METHODS OF TEACHING NOISE PROTECTION AT ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Noise strongly influences both our health and behavior in everyday life and as employees or employers. The lost of hearing and other effects of noise on humans result not only in a significant decrease in the quality of life or work efficiency but have also have economic consequences.

As noise can be preventable in part by the Environmental Engineers, but it is necessary to introduce them noise issues during their education process. At the Gdansk University of Technology, students of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering are educated in environmental engineering, environmental protection or environmental management.

They are educated to:
1) design, construct and operate of technical equipment and plants, including the operational research, diagnostic measurements and the quality control of the technologies and equipment applied;
2) monitor environmental hazards and implement new technologies to protect environment.

The subject of Noise Protection is conducted for graduate students of master course of Environmental Engineering. The course is based on assumptions that noise issues will be connected with students’ future work and will have an influence on their everyday life.

The objectives of the course are:
1) to provide the course participants with an understanding of noise, sounds various frequency and the effects on people;
2) to introduce students to the sources of noise and the noise issues environmental engineers face;
3) to present them the wide scope of noise protection methods used to lower environmental, building and architectural noise as well as the personal protection methods;
4) the practical exercises should refer to their profession or everyday life noise problems.

The course has already been run for five years, based on traditional and collaborative learning. The last one was supported with blended-learning elements. The traditional hours are devoted to lectures, face-to-face consultation, group project work and open discussion. Moodle platform is used for activities such as: a database of students reports, lecture notes and data sources, assessing the results according to defined criteria, encouraging students to discuss main lecture topics.

This article presents the essence, goals and tasks of the noise protection as well as the applicable approaches and methods of teaching, their correlation and effects. The author describes the structure of the Noise Protection course and detailed account of the role and importance of students practices and trainings. The conclusions drawn from the analysis of all activities will be used as guidelines for future improvements in teaching process.