Evaluation of Combination of Natural and Artificial Lighting Condition in Primary Schools (Case Study: Baneh City of Kurdistan Province, Iran)

Background & Aims of the Study: Promoting the health and safety is an important part ofthe fundamental mission of schools and one factor in designing and operating schools thatalways has been important is lighting. As students spend considerable hours in theclassroom and school, lighting should be designed appropriately and in accordance with thestandards, to protect them from injuries. Therefore, this study aimed to determine thecombination of natural and artificial lighting condition in primary schools of Baneh city,Kurdistan, Iran.Materials & Methods: This is a cross-sectional study. It s population consisted of primaryschools in the city of Baneh and 12 schools were randomly selected as samples.Measurement has been done, using observation method in those schools by completing theassessment form. Then collected data were analyzed by SPSS 19, using descriptivestatistics, one-way ANOVA and Kruskal Wallis Test.Results: Results showed that the windows to the floor area in the most of schools classeswere in standard range and just in 7 classes, the windows to the floor area ratio were lessthan standard. ANOVA showed the mean of luminance in those schools in p≤0.05 wassignificant and most of classes were in range of standard luminance. Comparison ofluminance in schools corridors with standard showed that corridors luminance of 3schoolswere less than standard range.Conclusions: The amount of luminance in all schools was not appropriate especially in oldschools. Therefore, to reduce the effect of inappropriate lightning on health in some classes,it is necessary to redesign the system. Furthermore, for parsimony, the lightning systemmodification is required to achieve standard luminance which is important.

Keywords:

lighting , primary schools , natural light , artificiallight , Health school , Iran