SAFE MOBILE PHONE USE: PILOT WORKSHOPS AT IES MOISÈS BROGGI

BIOHABITA! delivered two pilot hands-on workshops on the safe use of mobile phones for the first-year groups at IES Moisès Broggi in Barcelona.

BIOHABITA! proposes a workshop that shows the changes technology has brought into our homes, presents the physical principles of electromagnetic waves, and explains how the technology that makes mobile-phone use possible works. The workshop includes a short theoretical section and a practical section in which students take measurements of electromagnetic waves from different everyday devices: a cordless phone, a mobile phone, a microwave oven, a phone charger, and a music system.

The aim is to raise students’ awareness about the potential health implications of mobile-phone use and the measures that can be taken to minimize them.

In the form of questions for later follow-up work in tutoring sessions, the workshop also addresses the implications of mobile telephony for the environment (raw materials, planned obsolescence, waste) and for communities (how we communicate, economic cost, geopolitics).

Although Spanish regulations do not recognize negative health implications from the radiofrequency waves used by mobile technologies, the existence of institutional studies still underway to assess their effects (WHO, CREAL) and the calls by independent groups of scientists for protective measures make it necessary to inform the public about what radiofrequency waves are and how to reduce their impact on people.

Children and young people are considered especially sensitive because they are still growing, which means their bodies have characteristics that differ from those of adults. CREAL (the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology, based in Barcelona) coordinates an international study currently underway, Mobi-Kids, on the potential influence of electromagnetic fields on young people’s health.