Acoustic conditions in occupied K–12 classrooms as measured over four continuous weekdays

A recent study at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln involved capturing sound level data over four continuous weekdays in 55 K-12 classrooms during the 2017–2018 academic year. Equivalent sound levels in each classroom were logged every 10 seconds with an integration time of 10 s over two different weeks: once during heating season and once during cooling season. Among the results presented are the measured classroom reverberation times, average sound levels in each classroom when speech was occurring and when speech was not occurring, the percent of time that levels in each classroom exceeded certain values, and the daily variation of these metrics. The data gathered from this study are compared to data from 220 K-12 classrooms gathered in the 2015–2016 and 2016–2017 academic years. [Work supported by the United States Environmental Protection Agency Grant No. R835633.]