Enhance Acoustics- Noise Control For The Classroom

By Author: Kevin Richard
Total Articles: 246
Comment this article

The perfect classroom is one in which students can clearly apprehend the instructor during the lecture and emphasize on assignments, tests and projects in an ambiance free of distractions. Here we outline some of the challenges of soundproofing faced in classrooms.

• Exterior sound transmission in the classroom: A classroom left untreated for sound transmission won’t just permit sound to escape, but will permit the transfer of exterior noise in the classroom. Audible external noise can be a huge distraction and interfere with the quality of any kind of learning ambiance. Moreover, external noise like students or outdoor construction in the hallway can eradicate the ability of a teacher to communicate efficiently with the students in the class.

• Several hard and reflective surfaces: A major noise control challenge arises from a problem common to most of the classrooms. The presence of desks and the ceiling, the walls, each of which reflects sound waves back into the room. When a teacher delivers a lecture, a part of the sound waves created by his or her voice reflects from the various hard surfaces in the ...
... room, a behaviour called sound reflection. Echoes delivered back into the classroom interfere with the desired sound, and is therefore one of the sound wave behaviours meant for soundproofing in a classroom.

• Multiple voices in the room: Students can enhance vital basic skills by working with a team or partner in a project, but a noisy classroom ambiance can make group work hard. With various people speaking simultaneously, the blend of voices reflect from the hard surfaces in the classroom, and the resulting echoes interfere with the audibility all over the room. Enhanced noise levels are aggravated as students speak more loudly to be heard. To prevent this situation, you need sound enclosures in the room.

• To prevent external noise from entering and prevent echoes created in a classroom, noise enclosures should target both sound reflection and sound transmission. Now let us have a look at how each of these sounds can be facilitated in a classroom ambiance.

• Controlling sound transmission: Eradicating noise transmission from within and outside the room involves isolating the room in such a way so that the ability of the sound waves to transmit through the ceiling and the walls are compromised. Sound waves travel freely through the common contact points, like the walls and the studs surrounding the classroom. Isolating a room can be achieved by adding density to every wall and creating a separate wall surface parallel to each.

• Properly applied sound blankets can impact a major development in the quality of the learning ambiance. Preventing sound transmission and echo in a classroom results in better acoustics for group work and lecture while reducing external distractions that can otherwise retard academic performance.

About the Author:-

O’Neill Engineered Systems is your one-stop solution for noise control, sound enclosures , noise enclosures, sound blankets. Visit us now for more information about our products.