How Classroom Lighting Affects Learning | ImproveDepot

The Evolution of the ‘Traditional’ Classroom

Image source: Leon Brocard

Do you remember the general configurations of your classrooms throughout grade school and high school? It’s likely that your desk was one of many individual desks lined up in rows, facing the front. Your classroom was probably lit from above with bright, fluorescent lamps emitting a faint buzzing noise.

Although this configuration has historically been typical of U.S. classrooms, recent research has found that students perform better academically and are healthier overall when more natural lighting, movement, and collaboration is integrated into the classroom. Read on to find out more.

Skylights

The purpose of daylighting design is to incorporate as much natural light as possible into a room using and windows. Studies have shown that poor lighting in schools has negative effects on children’s health as well as their ability to learn. In addition to being a source of light, sunlight is an important element of health and well-being, both emotionally and mentally.

Full-Spectrum Lighting

In addition to increased energy, increased daylight eliminates the need for unnecessary energy use during the day. If installing skylights is not possible, due to architectural or budget constraints, also provides many of the benefits of sunlight. Like sunlight, full-spectrum light can help improve depressed moods, during the fall and winter. Improved moods allow for better work habits, improved academic performance, more positive attitudes, and resistance to fatigue.

Classroom Configurations

has found that students not only perform better in classrooms with natural light, but they also thrive in settings with mobile furniture and student-led collaborative spaces. These collaborative spaces are active, rather than passive, encouraging both increased physical and mental activity.

Peter Lippman argues that thoughtfully designed classrooms help students work together more effectively. For example, by providing large mobile workstations, as well as quiet areas for more self-directed work, different types of learners can work on a variety of projects together or individually—depending on the type of project being worked on at any given time.

Connection to Nature

The program began in 2011 to recognize schools that provide a healthy, efficient learning environment that incorporates a substantial amount of physical activity and learning outdoors. In addition to being beneficial for students, energy-efficient light and water sources save schools money, as well.

Although outdoor activities and nature walks are beneficial for all students, especially stand to benefit from the absence of loud buzzing from fluorescent lights, and a relative absence of the harsh chemicals often used to clean facilities.

If a school doesn’t happen to have nearby access to wetlands or forests, a school-run community garden, recycling center, or native plant area can provide students with times spent outdoors with access to sun and the elements, as well as teach them about the natural cycles of life and offer them the opportunity to connect with the land and environment around them. An indoor garden with grow lights can provide students with the opportunity to start plants indoors and finish them outdoors, once they’ve grown shoots from seed. Access to the outdoors can also be extremely calming and stress-relieving for both teachers and students, and physical activity is naturally invigorating, allowing for increased alertness along with increased blood flow to the brain.

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The modern classroom should facilitate increased collaboration, physical activity, and utilize natural light—both inside and outside—in order to maximize student engagement and self-directed learning opportunities. Students learning in as well as open classroom designs tend to perform better than their peers in traditional classrooms.

Consider how to incorporate more natural light via skylights, windows, or full-spectrum lighting by visiting ImproveDepot’s natural lighting pages today.