New Research: Schools Near Data Centers See Math Score Declines
A conference at Brown University’s SustainableED program brought together researchers studying the intersection of climate change and K-12 learning, and one of the more striking preliminary findings reported by The Hechinger Report on May 10, 2026 is this: students who attend schools near data centers are more likely to see their math performance decline than students who do not.
The same pattern appeared for schools near noisy airports. The mechanism is not yet fully nailed down in the research, and the conference materials are explicit that several of the studies remain preliminary. But the direction of effect was consistent enough across studies to be worth flagging.
What was actually presented
Three findings stood out in the conference coverage:
- Math scores and infrastructure proximity. Schools located close to data centers and airports showed measurable declines in math performance relative to comparable schools farther away.
- Climate-themed math lessons changed student attitudes. After a math lesson built around renewable energy data, U.S. students reported higher levels of climate knowledge and some increase in hope about being able to address it.
- Arts-based climate lessons in India changed understanding more than behavior. Children who learned about air pollution through art lessons understood the problem better but did not necessarily change daily habits.
A separate piece of conference data, attributed to Carine Verschueren at the University of Illinois, was that 60 of the 200 largest U.S. school districts have now adopted sustainability or environmental policies, up from 51 in 2020. The growth is steady but slow.
How to read this carefully
The data-center finding is the most newsworthy and the easiest to over-interpret. Correlation is not yet causation, and the conference made clear that the work is in progress. There are several plausible mediating factors: ambient noise, air quality near the facilities, traffic patterns, neighborhood-level economic effects on school funding, and so on. Disentangling those takes time.
The math-and-climate-lesson finding is more actionable. If a math curriculum can both teach mathematical thinking and shift how students feel about climate change without sacrificing rigor, that is a meaningful instructional opportunity. Our math tools are not built around climate themes specifically, but the broader idea — using real, relevant data to teach math — is consistent with what works.
Why this is on our radar
K-8 science instruction tends to treat “the environment” as a unit you cover for two weeks. The research presented at SustainableED suggests it works better as a context that runs through math and science instruction more broadly. That is a curriculum design question, not an edtech one. But it does affect which interactive tools are useful. A water-cycle simulation that connects to local rainfall is doing something different from a generic one, and the research at this conference is starting to quantify that difference.
If you want to read along, our Water Cycle and Weather & Clouds tools are the SmartOnlineGames pieces that connect most directly to the topics discussed.