Quantitative evaluation of total volatile organic compounds in urban and rural schools of southern Brazil.

Volatile organic compounds, VOCs, are air pollutants widely produced by biogenic and anthropogenic sources. This work quantitatively studied the presence of these gases in the internal and external environments of schools, comparing one in an urban area (La Salle School, Canoas, RS) and another in a rural area (Santa Cassia Farm School, Nova Santa Rita, RS). The aim of this study was to compare if this environmental differences (location) influence their gases concentration. Monitoring campaigns were conducted for 6 months, occurring every 2 weeks in both schools during class hours, 1 day indoors and 1 day outdoors. The results showed higher concentrations of total volatile organic compounds in the urban school external environment compared with the same rural school environment and, in the comparison between environments, the internal environments of the two schools obtained higher VOC concentrations than the external ones, except in November and December at the urban school.