The School!
Paulette Elementary
Week 21
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smoothing concrete for our floor. A good bit of the concrete was smoothed with machinery but anywhere there was piping had to be done by hand. On the southern end of the building the concrete has already set. This has allowed the heat and air company to start putting in the duct work. I saw the blueprints for the ductwork and it looks like a road map of Knoxville. These folks are already hanging the ducts and have to be within a fraction of an inch when the rooms have yet to be built. The image in (Figure 2) shows the beginning of the duct work hanging out in mid air. I have always been fascinated by air conditioning and never really understood how it worked. Science tells us that fire was the single greatest discovery ever made by man. But rarely does one sit in a traffic jam on the interstate that we don't feel that air conditioning  is right up there too.It amazes me that we can manipulate the temperature of something and produce ice in the middle of a desert. So who invented air conditioning? Would you believe it had its start in an experiment by Benjamin Franklin. In 1758 Ben Franklin and a man named John Hadley experimented with evaporating alcohol. By pouring out a thin layer of alcohol and quickly evaporating it with blowing air they were able to produce ice. This led Franklin to conclude that, "one may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer's day." But it would not be practical to pour alcohol on a building and blow on it to cool the area inside. Plus it would be expensive to buy all that alcohol. Therefore Franklin never pressed the issue. Then in 1840 a man named Faraday found that ammonia was cheaper and worked better than alcohol. He and a gentleman named Gorrie also developed a compressor system that allowed the ammonia to be used again and again. They patented the room air cooler - ice maker in 1851. Unfortunately they were not able to make it a commercial success and both died penniless. For more than 50 years the idea of cooling a room by mechanical means was lost. Then in 1902 a man by the name of Willis Carrier discovered the plans by Faraday and made some improvements. He used the machine he built to cool his printing plant. The cooler  less
moist temperatures allowed his presses to work more accurately. He also
discovered that his employees worked better and more efficiently when
the air was cooler.So what does all of this have to do with Paulette? I have spoken in the past regarding the Paulette design with the old "winged" schools of the 60's and 70's. But before there were winged schools there was another type. In the 1930's Norris Lake was impounded taking with it several schools. TVA in their place built several more "modern" schools. One such school was built in Lone Mountain and still stands today. This building was built in the day of one room schools and had multiple rooms and a gymnasium. Now when Lone Mountain was built TVA took into consideration many factors. It had a heat furnace that used water and coal to warm the school in winter. But in the summer it had nothing regarding cooling the building. TVA solved this with 1) Where they built the school, 2) The direction the school and how its windows faced, 3) Prevailing wind patterns of the area, and 4) the height of the ceilings. Plus they planted large trees around it to block direct sunlight. These were all things that had to be considered when building large schools back then. Today those ducts that are being hung in Paulette allow us to be more discriminating in where we put a school. Today we can consider things like how convenient the school  is to a major highway, where the ball field will be best placed etc.The image you see in (Figure 3) is a snapshot of the inside of the duct work that will cool the library area of the Paulette School. Studies have shown that reduced temperatures in summer and increased outdoor air supply rates have positive effect on the performance of schoolwork by children. An in depth review of this study by the International Center for Indoor Environment and Energy, Technical University may be found online. A survey given to teachers, in 1960 concluded that classroom conditions improved by air conditioning included reduced annoyances, improved visual display and flexibility. Teachers' attitudes and work patterns were significantly improved due to less fatigue. Likewise, student performance, attitude, and behavior improved in proper air conditioned climates making it easier to concentrate and making them feel less drowsy and fatigued. The survey reported that higher temperatures have a negative relationship with academic learning. In relation to this finding, another study in 1966 discovered that students in an ideal thermal environment made significantly fewer errors on tasks and required less time to complete the tasks than students in regularly controlled thermal environments. Studies in the United States in 1964 reported greater gains in academic achievement of students in climate controlled schools as opposed to those students in non-climate controlled schools. In 1935 Lone Mountain School was built. Roger Lynch's father was the Principal of Lone Mountain when it opened. Later Roger would become a Principal in our High School here in Union County. When Lone Mountain was built it was understood that things had to be considered to make the environment inside the school tolerable. More than tolerable now, much is being considered at Paulette and how each simple thing will affect the ability of our children to learn. |
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