Correlation investigation of heavy metals composition of classrooms’ dust: a case study of dodoma municipal primary schools

Exposure to heavy metals has been a source of many unexpected health effects. Toddlers are even more prone to heavy metals contamination based on childhood behaviors, high absorption rate and rapid organs development. In order to establish toddler exposure risks, dust samples obtained from three Primary Schools were analyzed by using GF-AAS. High amounts of Zn, 126.12 and 95.33 ppm found at Mazengo and Mlezi respectively. Amani Primary School observed to have high amounts of Cr,53.23 ppm while Cd was the least, 0.85 ppm. There were no significant differences among the schools since the computed t-test values, ≤ 1.0 were smaller than critical value, 2.571.High positive correlation for Zn with respect to other metal observed at Amani while Mazengo had mostly negative correlation. The same high correlation for Zn/Metal observed among most classrooms. These findings indicated uniform and similar pollution patterns for these schools. Presence of these heavy metals in the classroom dust implicated high risks and vulnerability that was descending from nursery to upper classes.