A study conducted by the Heschong Mahone Group for Pacific Gas & Electric Company tested 21,000 students in three states and found that those in classrooms with the most daylighting progressed 20% faster on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests in one year than those with the least daylighting.
(Heschong Mahone Group “Daylighting in Schools” Report at www.h-m-g.com, 1999)
A series of schools built in Johnston County, N.C., replaced artificial lights with natural light. The students who attended the schools out-performed students in comparable nondaylit schools by 5% to 14%.
(U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs Report, “Energy-Smart Building Choices: How School Administrators & Board Members Are Improving Learning and Saving Money,” 2002)
Studies in Canada and Sweden noted improved student behavior and health, including fewer days of absence per year, in daylight classrooms. The Canadian study reported that daylighting also allowed for downsizing in heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, which improved classroom noise levels, another perk for the learning environment.
(School Planning and Management, February 2005)
According to the University of Georgia, a lack of natural light can have a “jet lag” effect on students because it depresses their circadian rhythms.
(National Post, September 8, 2001)
A study by photobiologist Dr. John Nash Ott, Ph.D. reported that “hyperactive children with confirmed learning disabilities calmed down completely and rapidly overcame their learning and reading problems while in the full spectrum lighting environment.”
(Full spectrum lighting most closely mimics and produces the effects of natural daylight.)
(School Planning and Management, February 2002)
A study of 90 school children in Sweden shows that lack of daylight can disrupt their chronobiology (internal body clocks) and result in significant psychological and physiological impairment. The study followed the health and behavior of children in classrooms with and without windows for an entire academic year, measuring the children’s production of cortisol (a stress hormone governed by the body’s biological clock). It concluded that work in classrooms without daylight may upset the basic hormone pattern and may in turn influence children’s ability to concentrate and cooperate and also eventually impact annual body growth and sick leave.
(Report by the Parsons School of Design, New School of Social Research in New York analyzing 60 studies and articles on the topic of daylighting and productivity, 1999)
(National Renewable Energy Laboratory Report, “Daylighting in Schools: Improving Student Performance and Health at a Price Schools Can Afford,” 2000)
A Pittsburgh-area elementary school reported that after skylights were installed, attendance records rose from the state average of 93.5% to 95%, which earned the school an additional $4,000 from the state that year.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, February 15, 2000)
The book collections in daylit libraries are used up to 50% more than in traditional library designs, according to the Daylighting Collaborative/Energy Center of Wisconsin.
(The Daylighting Collaborative website, www.daylighting.org, 2002)
