely CO2 poisoning due to poor ventilation.
Makes sense. I remember this incident from a few years ago:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51680049
They probably did this in a small classroom with doors and windows closed, and let the kids gather close. Should've used the gym.
Interesting. I'm not sure exactly what they were doing.
We made dry ice root beer multiple times in school. They weren't super large class rooms but nobody ever got sick. I could see how having the dry ice submerged in liquid captures some of the CO2 and we didn't need all that much anyways.
"captured some of the CO2"
Well, glad you did this multiple times and figured something out....
Where do you think the carbonation came from? It is the C02. That was the whole point of the "experiment" smh. It's even in the name of the word "carbon-ization".
If you want to have a stick up your ass…
It's carbonation, not carbonization.
I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was in the presence of someone that doesn't understand commentary.
Of course I fucking got that. That's literally what I said. However, LOTS of CO2 doesn't get captured by the water when you do this.
Wow, you're unnecessarily hostile.
Go back to Reddit with that shit. SMH
Shhh.
This is why we need to keep science out of the classroom
This never would have happened if they were praying instead!
Cause science is a LIAR! ...sometimes.
That's why I preface everything I say with "to my understanding." That way I have an out in case I'm wrong.
Relatable
I'm not surprised that this happened in the state where a woman was forced to give birth and her marriage was destroyed and her sobriety (recently clean) was destroyed and all social assistance was denied or so late that she couldn't benefit. I lived in Tennessee for about seven years of my life. I'm allowed to talk shit. They're backwards.
The article about the forced birth was on here yesterday and came from ProPublica.
I live there currently and could not agree more.
Exactly my first thought.
Reminds me of the video on how to build a cheap AC for camper with dry ice :D
BTW the rising CO2 concentration of the atmosphere is already affecting cognitive ability especially in classrooms. We'll need CO2 scubbers in closed rooms soon.
While elevated CO2 levels seem to be affecting certain cognitive abilities, I did not find definitive results indicating that this has become a general problem.
There is a meta review that indicates additional research might be worthwhile / required ( https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32557862/ ).
Do you have any sources worth looking into?
Sorry I don't have good sources. I just read this a few years back with one study showing there is already an effect.
While you'd probably need to study this further to be 100% certain, I don't think it's much of a stretch to assume ventilation is going to work worse because a constant air exchange would move concentrations towards 400ppm instead of 280ppm. So the median (or whatever) can be higher than 100ppm difference. Or maybe I'm getting this wrong?
Ventilation definitely helps. I mean, I'm not doubting the effects, I actually run sensors in my office and have personally experienced "mind fog" when I ignored the readings for too long and didn't open the windows when it was time.
I was just wondering if we're already at a point where environmental changes have made this one additional problem we need to think about more.
I think we have to assume it's already affecting people. The sensors are a good idea, I definitely should get some for arduino.
Ah thanks I've been meaning to look into plants, how much you'd need to make an impact. Unfortunately the article doesn't mention numbers, like how much CO2 one human produces in a normal or in a well insulated sealed room, and how much of that plants can scrub, and how much light they need.
Another way to think about this would in terms of calories, if plants where to produce 100% calories / edible sugar or starches, it should somewhat match how much CO2 we output. To grow enough potatoes for your daily calories you need about 250m². You probably need less and that would be for a perfectly sealed room.
I don't know about blood concentration, but if it's fine then presumably it isn't affecting cognitive abilities yet. It might also vary from human to human how well they can oxygenate / expel Co2.
No worries, I'll have to research this stuff later. My ideal / current dream would be something like all the walls of a house (or catamaran) are about 80cm deep greenhouses with aquaculture crops that produce strawberries or similar supplemental crops.
"See! This is why we can't trust science!" - Tennessee Republicans probably.
So you're saying those Kamikaze shots everybody asked for back in the 00s, with a chunk of dry ice in the bottom may not have been safe? 🙀