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This project was to have a
real
setting in order to have
consumers, potential consumers of lighting products be able to view those products and experience them in a realistic
setting.
So, what we have learned is that it's very difficult for design students, and certainly for your average consumer
to
just look at a book or catalogue or look at product on the shelves of a retailer and understand what that light source is
going to do and how much energy it could save
and how much it costs initially,
versus how much of cost over its lifetime. How much energy it will consume and what it'll look like in their home.
This project enables consumers to experience some energy-efficient light sources and to do their own comparison in realistic
residential settings. So we had a three treatment, three set-usp of incandescent,
compact florescent and light emitting diodes, LEDs, and they were installed in identical floor lamps
in three different rooms of either the Pawnee Bill Mansion in Pawnee, OK, or our OSU President's House, Willham House.
Prior to the consumer's arrival,
we sent out students
and their job was to acquire information about the existing conditions in these two buildings. So they were armed
with light meters, ultraviolet meters and measurement devices and we confirmed a lot of information about the existing
lighting situation. All the information that was gathered
was
incorporated into computer-aided design, and drafted documents that were clear indications of the existing conditions so that
later when we visited the sites and installed our treatments, which were supplemental lighting sources,
we would know the difference between what was already
in these
spaces and what we had added. We brought in many participants, hundreds of participants, and they were given a
baseline questionnaire that asked about their
perception and knowledge
about sustainability in general
especially about energy and lighting.
Then we lead them through a series of activities which asked them to experience the lighting sources and to perform
visual tasks under different lighting sources and then we had an educational session for them where we disclosed the
lumen output,
the lifetime
and other features of these three different light sources and how much it would cost to install these initially in
their residence, and then what would be the return on investment over time.
So what it meant for us is that the students were able to have some hands-on activities within their classes and actually do
some fieldwork and to understand a little bit about how research works from the undergraduate level. We had a lead
graduate student, Sylvia Chaney, who's in our department of design, housing and merchandising, and she led the students
in the
data collection. So this gave us some very special opportunities to work together and to expose students to the
Environmental Protection Agency and their work
and also they learned how to participate in a project of this scope and scale.
In researching for this project I definitely learned a lot about how lighting effects us and our environment.
It's very interesting to get into the nitty-gritty of lighting design and
participate in the lighting gridding and taking measurements of
the lumens and
ultraviolet measurements, that was very interesting. And to learn the practical side of that
was very useful and will benefit me certainly in my future career.
And I was glad to see the undergraduate students participating and
being involved and interested in those practices.
I'm always looking for opportunities to work with colleagues, especially around other disciplines. As a gerontologist,
which is the study of aging,
cannot be done in isolation. You can't study that just as the behavior of aging, you have to look at it in context.
I love being able to look at things like design and housing, those are very important parameters of optimal aging.
How one ages and plays,
how one uses effective lighting for example to maintain home safety.
I think those are all great implications for me personally as well as a gerontologist.