{"id":428273,"date":"2026-08-09T18:50:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T18:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428273\/"},"modified":"2026-08-09T18:50:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T18:50:11","slug":"south-bay-teens-are-pushing-schools-to-take-pollution-seriously-east-bay-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/428273\/","title":{"rendered":"South Bay teens are pushing schools to take pollution seriously \u2013 East Bay Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

While California heads into another stretch of extreme heat<\/a> that is being called a \u201cheat dome,\u201d Bay Area families are watching the temperatures along with the air-quality index. For schools, a bad-air day can mean<\/a> moving recess, physical education, games and sports practices indoors or canceling them all together. <\/p>\n

Kelly Liu, a student at Valley Christian High School, and Aahaan Jain, a student at Lynbrook High School, are trying to make sure schools have better information and better tools to improve air quality. They co-founded ConServe<\/a>, a youth-led nonprofit focused on air pollution, climate education and public policy advocacy. <\/p>\n

Their interest in air pollution grew from their personal experiences. Liu was raised in East San Jose and remembers the \u201chazy orange skies\u201d during the 2020 wildfires, when the smoke made it difficult to breathe. Jain grew up in India, where he described smog as being \u201clike a suffocating blanket.\u201d Thick gray fumes sometimes made it hard to see, and his sensitivity to pollution became so serious that his family decided to move to California because of it. <\/p>\n

ConServe has so far formed partnerships with 50 schools to install low-cost sensors that measure PM2.5, tiny particles found in sources such as vehicle exhaust and wildfire smoke. ConServe is working with the Stanford University Burney Lab<\/a>, Acterra<\/a> and Breathe Mongolia<\/a> to expand air quality monitoring in East San Jose and other communities that do not have enough local air-quality information. <\/p>\n

The students are also creating tools to help improve filtration in Title I schools, including real-time pollution-risk maps and Corsi-Rosenthal boxes<\/a> that can clean classroom air. They have been holding workshops so students can understand more about the air they breathe. ConServe says it has raised $4,000, engaged over 1,800 community members and grown to 13 chapters, including in Arizona, Connecticut and even Pakistan. <\/p>\n

ConServe members have introduced climate-action policy resolutions in more than 20 school districts, including Berryessa, Fremont Union, Milpitas, Pleasanton and Sunnyvale. Their resolutions have addressed issues such as clean energy, school electrification, climate education and student health. <\/p>\n

Last month, the Santa Clara County Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution Liu and Jain drafted that recognized air pollution as a public threat to students and school employees across the county. The students found that higher particulate-matter levels were connected to a 5.7% increase in student absences, a 13.1% increase in teacher absences and a 28% increase in serious student discipline referrals. Air pollution can affect breathing, but it can also affect attention, fatigue and a student\u2019s ability to learn. <\/p>\n

Stanford University Prof. Jennifer Burney, who teaches global environmental policy and Earth system science at Stanford\u2019s Doerr School of Sustainability, leads a research team that has been working with ConServe to develop low-cost air-pollution sensors. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve built a pipeline that uses publicly available data to illustrate the air quality challenges facing communities everywhere,\u201d Burney says. \u201cThis is most important for young students who don\u2019t have any agency about where they spend the majority of their day in school, and therefore what air they breathe, and also have no political power because they can\u2019t yet vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

Liu and Jain are already working with students and education leaders in San Mateo, Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. Their larger goal is to bring similar resolutions to every county office of education in California and share their work at statewide gatherings such as the California School Boards Association Annual Education Conference<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Liu and Jain are also helping build a broader pipeline of youth climate leadership. Liu co-leads Silicon Valley Youth Climate Action<\/a>\u2019s San Jose team, while Jain co-leads its State Advocacy team.<\/p>\n

They are pushing for more investment in school ventilation and filtration, including stronger use of programs such as CalSHAPE<\/a>, which helps public schools maintain and upgrade their heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems. <\/p>\n

Liu and Jain\u2019s ultimate hope is to improve air quality and better protect the health of students and educators across California and beyond.<\/p>\n

Tara Sreekrishnan serves on the Santa Clara County Board of Education.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While California heads into another stretch of extreme heat that is being called a \u201cheat dome,\u201d Bay Area…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[4817,184,7,443,181,23,5466,88,90,89,198,200,2036],"class_list":["post-428273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-air-quality","tag-bay-area","tag-california","tag-climate-change","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-nonprofits","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-santa-clara-county","tag-south-bay","tag-teens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}