Reseachers at Ohio State University found that many schools do not meet the standards of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). Studies showed that children’s learning and speech abilities are affected when noise levels get too high due to poor acoustics. Most classrooms have hard surfaces, like desks, tables, and hard floors that sound bounces off of. The ASHA recommends that sound dissipate in 0.4 seconds or less, and that background levels not rise above 30 decibels. Most classroom noise levels rise to around 60 decibels.
One solution to the noise problems is to replace the individual heating and cooling units with a quieter central air system. Another is to replace the hard floors with carpet to help buffer sound.
This is very important because no one ever takes the time to think about classroom acoustics and how they can affect both the student and teacher. If these simple changes are made, they may help children learn and keep teachers healthy.
Q3 #2
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This is very interesting. I would have never known that the noise level in a classroom would affect a student’s potential learning ability. I think that this is very important.
Another solution that can be added is a little microphone a teacher can speak to and speakers around the classroom. This method was used in a teacher’s second grade classroom and helped her kids learn better.
A good sound level will definitely help a student grow and become a greater person in life.
A test was done on 32 classrooms to see how long it took for a 120 decible sound to dissapate. The results were extremely varied. The fastest time was .2 seconds. This is an amazingly short amount of time for a student to hear.
There are many solutions, but most are to expensive or are unreasonable. A solution needs to be found that is not only efficient, but also won’t hurt a school financially. This is a very important topic and it should be discussed when buiding any school. Just this one little thing could help better educate our leaders of tommorrow.
q3 #2