Green Schools Attributes for Health and Learning (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-14
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The committee's charge was to "review, assess, and synthesize the results of available studies on green schools and determine the theoretical and methodological basis for the effects of green schools on student learning and teacher productivity." The committee was also asked to look at the possible
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Lacking specific guidance, the committee identified those building characteristics and practices typically emphasized in current green school guidelines. The committee determined that green schools have two complementary, but not identical, goals and resulting outcomes.
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• Good indoor air quality and thermal comfort: Ventilation rates, air pol lutants, humidity levels, and temperature ranges, which have been linked to human health, learning, and productivity, are effectively controlled. • Quietness: The acoustical quality, which has been shown to affect student learning and the development of language skills, meets the newly released Standard 12.60, "Acoustical Performance Criteria, Design Requirements, and Guidelines for Schools," of the American National Standards Institute.
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Recommendation 1a: Future green school guidelines should place greater emphasis on building systems, their interrelationships, and overall performance. Where possible, future guidelines should identify potential interactions between building systems, occupants, and operation and maintenance practices and identify conflicts that will necessitate trade-offs among building features to meet differing objectives.
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Finding 2c: Scientific research related to the effects of green schools on children and adults will be difficult to conduct until the physical characteristics that differentiate green from conventional schools are clearly specified. With outcomes as complex as student and teacher health, student learning, and teacher productivity influenced by many individual family and community factors, it may be possible in theory to design research that controls for all potentially confounding factors, but difficult in practice to conduct such research.
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Finding 3d: Current green school guidelines typically do not adequately address the design detailing, construction, and long-term maintenance of buildings to ensure that excess moisture is controlled and a building is kept dry during its service life. Recommendation 3a: Future green school guidelines should emphasize the control of excess moisture, dampness, and mold to protect the health of children and adults in schools and to protect a building's structural integrity.
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Few studies have looked systematically at changes in exposures, health, or productivity based on changes in building materials, cleaning products, or cleaning practices. Recommendation 4a: Future green school guidelines should ensure that, as a minimum, ventilation rates in schools meet current ASHRAE standards overall and as they relate to specific spaces.
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Recommendation 4c: Additional research should be conducted to document the full range of costs and benefits of ventilation rates that exceed the current ASHRAE standard and to determine optimum temperature ranges for supporting student learning, teacher productivity, and occupant comfort in school buildings. Recommendation 4d: Studies should be conducted to examine the relationships of exposures from building materials, cleaning products, and cleaning effectiveness to student and teacher health, student learning, and teacher productivity.
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However, little is known about the effects of lighting in schools on student achievement or health through the circadian system. Recommendation 5a: Future green school guidelines should seek to support the visual performance of students, teachers, and other adults by encouraging the design of lighting systems based on task, school room configurations, layout, and surface finishes.
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Recommendation 6a: To facilitate student learning, future green school guidelines should require that new schools be located away from areas of higher outdoor noise such as that from aircraft, trains, and road traffic. Recommendation 6b: Future green school guidelines should specify acceptable acoustical conditions for classrooms and should require the appropriate design of HVAC systems, the design of walls and doors separating classrooms and corridors, and the acoustic quality of windows and walls adjoining the outdoors.
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Increased ventilation rates have been shown to speed the dilution and removal of viral material. The use of displacement ventilation and the reduction of the percentage of recirculated air in the air supply have the potential to reduce building occupants' exposures to airborne pathogens.
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Improved research for understanding how specific building conditions affect student and teacher performance would measure one or more building performance characteristics, develop a theory linking those characteristics and student and/or teacher outcomes, and test the linkage using adequate measures of the outcomes of interest and fully specified regression models. Processes and Practices for Planning and Maintaining Green Schools Finding 9a: Participatory planning, commissioning, and postoccupancy evaluation are processes that can both lower building operating costs and improve performance over a building's lifetime.
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The commissioning agent should specifically verify that moisture-management features are properly designed and installed, that intended ventilation rates are delivered to building occupants, that the lighting system is adequately designed and installed to ensure effective lighting based on tasks and school room configurations, and that acoustical measures meet the performance standards of ANSI Standard 12.60. Recommendation 9c: Future green school guidelines should encourage the periodic monitoring of indoor environmental characteristics including moisture levels, absolute humidity, classroom temperatures, and ventilation effectiveness to ensure that performance objectives are maintained over the service life of a school.
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The necessary collaboration between architecture, engineering, physical science, medicine, and social science expertise is a challenge, but multidisciplinary research is required to fully study the potential relationship between a school building and the outcomes of students and teachers. Finding 10b: In designing research studies to evaluate the unbiased effects of green schools on student learning or student and teacher health, several issues must be addressed.
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