Inspiration, Anticipation, and Motivation

By Kiana Chan 

With the burden of climate change, population increases, and the dependence on fossil fuels to sustain our ways of living, the effect of particulate matter and CO2 on our air quality is a pressing issue that needs to be brought to the forefront in environmental and public health research. As a geography major with an interest in public health, I was motivated to join the SAR Air Quality Team due to my desire to engage in action research methods and to improve these issues on a local scale. Our team members, who represent a wide range of majors, are also excited to approach this project while continuing to expand on the research from last year. 

I was inspired by the work from last year’s Air Quality SAR Team– they made huge progress in gathering data for indoor air quality in the John Wooden Recreation Center while finding that air quality improvement of the weight room should be a major focus for future research. This week, we had a meeting with our stakeholder, Katie Zeller, who is the Sustainability Coordinator of UCLA Recreation. We discussed possible projects for these next two quarters, for example, involving further testing of weight room air quality and the importance of ensuring students are safe when exercising. Our next steps with Katie will be to solidify our ideas to come up with a clearer plan for improving weight room air quality. Through our research in SAR this year, we hope to make significant gains by not only improving overall air quality of the John Wooden weight room, but ultimately, contributing to the improvement of UCLA student’s quality of life.