What can be worse than spending a day in a too cold classroom?
Schools are often too cold or too hot for optimal learning. Research suggests that the best results are achieved when the room temperature is 22 degrees Celsius.
A too hot classroom makes students sleepy and a too cold classroom makes them focusing on ways too keep warm. Warmer temperatures tend to make you feel tired and lethargic. It is difficult to concentrate and you easily get distracted.
Inspired by the termites in Zimbabwe that build gigantic mounds inside in which they farm a fungus that is their primary food source you can design the perfect classroom that is neither to cold or too hot.
The fungus must be kept at 30. 5 degrees Celsius. By constantly opening and closing a series of cooling and heating vents termites manage to keep the fungus alive. The termites dig new vents and plug up old ones to regulate the temperature in the mound. This has inspired architects when they are trying to build the perfect house, at least when it comes to the temperature inside the house.
Why not design the perfect school inpired by termites mound? Plenty of time to build it before the new term starts in the autumn.
Photo: By Olga Ernst [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, from Wikimedia Commons
Biomimicry for Young Children 