ICIEE

International Centre for Indoor Environment and Energy www.ie.dtu.dk

THE EFFECTS OF OUTDOOR AIR SUPPLY RATE AND

TEMPERATURE IN CLASSROOMS ON THE
PERFORMANCE OF SCHOOLWORK BY CHILDREN
Pawel Wargocki (paw@byg.dtu.dk) & David P Wyon (dpw@byg.dtu.dk)
SUMMARY: The present study indicates that improving classroom
ventilation and reducing classroom temperatures can considerably
improve the performance of schoolwork by children. These results imply
that the indoor environment in classrooms can influence learning and
thus can have lifelong consequences both for pupils and for society.
METHODS: Independent field intervention RESULTS: The results showed that doubling
experiments were carried out in identical the outdoor air supply rate would improve the
classrooms in an elementary school in average performance of schoolwork by about
Denmark. The outdoor air supply rate was 8-14% while reducing the classroom
changed using the existing mechanical temperature by 1oC would improve the
ventilation system from about 3 to 9.5 L/s per average school performance by about 2-4%.
person. The classroom temperatures were Performance of schoolwork as a function
reduced by installed split cooling unit from of outdoor air supply rate
about 24-25oC to 20oC. The changes followed a
cross-over design balanced for order of
presentation. The noise levels in the
classrooms were not affected by the
interventions. Tasks representing up to eight
different aspects of schoolwork, from reading to
mathematics, were performed by about 100
pupils from the 4th and 6th grades (10- to 12-
Performance of schoolwork as a function
year-old children). The tasks were selected so of classroom temperature
that they could have been a natural part of an
ordinary school day and were administered by
the childrens usual teachers. The teaching
environment and daily routines remained
otherwise as normal as possible. Both teachers
and pupils were blind to the interventions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This work was supported partially by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air
Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) through contract 1257-RP and partially by the Danish Technical Research Council (STVF)

Technical University of Denmark