No abstract

The effects of noise on students’ health, well-being, and learning are of growing concern among both the general public and policy-makers in Europe. Several studies have highlighted the consequences of noise on children’s learning and performance at school. This study investigates the relationship between noise judgment in school goers aged 11–18 and noise measurements aimed at evaluating their exposure at school. For this purpose, a questionnaire was administered to 521 individuals in 28 classrooms in eight schools of four cities in Italy, with different environmental characteristics. Using a Likert-type scale, a selected set of responses related to noise generated an Annoyance Index (AI) score for each student and a classroom median score (MAI). From the noise data acquired, a global noise score (GNS) was assigned to each classroom. A higher AI was found in industrialized areas and among younger students. No significant differences in noise judgment were found by gender. A significant inverse correlation was described between MAI and GNS, thus the better the acoustic quality of the classrooms, the less the perceived noise and annoyance. The results show that noise perception and consequent disturbance are highly correlated with classroom acoustics, and confirm that annoyance represents the most widespread subjective response to noise.

Abstract:The LIFE GIOCONDA is an ongoing project that aims to provide an innovative methodology to the authorities for supporting the environment & health policies by involving the young people in the decision-making processes. The project suggests a web platform able to relate air and noise pollution data in the schools with the students' pollution awareness. GIOCONDA aims to enhance the awareness of students, teachers and local administrations on the noise issues in schools, presenting suitable tools to improve the public participative processes. This paper presents a new method that has been developed within the Project. It aims to evaluate the acoustic performances of a classroom and to suggest the use of a global indicator based on a group of acoustic parameters compared with their limit values. Whit the new method the comparison between different classrooms or different schools becomes possible, together with a homogeneous evaluation of the priority for planning noise mitigation actions. Several noise measurement campaigns have been performed to characterize the students' exposure in eight Italian schools. The results are useful to describe the acoustic performances of classrooms.