A Brighter Outlook For Schools...Duro-Test Vita-Lite Full Spectrum Lighting For Libraries, Schools, and Universities.

The Educated Choice, In Light Of The Facts: Vita-Lite Full Spectrum Lighting Offers A CRI (Color Rendering Index) Of 91, Sunlight Has A CRI Of 100.

Letting the sun shine in school improves attitude, test scores and students' health. More Than 3,500 Schools and Universities Use VITA-LITE!

A Brighter Outlook For Schools

If the preliminary findings of Canadian researchers are right, letting the sun shine in school improves attitude, test scores and students' health. In this For The Children report, a team of architects from the Triangle are "daylighting" classrooms, and getting the same result.

If you're designing a school, the number one objective has to be to create the best learning environment you can. The lights are off at the Sterling Montessori Academy in Morrisville. But it's learning as usual. Here, they use the sun for light. It shines through a skylight called a light monitor. Sterling Montessori is one of seven schools in our area filled with daylight.

Durant Road Middle School was the first daylit school designed in our area.

Tom Benton/Durant Road Principal: "The lightness in the building encourages a sense of well-being, of pleasantness, so that you're not hindered by feeling that you're in a dark space or enclosed space.

"Our attendance is higher than traditional schools on our normal school days, we run about a 98 percent attendance rate."

There was a study in Canada that was done that showed that kids in full spectrum lighting were literally growing a centimeter per year more. There were 9% less cavities. Their attendance was about three to four days per year better than kids in regular fluorescent fixtures.

Durant Road teacher Joyce Loveless says the sunlight seems to bring more energy into the room.

"These kids are getting a lot of vitamin D, they do well in the classroom. We do not have a lot of sickness, I think."

Students do better. Teachers do too!

Joyce Loveless/Teacher: "I feel like I'm outside and that I'm not drained as I would be with the fluorescent light. Sometimes the fluorescent lights seem to overwhelm the room, and I feel as if I'm outside... and kind of get my energy from that."

Negative reaction to daylit classes generally comes from people who think it costs a lot of money. Actually, school systems make up the cost in money saved from power bills. A lot less energy is consumed.

If skylights are not your answer at this time, try Vita-Lite which has a CRI (Color Rendering Index) of 91. Sunlight has a CRI of 100. That means you get 91% of the benefits. The typical fluorescent lights are Cool White fluorescents and they have a CRI of 62. Vita-Lite is full spectrum lighting.

The following are pictures of the relative energy of natural sunlight, Vita-Lite and Cool White fluorescents.