Education

Markus Oberdörster and Gerhart Tiesler The acoustic environment of classrooms has a significant impact on new modern teaching scenarios. Today, in many countries, education and teaching is becoming more student centred and differentiated. Classrooms that might have worked well for decades might have to be acoustically “updated”. Markus Oberdörster from Ecophon Germany, together with Gerhart […]

BB77 is meant to be guidance for school design edited by the British government. It addresses the inclusive aspects of school facilities, meaning their capacity to accommodate pupils with special needs. The draft is a 293 page document, applying to all schools whether “special” or not. Facts and figures – pupils are regarded as having […]

Noise reduction in day-care centres by reducing reverberation time: Analyses and case studies is a study conducted on behalf of the Canadian IRSST. The aim of the study is to: – examine the effects of acoustic materials and their impact on noise reduction and reverberation time. – give concrete examples of noise reduction obtained through […]

“Don’t limit your senses – sound and the learning environment” is now available in an upgraded German version, entitled “Mit allen Sinnen lernen : akustische Ergonomie in. Bildungsstätten”. ISBN 91-974193-4-6 and ISBN 978-91-974193-4-5 “Don’t limit your senses” has been recognised over the years as one of the few comprehensive sources of information on acoustics in […]

The classroom acoustics session at Euronoise consisted of 9 lectures on the 31st of May. Classroom acoustics was confirmed as a vivid area at the crossroad of room acoustics and occupational health. Highlights from the session – Stress indicators, such as heart activity are powerful to describe the incidence of poor room acoustics on teachers. […]

Classrooms should be designed for modern teaching styles. In a study supported by the Oticon foundation published 2002, a research team from New Zealand looks at the acoustic implications of new teaching styles, where interaction between children is encouraged besides more traditional teaching. More and more learning is done in small groups and a high […]

World Health Organization – Guidelines for Community Noise is a systematic review of scientific evidence regarding noise, annoyance, speech and hearing impairment. The document provides also relevant guideline values. Extract 1 Interference with communication Speech (3.3) “Longer reverberation times, especially when combined with high background interfering noise, make speech perception more difficult. Even in a […]

International Standard ISO/TR 3352:1974 “Acoustics – Assessment of noise with respect to its effect on the intelligibility of speech” provides methods for measurement and assessment of noise with respect to intelligibility. Example For a speech interference level of 35 dB, the maximum distance at which raised voice is considered to be satisfactorily intelligible is 15 […]