To create healthier homes, we must first know what’s making them unhealthy and how to fix it. Two university programs, the Healthy Materials Lab at the New School’s Parsons School of Design and the Nature Lab at the Rhode Island School of Design, are exploring just that.

Both labs were founded out of a desire to study traditionally under-researched areas. The Healthy Materials Lab began as a research project, but its director, Alison Mears, quickly realized that they would have to teach people that there was an issue in the first place. “The issue of toxic chemicals in building materials hasn’t really been addressed by architects and interior designers,” she says. “Part of that is because they don’t know what’s hiding in the product they’re using.”

Mears and her team expanded the lab to include education, offering an online course and seminars that are open not only to Parsons students, but also to professionals looking to learn more. The curriculum delves into the often-overlooked relationship between building materials and health, as well as how to make smarter choices.