From the time we used natural light for our daily activities to making use of candles, kerosene oil lamp, and Edison bulb, we have indeed come a long way. Today, the market exists for LED lighting products when we have been fed with so many choices in both indoor and outdoor category that it often becomes difficult for us to make a choice that would best suit our application. Notwithstanding, when it comes to indoor LED lighting products, LED tube is one such light fixture that always stays in demand and this is because of its low price with no compromise on light quality, high energy-savings, low maintenance costs and much more. In this blog, I discuss the impact of having LED tubes in school environment.

To begin with, I would first like to focus on how the use of traditional fluorescent tube lighting posed physical and psychological challenges to both pedagogues and children in any school. And, then move on to discussing the merits of LED tubes.

The Physical & Psychological Health Challenges Posed By Fluorescent Tubes

Because of unbelievably low prices, the fluorescent tubes came to be in demand the moment these came into the market. But, soon it was noticed that these tubes caused health issues, rather aggravated the health problems already existing.

The hospitals and clinics noticed huge number of children and teachers who previously suffered from headache becoming a full-blown migraine patient. Ofcourse, these tubes didn’t directly cause any migraine but when people may remain exposed to the light beam emitted by these fluorescent lights, there can be an occurrence of severe headache or migraine.

Melatonin is a sleep-regulator that helps in regulating the day and night sleep cycles within the body. In the presence of light, the production of this chemical may get reduced thus asking your body to remain awake. The fluorescent tube light in this regard has been seen to cause major sleep-pattern disruptions while this is less true for the current-day LED tubes. These fluorescent tubes in some studies have shown that these also cause recklessness and tiredness in people.  

Now, do you see the physical health impact of fluorescent tubes? As I move further with a discussion on LED tubes, you will see how these tubes are responsible for causing psychological illness too.  

How LED Tubes Can Play A Role In Physical, Cognitive and Socio-Emotional Development?

While the builders, architects and electrical contractors laid emphasis on creating or improving the ventilation in schools, the physicians and psychologists insisted on improving the light appearance of light source so as to alter the mood and motivation levels in school children. It was felt that if recess activities such as outdoor games and physical exercises were important to a child’s development, the indoor study environment too needed a major revamping and that included making changes in the lighting design. The following points will help understand how choosing LED tubes over fluorescent tubes or making a switch from the latter to the former is always a wise decision.

• LED Tubes Have A Better Light Quality
  

The latest-in-design LED Tubes are a big improvement over the earlier LED tubes. These tubes are designed to deliver high lux levels -- just what is required for the human eye. In extreme contrast with fluorescent tubes that were late starters and flickered with a lot of buzzing and noise when they started because of ballasts in them, LED tubes due to the solid-state lighting technology get turned On the moment they are switched On. These tubes do not flicker as these depend on internal driver for current supply. Also, these are designed in such a way that they cause minimum glare to the eyes. Having no mercury or UV rays in their light beam unlike the fluorescent tubes, these are completely safe to the human eye. It must be noted that physically-disabled children and students suffered from the glare and flicker of fluorescent tubes in the past, when there was an increased visual discomfort, ultimately interfering with in-classroom activities such as reading or focusing.              

• The CCTs of LED Tubes Have a Role to Play  
  

There have been studies conducted on US army soldiers which showed that bad lighting significantly impacted the productivity of soldiers, i.e. there was a slower response time than usual. And, bad lighting also means light having good color. Unlike the fluorescent tubes that emitted a deep yellow color light, LED tubes to come in a wide variety of color temperatures that have more white and bluish hue than yellow or orange hue. LED tubes give you multiple choices in Correlated Color Temperatures such as 4000K (neutral white), 5000K (neutral white-daywhite), 5700K (daywhite) and 6500K (cool white). Once can choose anyone out of these for an effective learning environment in schools as these light colors can bring a change in mood from normal to energetic and energetic to calm. These light colors mimic natural light or sunlight to provide you with an increased focus and alertness while also improving the heart rate or sleep quality. These light colors also aid in the learning of hyperactive children or children with a learning disability.    

Conclusion

All that said, it becomes important to also mention the fact that LED tube lights are free from any harmful radiation such as IR or UV rays or chemicals such as lead or mercury. While fluorescent tubes are a detriment to body organs such as lungs or skin, these have shown to cause hazards in schools in the event of breakage. And, henceforth, it would be a wise decision for the school authorities in schools that run after daytime hours or suffer from absence of adequate ambient light to have LED tubes installed.