A 12-year-old Nigerian-American student, Eniola Shokunbi, helped turn a classroom science project into an $11.5 million Connecticut programme to improve air quality in public schools, after testing showed that the low-cost filters could remove more than 99% of infectious respiratory aerosols from the air.
The Connecticut State Bond Commission approved the $11.5 million allocation in October 2024 for the University of Connecticut’s Indoor Air Quality Initiative.
The money is being used to purchase materials and support the construction and installation of individual classroom air purifiers across public schools in the state. Eniola Shokunbi, who was then a fifth-grade student at Commodore MacDonough STEM Academy in Middletown, became involved after writing to UConn’s Indoor Air Quality Initiative asking researchers to help her class build air purifiers.
Her school was seeking practical ways to improve indoor air quality and reduce the risk of illness in classrooms. The resulting device is a Corsi-Rosenthal box, a low-cost air-cleaning system originally developed by Richard Corsi and Jim Rosenthal. Shokunbi and her classmates built their version using a box fan, four furnace filters, duct tape and cardboard. The materials cost about $60 per unit.
The simplicity of the design became central to the project’s appeal. Rather than relying on expensive commercial purification equipment, the system draws classroom air through multiple filters before releasing cleaner air through the top of the box.
The device was subsequently tested with UConn scientists at a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency facility in North Carolina. UConn reported that the testing found the filters removed more than 99% of infectious respiratory aerosols in 60 minutes, including aerosols containing a virus surrogate used in testing. The project was tested in an EPA bioaerosol chamber, providing scientific evidence for its effectiveness rather than relying solely on classroom observations. The state funding, however, is not an $11.5 million payment to Eniola Shokunbi personally. It supports UConn’s statewide air-filtration programme, which was partly inspired by the work she helped champion.
Connecticut’s legislation specifically allocated up to $11.5 million for UConn’s Supplemental Air Filtration for Education programme. For Shokunbi, the project has become larger than air filtration. She has advocated for students to participate in building the devices themselves, turning a public-health intervention into a hands-on science and engineering exercise.
Her experience also carries a particular resonance in the Nigerian-American community. Eniola Shokunbi has spoken about eventually expanding the initiative beyond the United States, including to Nigeria, where her parents have roots.
The project demonstrates how a relatively simple classroom experiment can move from a school in Connecticut to a statewide public-health programme when combined with scientific testing, institutional support and government funding. It also puts a young Nigerian-American student’s work at the centre of a wider conversation about youth innovation, affordable technology and participation in STEM fields.