Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “school”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Cost Reduction of School Bus Fleet Electrification With Optimized Charging and Distributed Energy Resources: Preprint

Considerations for electrifying school buses are presented with an analysis of battery sizing to match bus driving requirements. The charging and vehicle-to-building dispatch of the electric school buses were optimized to evaluate the potential to reduce the impact of the bus charging on the school's electric utility bill. Distributed energy resources (DER) and flexible building loads were also considered with the school bus electrification to evaluate the further reduction in energy costs with enhanced system integration and optimized dispatch. The effect of degradation on the school bus batteries was analyzed to determine if the smart charging and vehicle-to-building battery operation decreases the life of the battery. The results show that there is an opportunity to mitigate the increase of electric utility bills with improved charging controls and bi-directionally operating the school bus batteries to reduce building demand charges. The battery degradation analysis using dispatch with optimized charging and discharging shows acceptable battery life.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Ocular biological parameters and prevalence of myopia in vocational high school and general high school in China

Significance Higher prevalence of myopia is possibly associated with more extended schooling schedules. Therefore, adjustments to high school curricula may aid in reducing the prevalence of myopia among adolescents. Purpose To investigate the prevalence of myopia among 15- to 18-year-old adolescents in Tianjin, China, and to evaluate the impact of different educational schedules on the prevalence of myopia among high school students. Methods This is a school-based epidemiological study with a cross-sectional design. Ocular biological parameters and noncycloplegic photorefraction were examined using optical biometry devices and photoscreener devices. Each student’s spherical equivalent (SE) and ocular biometry were recorded, and the prevalence of myopia was calculated. Results A total of 2,867 participants (1,519 males and 1,348 females) were tested for non-cycloplegic refraction, axial length (AL), central corneal thickness (CCT), anterior chamber depth (ACD) and lens thickness (LT). In this research, the overall prevalence of myopia was 81.6%, with high myopia accounting for 11.8%. Myopia prevalence was substantially higher in general high schools than in vocational high schools, with 86.1 and 70.1%, respectively. There were no significant differences in the prevalence of myopia ( p = 0.744) or high myopia ( p = 0.851) across the three vocational school years. In the general high school, however, there was an increase of 4.6% ( p < 0.05) in myopia prevalence between year 10 and year12. Conclusion Comparing vocational and standard high school students, there are considerable disparities in prevalence of myopia, spherical equivalent, and ocular biological parameters. The prevalence of myopia and high myopia increased among standard high school students, but remained relatively consistent among students in vocational schools.

Liu, Yang↗
DOE OSTI2021

Model-based evaluation of school- and non-school-related measures to control the COVID-19 pandemic

The role of school-based contacts in the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2 is incompletely understood. We use an age-structured transmission model fitted to age-specific seroprevalence and hospital admission data to assess the effects of school-based measures at different time points during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands. Our analyses suggest that the impact of measures reducing school-based contacts depends on the remaining opportunities to reduce non-school-based contacts. If opportunities to reduce the effective reproduction number (R e ) with non-school-based measures are exhausted or undesired and R e is still close to 1, the additional benefit of school-based measures may be considerable, particularly among older school children. As two examples, we demonstrate that keeping schools closed after the summer holidays in 2020, in the absence of other measures, would not have prevented the second pandemic wave in autumn 2020 but closing schools in November 2020 could have reduced R e below 1, with unchanged non-school-based contacts.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

College-bound cowboys: The Los Alamos Ranch School Before the wartime lab, Los Alamos was home to a boarding school

Summer’s over and the school year’s soon to start. What’s a kid to do? Go West, young man! Escape the city that is “making you soft” and learn self-reliance from the western U.S. of A. – or so advertised the ranch school movement in America from roughly 1900-1960. This educational movement included Los Alamos. Before being developed into a wartime lab to create atomic weapons, the mesa was home to one of the most prominent and pricey ranch schools in America.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
DOE OSTI2023

Getting Beyond Widgets: Performance of Efficient Indoor Air Quality System Retrofit Packages for Schools A report on the modeled energy, greenhouse gas, and cost savings of several multi-measure retrofit packages for energy efficiency and indoor air quality in primary schools

School facilities are often underfunded with aging and poorly maintained HVAC and lighting systems. Most existing school buildings stand to benefit significantly from retrofits in terms of energy, cost, and emissions savings. Ventilation and indoor air quality (IAQ), which are important aspects of a healthy and productive learning environment, can also be enhanced by some energy efficiency measures (EEMs). Packaging energy efficiency and IAQ systems retrofits may represent a golden opportunity to improve performance in this critical building sector.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2022

Energy Prediction Impact of the Space Level Occupancy Schedule for a Primary School

By using the same occupant schedule for all spaces, a building level occupancy schedule in building energy modelling can reduce the cost and time of data collection, especially for large-scale simulations or when detailed occupancy data cannot be obtained. However, by describing the unique occupancy status in each space, a space level schedule can better reflect real-world scenarios. This research investigates the energy prediction impact of a space level occupancy schedule for primary school modelling in 16 ASHRAE climate zones. The results show that when switched from a building level to a space level occupancy schedule, the energy prediction difference is between -1.0% and 0.8%. Generally, the predicted building energy consumption using a space level occupancy schedule is higher than when using a building level occupancy schedule in hot and warm climate zones, but lower in other climate zones.

building energy model↗
DOE OSTI2021

The 23rd National School on Neutron & X-Ray Scattering 2021—Virtual School with Remote Experiments

The National School on Neutron and X-ray Scattering (NXS) has been a yearly “institution” for North American graduate students interested in neutron and X-ray scattering since its inception 23 years ago. For the second year in a row, it was forced to go virtual. Nevertheless, the aim was to include user experiments and maximize interactions in this second virtual iteration rather than simply repeat the lecture series of the first virtual iteration. In this paper, we share our newly adopted methods and experiences.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Conscientious vaccination exemptions in kindergarten to eighth-grade children across Texas schools from 2012 to 2018: A regression analysis

Background: As conscientious vaccination exemption (CVE) percentages rise across the United States, so does the risk and occurrence of outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles. In the state of Texas, the median CVE percentage across school systems more than doubled between 2012 and 2018. During this period, the proportion of schools surpassing a CVE percentage of 3% rose from 2% to 6% for public schools, 20% to 26% for private schools, and 17% to 22% for charter schools. The aim of this study was to investigate this phenomenon at a fine scale. Methods and findings: Here, we use beta regression models to study the socioeconomic and geographic drivers of CVE trends in Texas. Using annual counts of CVEs at the school system level from the 2012–2013 to the 2017–2018 school year, we identified county-level predictors of median CVE percentage among public, private, and charter schools, the proportion of schools below a high-risk threshold for vaccination coverage, and five-year trends in CVEs. Since the 2012–2013 school year, CVE percentages have increased in 41 out of 46 counties in the top 10 metropolitan areas of Texas. We find that 77.6% of the variation in CVE percentages across metropolitan counties is explained by median income, the proportion of the population that holds a bachelor's degree, the proportion of the population that self-reports as ethnically white, the proportion of the population that is English speaking, and the proportion of the population that is under the age of five years old. Across the 10 top metropolitan areas in Texas, counties vary considerably in the proportion of school systems reporting CVE percentages above 3%. Sixty-six percent of that variation is explained by the proportion of the population that holds a bachelor’s degree and the proportion of the population affiliated with a religious congregation. Three of the largest metropolitan areas—Austin, Dallas–Fort Worth, and Houston—are potential vaccination exemption "hotspots," with over 13% of local school systems above this risk threshold. The major limitations of this study are inconsistent school-system-level CVE reporting during the study period and a lack of geographic and socioeconomic data for individual private schools. Conclusions: In this study, we have identified high-risk communities that are typically obscured in county-level risk assessments and found that public schools, like private schools, are exhibiting predictable increases in vaccination exemption percentages. As public health agencies confront the reemerging threat of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases, findings such as ours can guide targeted interventions and surveillance within schools, cities, counties, and sociodemographic subgroups.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Student Support for the “Frontiers in Attosecond & Ultrafast X-ray Science” School

The new millennium witnessed two revolutionary breakthroughs in ultrafast x-ray science: table-top XUV sources based on high harmonic generation in gases ushered in the attosecond era while facility-based x-ray free-electron lasers opened the path for intense, femtosecond hard x-rays. This award requested scholarship funds for a 2019 and 2023 School whose prime objective was the training of young scientists in these emerging complementary areas both relevant to DOE BES mission. The school entitled the “Frontiers of Attosecond and Ultrafast X-ray Science (FAXS)” (http://www.erice-attosecond.it/) was the second and fourth in a series, which began in 2017. The two Schools were held during March 10-16, 2019 and March 26-31, 2023 at the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture (http://www.ccsem.infn.it/) in Erice, Sicily. The DOE funds supported the registration fee for young scientists (graduate students and postdocs) from US institutions. The registration fees included School participation, lodging and meals over the duration of the School. Note, the third addition of the School was held in 2022 as a virtual event due to the pandemic, DOE funds were not necessary for this event. The FAXS School is a course of the 62th and 63rd International School of Quantum Electronics under the directorship of Prof. Diederik Wiersma (University of Florence). The Directors for the FAXS School are Louis DiMauro (The Ohio State University, USA) and Mauro Nisoli (Politecnico di Milano, Italy). The FAXS School program consisted of approximately 10 lectures by leading experts in attosecond and x-ray science (see attached list). Most lecturers delivered a series of three 1-hour lectures. The lecturers were required to spend the full 5 days at the school so to promote interaction with the students. The Erice Majorana Center venue accommodated ~75 young scientists. The registration fee covered the cost of participating in the school, lodging and meals for the entire duration of the school. The schedule consisted of lectures every morning and afternoon except for one afternoon that was reserved for an archaeological excursion. Every evening had a student/postdoc poster session and social gatherings at the Majorana Center to encourage further interaction of all participants and lecturers. The two FAXS Schools attracted an international group of young scientists. The DOE funds supported the registration fee for 11 students/postdocs from US institutions (5 supported in 2019 and 6 supported in 2023). The management of the DOE fellowships were administered through the Research Foundation of The Ohio State University. FAXS scholarships for European students/postdocs were provided by European funding sources administered by co-Director, Prof. Nisoli. All students/postdocs were encouraged to present a poster. Travel expenses to the FAXS School were the responsibility of the student/postdoc home institution.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Plowing Through the Cost Barrier: Zero Energy K-12 Schools for Less: Preprint

There is a perception that zero energy K–12 schools cost more than conventional schools. Zero energy schools provide a number of unique benefits to school districts, students and staff, and communities. Among other things, a zero energy school requires far less energy to operate than a conventional school and uses on-site renewable energy systems to offset that reduced energy load. The money saved on energy can often be used to enhance educational programs. But does the extra value come at a premium? Research findings indicate that not only can zero energy schools be designed and built on conventional school budgets, they can cost less. In an integrated design and construction process, the cost of zero energy measures can be offset by, for example, downsizing heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems, reducing both life cycle and first costs. These findings are based on an examination of 88 zero energy or zero energy ready schools across the United States built during the last 15 years. The data collected on these schools include capital costs and the experiences of owners and design teams. The goal was to understand the perceived cost barrier, given that each building was built with a predetermined budget. The results will help future school stakeholders, program administrators, and design teams counter the perceived cost barriers. Successful strategies for achieving zero energy at no initial cost are presented. The lessons learned from existing zero energy schools can help transform the market such that all new schools can be zero energy.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2021

COVID-19-associated school closures and related efforts to sustain education and subsidized meal programs, United States, February 18-June 30, 2020

Pre-emptive school closures are frontline community mitigation measures recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for implementation during severe pandemics. This study describes the spatiotemporal patterns of publicly announced school closures implemented in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and assesses how public K-12 districts adjusted their methods of education delivery and provision of subsidized meals. During February 18–June 30, 2020, we used daily systematic media searches to identify publicly announced COVID-19–related school closures lasting ≥1 day in the United States (US). We also collected statewide school closure policies from state government websites. Data on distance learning and subsidized meal programs were collected from a stratified sample of 600 school districts. The first COVID-19–associated school closure occurred on February 27, 2020 in Washington state. By March 30, 2020, all but one US public school districts were closed, representing the first-ever nearly synchronous nationwide closure of public K-12 schools in the US. Approximately 100,000 public schools were closed for ≥8 weeks because of COVID-19, affecting >50 million K-12 students. Of 600 districts sampled, the vast majority offered distance learning (91.0%) and continued provision of subsidized meal programs (78.8%) during the closures. Despite the sudden and prolonged nature of COVID-19–associated school closures, schools demonstrated flexibility by implementing distance learning and alternate methods to continue subsidized meal programs.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Analyzing School Bus Electrification in Richmond, Virginia

School buses are an essential component of the transportation infrastructure, serving as a lifeline for students across the globe. However, the widespread use of diesel school buses has raised concerns about the health impact on millions of students exposed to harmful emissions daily. Recognizing this issue, school districts worldwide are urgently seeking cleaner energy alternatives. Electric school buses emerge as an environmentally friendly and sustainable option, fostering a healthier environment for both students and communities. However, school bus electrification faces the challenges of high upfront cost, cumbersome charging management, and constraints from power grids. To help school bus operators address those challenges, this study presents a data-driven analysis for school bus electrification. This study considered a real-world school bus system in Richmond, VA, and developed a mathematical programming model to analyze the system design, charging strategies, and charging load profiles for the electrification scenario. The study evaluated different charging strategies based on model outcomes, aiming to optimize efficiency and effectiveness. Ultimately, this research generated electric school bus charging demand profiles under various scenarios, shedding light on the feasibility and implications of transitioning to electric-powered school buses.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Dataset of U.S. School Bus Depots

A large body of public health literature describes how undesirable or dangerous facilities, such as truck depots and industrial plants, located in or near communities can lead to health harms. Research also describes the high levels of traffic-related air and noise pollution that is linked to health harms and may be disproportionately distributed near many schools. Therefore, a primary use case for this dataset is to analyze the location of school bus depots and to create an evidence base that would better enable the work of community members, advocates, and other stakeholders toward improving air quality and public health. Other possible uses for this school bus depot dataset include electricity grid planning and reliability, given recent momentum toward school bus electrification. This dataset was created using an object-based approach with remote sensing data. The primary source of aerial imagery was the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) dataset. NAIP imagery was analyzed to locate individual school buses based on their color and size, and then classified clusters of school buses as potential depots, which were then verified visually. The resulting dataset contains 11,309 depots across the 48 contiguous U.S. states and Washington, D.C. Fifty-one percent (5,730 depots) are at schools, defined as being 350 meters or less from the nearest school. The accuracy of the dataset was assessed by comparing it with independent reference datasets containing 506 depots from the records of two school transportation companies. We found good agreement, with an omission error rate of 15.2% (77 depots). This dataset represents one of the only remote sensing projects to conduct object detection using data at the sub-meter to 1-meter resolution for a continental-scale application.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

Long-term carbon intensity reduction potential of K-12 school buildings in the United States

School buildings have a great potential for carbon emission reduction since their annual emission is about 72 million metric tons. Currently, more than 30% of school buildings were built before 1960 and are underperforming. To effectively reduce carbon emissions via school building retrofits, it is critical for policymakers to understand the carbon intensity reduction potential of retrofitting school buildings in different regions. Hence, this study develops a method to comprehensively assess the long-term carbon intensity reduction potential of aggregated commercial buildings on a county-by-county basis in the continental U.S. We apply this method to the K-12 school buildings including primary and secondary school buildings. Here, this paper predicts the carbon intensity reduction potential of K-12 school buildings with eight building retrofit measures from 2022 to 2050 in the continental U.S. The results reveal several interesting findings: (1) In the approximately 3,000 counties of the U.S. from 2022 to 2050, the carbon intensity reduction potential of retrofitting K-12 school buildings in each county ranges from 0.41 kg/m 2 to 40.00 kg/m 2 . (2) Even in the same climate zone, the trends of carbon intensity reduction potential from 2022 to 2050 are different depending on their electricity sources. For example, in a hot and humid climate zone, the carbon intensity reduction potential in Florida will decrease from 2044 to 2048. However, in Mississippi, the carbon intensity reduction potential from 2044 to 2046 will increase due to the termination of the nuclear energy usage. (3) Generally, reducing lighting power density leads to more carbon intensity reduction in most states, but it might not be applicable for states with high clean energy penetration, such as Washington.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2023

The first field application of a low-cost MPC for grid-interactive K-12 schools: Lessons-learned and savings assessment

K-12 schools are the largest energy consumers in the public sector, with their HVAC energy consumption representing the largest portion of their total energy use. While transitioning these schools to grid-interactive HVAC system operation through advanced controls offers significant financial and environmental benefits, and model predictive control (MPC) has been identified as a promising solution to achieve that, very few MPCs are affordable and have been deployed in K-12 schools. This situation raises concerns about the unclear real-world benefits of MPC technology among facility managers and industries. To address this gap, this paper presents a low-cost MPC solution that requires minimal control infrastructure costs and a unique field demonstration at a K-12 school, conducted for both cooling and heating seasons. This work adopted a previously developed MPC and extended it for use in the school application. The MPC aims to coordinate multiple packaged units to eliminate unnecessary peaks and shift cooling or heating loads in response to grid signals based on load conditions, while maintaining thermostat temperatures within school-defined bounds. Throughout the field tests, the MPC achieved a 24% reduction in peak demand during the cooling season and shifted cooling or heating loads by up to 16% in response to the school's utility tariff, considering load conditions, while also allowing end-users to override thermostat setpoints. Further, the paper also discusses the limitations of this study and future research directions for better performance of the MPC at K-12 schools.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗
DOE OSTI2021

Identifying schools at high-risk for elevated lead in drinking water using only publicly available data

Estimating the risk of lead contamination of schools' drinking water at the State level is a complex, important, and unexplored challenge. Variable water quality among water systems and changes in water chemistry during distribution affect lead dissolution rates from pipes and fittings. In addition, the locations of lead-bearing plumbing materials are uncertain. We tested the capability of six machine learning models to predict the likelihood of lead contamination of drinking water at the schools' taps using only publicly available datasets. The predictive features used in the models correspond to those with a proven correlation to the dominant, but commonly unavailable, factors that govern lead leaching: the presence of lead-bearing plumbing materials and water quality conducive to lead corrosion. By combining water chemistry data from public reports, socioeconomic information from the US census, and spatial features using Geographic Information Systems, we trained and tested models to estimate the likelihood of lead contaminated tap water in over 8,000 schools across California and Massachusetts. Our best-performing model was a Random Forest, with a 10-fold cross validation score of 0.88 for Massachusetts and 0.78 for California using the average Area Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve (ROC AUC) metric. The model was then used to assign a lead leaching risk category to half of the schools across California (the other half was used for training). There was good agreement between the modeled risk categories and the actual lead leaching outcomes for every school; however, the model overestimated the lead leaching risk in up to 17% of the schools. This model is the first of its kind to offer a tool to predict the risk of lead leaching in schools at the State level. Further use of this model can help deploy limited resources more effectively to prevent childhood lead exposure from school drinking water.

63 RADIATION, THERMAL, AND OTHER ENVIRON. POLLUTAN↗