Sunlight kids: Sunlight Children’s Services – Support for Abused and Neglected Children

Опубликовано: July 30, 2023 в 2:33 am

Автор: alexxlab

Категории: Kid

The benefits of bright light

Do kids need daylight? Studies confirm that kids benefit when they are exposed to outdoor levels of illumination — levels that far exceed the lighting of a typical classroom.

Bright light boosts mood and concentration. It may help prevent disease, circadian rhythm disorders, and nearsightedness. And new research suggests that bright light has a crucial impact on the brain: It may foster the formation of new synapses, and enhance our ability to learn.

Let’s start with a basic observation. It’s very bright outside, even when you compare a brightly lit classroom to a relatively dark, overcast day outdoors.

Measured in units called “lux,” a typical, cloudless day may exceed 100,000 lux. A cloudy day may still be as bright as 10,000 to 40,000 lux, and even a rather gloomy, overcast day in Seattle is likely to reach 1,000 lux.

By contrast, the lighting we encounter indoors is much dimmer, ranging from about 50 lux (watching TV in the living room) to 500 lux (a brightly lit classroom).

So we encounter radically different lighting conditions when we spend our lives indoors, and that’s worrying. The bright light levels found outside aren’t just beneficial to photosynthesizing plants. They are also crucial for human beings. And this is true for children as well as adults. Consider these benefits.

Bright light improves mood.

You’ve probably noticed that bright light has a cheering effect. It improves mood (Leichtfried et al 2015; Gabel et al 2013; Te Kulve et al 2017), and studies show that bright light therapy is an effective treatment for depression (Maruani and Geoffroy 2019).

Daily exposure to very bright light (e.g., 15,000 lux or higher) might protect kids from developing nearsightedness.

As I note elsewhere, research has found that outdoor play lowers a child’s risk of developing nearsightedness. Researchers haven’t yet pinned down the reason, but experimental studies point to the effects of light. Animals raised under controlled lighting conditions are less likely to develop nearsightedness if they are exposed to daytime light levels exceeding 15,000 lux (Norton 2017).

Sunlight helps children produce adequate levels of vitamin D, and vitamin D sufficiency protects kids from a variety of undesirable health outcomes.

Kids with low vitamin D levels are at increased risk for poor bone health (Borg et al 2018), cardiovascular disease (El-Fakhri et al 2014), and reduced muscle function (Carson et al 2015; Hazel et al 2012). There is also evidence that low vitamin D status could be a trigger for early puberty in girls (Chew and Harris 2013). And vitamin D deficiency has been linked with inferior mental planning skills (Grung et al 2017).

Sunlight appears to protect children from developing multiple sclerosis (MS) later in life.

Numerous studies have reported this link. Lots of sunlight exposure during childhood reduces an individual’s risk of MS, and this appears to be true regardless of an individual’s vitamin D status. The sunlight itself seems to be helpful (Hoel et al 2016).

Staying up late might not matter if you also wake up late. But when children have to wake up early for school, delayed bedtimes can take a toll. Studies suggest that delayed bedtimes — without opportunities for catch-up sleep — are linked with poor school performance and behavior problems (Merikanto et al 2014; Lin et al 2011).

But why don’t kids go to sleep on time? For many kids, part of the problem is lighting: They get too little sunlight during the day, and too much artificial lighting at night. As a result, their “inner clocks” get out of sync with the natural, 24-hour day. Their circadian rhythms are out of whack.

The cure? As I explain in another article, it’s important to avoid artificial lighting at night, and stop using electronic devices an hour before bedtime. But researchers have shown that kids need daylight, too: A dose of bright morning light can help kids with chronic bedtime problems get back on track (van Mannen et al 2017).

And what about mental performance? Does bright daylight make kids smarter?

We’ve already noted that vitamin D levels have been linked with mental planning skills, and late bedtimes can contribute to attention problems. So exposure to bright light might boost mental performance by these indirect routes.

We’ve also seen that bright light enhances mood, which could be an important motivator at school. In a study of more than two hundred 10-year-olds, researchers found that kids preferred classrooms that were very brightly lit (1,300 to 4,400 lux) to classrooms that were lit at much lower, more traditional levels (250-740 lux).

But it’s likely that bright light has additional benefits. For example, there is evidence that children read more fluently in classrooms that are very brightly-lit (Mott et al 2011; Mott et al 2014). Kids may perform better on mathematics tests, too (Choi and Suk 2016). And recent experiments on animals suggest an additional possibility:

Maybe bright light has a direct effect on our ability to learn. Take that bright light away — keep us indoors, in dimly-lit rooms — and we might suffer learning deficits.

The experiments were performed on Nile grass rats, a species that sleeps at night and remains active during the day, just as humans do. From the beginning of the study, a group of 24 male rats were kept on strict schedules of 12 hours of constant lighting followed by 12 hours of darkness. But individual rats experienced differences in light intensity (Soler et al 2018).

Some rats were randomly assigned to experience daytime light levels of 1,000 lux (similar to that of a rather dark, overcast day).

Other rats were randomly assigned to experience daytime light levels of just 50 lux (similar to the lighting typical of many people’s living rooms).

The rats stayed on their schedules for 4 weeks, at which point they were introduced to a problem-solving challenge called the Morris Water Maze.

During this challenge, each rat was placed in a pool of water. The water was made opaque by nontoxic, white paint, which concealed the existence of a resting platform just under the water’s surface.

Rats had to swim until they discovered the resting platform — something they were highly motivated to find.

But once they did, they had the opportunity to commit the location to memory. That’s because the researchers had provided rats with a kind of landmark — a distinctive geometric shape placed on the inside of the pool’s wall. If a rat remembered the landmark, it would be able to quickly find the platform the next time it was placed in the pool.

The question was: How readily would rats learn?

All of the rats had the same opportunities. They were placed in the pool twice each day for 5 days running. And all of the rats showed signs of learning — they made their way to the hidden platform more quickly as the days went by.

But during each morning session, the rats housed under dim light “living room” conditions performed worse than the “bright light” rats — as if they had forgotten more overnight.

And when the researchers gave the rats a longer break — 24 hours between challenges — the dim light “living room” rats showed a pronounced learning deficit.

Whereas the “bright light” rats had no trouble zeroing in on the location of the platform, the rats living with dim light schedules floundered. They were no more likely to swim in the correct location than you would expect by chance.

The results weren’t caused by differences in lighting during swim sessions, because all rats experienced the same lighting conditions (about 300 lux) when they were in the Morris Water Maze.

Interestingly, the behavior outcomes were also accompanied by visible differences in brain tissue.

When researchers looked in the hippocampus (a part of the brain associated with spatial learning), they found that the “dim light” rats had lower levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF — the substance that promotes the growth of new brain cells.

In addition, neurons in the hippocampus were physically different. The neurons of the “bright light” rats had more spines on their dendrites — evidence that these neurons had grown stronger synapses, a hallmark of learning.

Finally, the researchers found they could change the brains of “dim light” rats by transferring them to the bright light condition. After four weeks, they too experienced increased BDNF and grew more dendritic spines (Soler et al 2018).

What should we make of this?

Are the results caused by a methodological flaw, or a statistical fluke?

We need more research to know for sure, but so far, the evidence is promising. The same researchers repeated their experiments on a group of female Nile grass rats, and, once again, they found evidence of serious learning impairments.

The females didn’t show the same reductions in BDNF that had been observed in the male rats, but they experienced the same reductions in synaptic growth, and their learning impairments (in the dim light condition) were even more severe (Soler et al 2019). In Nile grass rats, at least, there really does seem to be something going on.

Are the results applicable to humans?

We can’t assume that humans would experience similar learning problems. But our basic physiology has a lot in common with these animals, so I think it would be foolish to assume the research is irrelevant. And given all the other good reasons we have to expose our children to plentiful daylight, we have nothing to lose by making an extra effort to ensure that every child gets his or her time in the sun.

Yes, we need to take precautions against harmful UVB rays. Sunscreen and hats are important protections when sunlight is intense. But we shouldn’t regard sunlight as a troublesome health threat on the one hand, or a luxurious perk on the other. Kids need daylight for their health and well-being.

References: Bright light, bright mind: Why kids need daylight to learn and thrive

Note to the reader: It’s not easy to find reports of illumination levels in scholarly publications. The numbers cited in my introduction are based on information from Cronin et al 2014; Norton 2016; Norton and Siegwart 2013; Dahrani et al 2017; and Morden et al 2018. See below for full citations.

Barkmann C, Wessolowski N, Schulte-Markwort M. 2012. Applicability and efficacy of variable light in schools. Physiol Behav. 105(3):621-7.

Borg SA, Buckley H, Owen R, Marin AC, Lu Y, Eyles D, Lacroix D, Reilly GC, Skerry TM, Bishop NJ. 2018. Early life vitamin D depletion alters the postnatal response to skeletal loading in growing and mature bone. PLoS One. 13(1):e0190675.

Carson EL, Pourshahidi LK, Hill TR, Cashman KD, Strain JJ, Boreham CA, Mulhern MS1. Vitamin D, Muscle Function, and Cardiorespiratory Fitness in Adolescents From the Young Hearts Study. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 100(12):4621-8.

Chellappa SL, Gordijn MC, Cajochen C. 2011. Can light make us bright? Effects of light on cognition and sleep. Prog Brain Res. 190:119-33.

Chew A, Harris SS. 2013. Does vitamin D affect timing of menarche? Nutr Rev. 71(3):189-93.

Choi K and Suk HJ. 2016. Dynamic lighting system for the learning environment: performance of elementary students. Opt Express. 24(10):A907-16.

Cronin TW, Johnsen S, Marshall NJ, Warrant EJ. 2014. Vision in dim light. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Dharani R, Lee CF, Theng ZX, Drury VB, Ngo C, Sandar M, Wong TY, Finkelstein EA, Saw SM. 2012. Comparison of measurements of time outdoors and light levels as risk factors for myopia in young Singapore children. Eye (Lond). 26(7):91

El-Fakhri N, McDevitt H, Shaikh MG, Halsey C, Ahmed SF. 2014. Vitamin D and its effects on glucose homeostasis, cardiovascular function and immune function. Horm Res Paediatr. 81(6):363-78.

Gabel V, Maire M, Reichert CF, Chellappa SL, Schmidt C, Hommes V, Viola AU, Cajochen C. 2013. Effects of artificial dawn and morning blue light on daytime cognitive performance, well-being, cortisol and melatonin levels. Chronobiol Int. 30(8):988-97.

Grung B, Sandvik AM, Hjelle K, Dahl L, Frøyland L, Nygård I, Hansen AL. 2017. Linking vitamin D status, executive functioning and self-perceived mental health in adolescents through multivariate analysis: A randomized double-blind placebo control trial. Scand J Psychol. 58(2):123-130.

Hazell TJ, DeGuire JR, Weiler HA. 2012. Vitamin D: an overview of its role in skeletal muscle physiology in children and adolescents. Nutr Rev. 70(9):520-33.

Hoel DG, Berwick M, de Gruijl FR, Holick MF. 2016. The risks and benefits of sun exposure. Dermatoendocrinol. 8(1):e1248325.

Leichtfried V, Mair-Raggautz M, Schaeffer V, Hammerer-Lercher A, Mair G, Bartenbach 4, Canazei M, Schobersberger W. 2015. Intense illumination in the morning hours improved mood and alertness but not mental performance. Appl Ergon. 46 Pt A:54-9.

Lin JD, Tung HJ, Hsieh YH, Lin FG. 2011. Interactive effects of delayed bedtime and family-associated factors on depression in elementary school children. Res Dev Disabil. 32(6):2036-4.

Maruani J and Geoffroy PA. 2019. Bright Light as a Personalized Precision Treatment of Mood Disorders. Front Psychiatry. 10:85.

Merikanto I, Lahti T, Puusniekka R, Partonen T. 2013. Late bedtimes weaken school performance and predispose adolescents to health hazards. Sleep Med. 2013 Nov;14(11):1105-11.

Mordon S, Vignion-Dewalle AS, Thecua E, Vicentini C, Maire C, Deleporte P, Baert G, Lecomte F, Mortier L. 2018. Can daylight-PDT be performed indoor? G Ital Dermatol Venereol. 153(6):811-816.

Mott MS, Robinson DH, Williams-Black TH, McClelland SS. 2014. The supporting effects of high luminous conditions on grade 3 oral reading fluency scores. Springerplus. 25;3:53.

Mott MS, Robinson DH, Walden AS, Burnette J, Rutherford AS. 2012. Illuminating the Effects of Dynamic Lighting on Student Learning. Sage Open 2(2): 1-9.

Norton TT. 2016. What Do Animal Studies Tell Us about the Mechanism of Myopia-Protection by Light? Optom Vis Sci. 93(9):1049-51.

Norton TT and Siegwart, Jr., JT. 2013. Light Levels, Refractive Development, and Myopia – a Speculative Review. Exp Eye Res. 114: 48–57

Soler JE, Stumpfig M, Tang YP, Robison AJ, Núñez AA, Yan L. 2019. Daytime Light Intensity Modulates Spatial Learning and Hippocampal Plasticity in Female Nile Grass Rats (Arvicanthis niloticus). Neuroscience. 404:175-183.

Soler JE, Robison AJ, Núñez AA, Yan L. 2018. Light modulates hippocampal function and spatial learning in a diurnal rodent species: A study using male nile grass rat (Arvicanthis niloticus). Hippocampus. 28(3):189-200.

Te Kulve M, Schlangen LJM, Schellen L, Frijns AJH, van Marken Lichtenbelt WD. 2017. The impact of morning light intensity and environmental temperature on body temperatures and alertness. Physiol Behav. 175:72-81.

Yan L, Lonstein JS, Nunez AA. 2018. Light as a modulator of emotion and cognition: Lessons learned from studying a diurnal rodent. Horm Behav. pii: S0018-506X(18)30250-2.

Zhou Z, Chen T, Wang M, Jin L, Zhao Y, Chen S, Wang C, Zhang G, Wang Q, Deng Q, Liu Y, Morgan IG, He M, Liu Y, Congdon N. 2017. Pilot study of a novel classroom designed to prevent myopia by increasing children’s exposure to outdoor light. PLoS One. 12(7):e0181772.

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Image credit for “kids need daylight’:

image of little girl sniffing cosmos flowers by Hakase_ / istock

Written content of “Kids need daylight” last modified 6/2019

Sunlight Facts for Kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

An image of the Sun and of its radiation.

Sunlight is the light and energy that comes from the Sun. When this energy reaches the earth’s surface, it is called insolation. What we experience as sunlight is actually solar radiation. It is the radiation and heat from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic waves.

The atmosphere affects the amount of solar radiation received. When solar radiation travels through the atmosphere, some of it is absorbed by the atmosphere (16%). Some of it is scattered to space (6%). Some of it is reflected by clouds (28%). About 47% of it reaches the Earth’s surface.

Without sunlight, there could not be life on the Earth. Plants need sunlight for the process of photosynthesis. During photosynthesis the plants use the energy of the sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, to create glucose (sugar). The glucose can later be used by the plant for energy or animals eat the plant and the glucose in it. Plants need sunlight to grow green. Without enough sunlight but with enough water, the plant grows very tall very quickly, but looks yellow and dehydrated, although when touched, the leaves are very moist.

Solar radiation can be both good and bad for a person’s health. When in the light, the human body uses the ultraviolet part of sunlight to make its own Vitamin D. Without sunscreen too much ultraviolet light can cause sunburn and skin cancer. Sun angle makes difference in seasons on Earth as well as in the length of day and night. A high angle makes the tropics hot, and a low angle makes the arctic cold.

Intensity of sunlight on planets of Solar System
Use of solar energy
Images for kids
See also

Intensity of sunlight on planets of Solar System

Sunlight in the Antelope Canyon, Arizona.

Different bodies of the Solar System receive sunlight of different intensities. The table compares the amount of light received by each planet on the Solar System follows:

Planet	Perihelion – Aphelion distance (AU)	Solar radiation maximum and minimum (W/m²)	Forcing temperature variation for albedo = 1 (°C)
Mercury	0.3075 – 0.4667	14,446 – 6,272	94.6
Venus	0.7184 – 0.7282	2,647 – 2,576	2.2
Earth	0.9833 – 1.017	1,413 – 1,321	4.7
Mars	1. 382 – 1.666	715 – 492	21.1
Jupiter	4.950 – 5.458	55.8 – 45.9	6.0
Saturn	9.048 – 10.12	16.7 – 13.4	5.0
Uranus	18.38 – 20.08	4.04 – 3.39	2.8
Neptune	29.77 – 30.44	1.54 – 1.47	0.6

Use of solar energy

Solar energy is used in many different ways by people all over the world both in its traditional way for heating, cooking or drying and to make electricity where other power supplies are absent, such as in remote places on Earth or in the space. Sometimes, it is cheaper to make electricity from sunlight than from coal or oil.

Images for kids

Sunlight through trees in the National park Sviati Hory, Ukraine.
Solar irradiance spectrum at top of atmosphere, on a linear scale and plotted against wavenumber
Sunlight on Mars is dimmer than on Earth. This photo of a Martian sunset was imaged by Mars Pathfinder.
Sunlight shining through clouds, giving rise to crepuscular rays
Téli verőfény (“Winter Sunshine”) by László Mednyánszky, early 20th century

In Colombia, four children were found alive after 40 days of searching – RBC

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2023-06-07T15:27:51+03:00

At the moment, our fund works in several main areas:

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2023-03-13T13:42:50+03:00

We make bright, high-quality portraits of children who are subject to family placement and place photographs and questionnaires with a description of the child’s character on the Children-Zhdut. rf Internet portal. Thanks to the activities of the project, parents are even for those children whose family arrangement is traditionally considered difficult due to their health, age or status.

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In May 2018, with the support of LSR Group, the first Family Adaptation Center in Russia was opened. The purpose of the center is to provide comprehensive support to families who have adopted a child from an orphanage, as well as to prevent crisis situations in order to prevent abandonment of foster children. The center is designed to train 250 candidates for foster parents and support 400 foster families per year.

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2023-04-03T13:17:12+03:00

The portal is an educational platform that contains systematized and generalized information about the development and education of children who have experienced the loss of blood parents and who are brought up in foster families. Here we talk about effective ways of interacting with foster children at different stages of adaptation and age crises.

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Created to help mothers with an orphan experience who find themselves in difficult life situations keep in touch with their children and prevent their babies from falling into orphanages. We provide such families with temporary accommodation in a comfortable apartment and constant support from specialists: lawyers, social workers and psychologists.

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The goal of the project is to help children who have gone through the traumatic experience of orphanage to better understand themselves and the world around them through creativity. Children from foster families, teenagers who are brought up in orphanages, volunteers who help them find their place in life and successful adoptive parents hone their skills together in the photo studio.

Anastasia Marmuzova

2022-12-01T12:57:01+03:00

“We start from the possibilities of the child”

Anastasia Marmuzova|

2022-12-01T12:57:01+03:00

01. 12.2022|

How a family school for children from foster families is organized and what makes it unique, tells the director of the Center for Additional Education of the Children Waiting Foundation Lilia Forish

Anastasia Marmuzova

2022-06-08T10:59:40+03:00

Stories of adopted children were told at the exhibition “Children at Home”

Anastasia Marmuzova|

2022-06-08T10:59:40+03:00

06/01/2022|

On June 1, International Children’s Day, a street photo exhibition “Children at Home” was opened on the territory of the public space “Sevcable Port”. On it we presented the stories of children who found a family thanks to the work of the Children-Waiting.rf project. For each of […]

Anastasia Marmuzova

2022-03-21T15:51:55+03:00

Children at Home portal: teaching parents to help children

Anastasia Marmuzova|

2022-03-21T15:51:55+03:00

03/21/2022|

Since last year, we have been working on the launch of the educational portal “Children at Home”, which will help foster families cope with their child’s difficulties in school, problematic behavior, adaptation and stress. The portal will be fully operational in April, but already […]0117

Svetlana Korovina

2023-06-06T11:47:26+03:00

06/06/2023

The regional database of children left without parental care in the Vladimir region has been updated: a profile of 1 new child has been added to the bank. This child needs loving and caring parents!

Anastasia Marmuzova

2022-12-01T12:57:01+03:00

“We start from the capabilities of the child”

Anastasia Marmuzova|

2022-12-01T12:57:01+03:00

01.12.2022|

How a family school for children from foster families is organized and what makes it unique, tells the director of the Center for Additional Education of the Children Waiting Foundation Lilia Forish

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2023-06-06T11:47:26+03:00

06/06/2023

The regional database of children left without parental care, Vladimir region, has been updated: a profile of 1 new child has been added to the bank. This child needs loving and caring parents!

We are a team of like-minded people united by the conviction that every child should live in a family, and he should feel good in this family. Any, even the best, fully equipped orphanage, with caring staff, can only be a temporary shelter while looking for parents, and the shorter the time spent in it, the easier it will be to adapt to a new family. Therefore, it is important for us to help blood parents who are in a difficult life situation to take care of their children, and if the child is already in an institution for any reason, to make his stay there as psychologically comfortable as possible and prevent the consequences of deprivation. In addition, we know what difficulties sometimes adoptive parents face, how difficult it is with psychologically traumatized children, and we are always ready to support them.

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Our family expresses its deep gratitude to the “Children are waiting” foundation! We have long been going to the decision to accept a foster child into the family.

Sunlight kids: Sunlight Children’s Services – Support for Abused and Neglected Children