Blackboard

NASA scientist Homer E. Newell Jr. explaining principles of altitude, pressure, and temperature, c. 1973

Other names| Chalkboard, writing-board
Uses| Reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made

A blackboard or a chalkboard is a reusable writing surface on which text or drawings are made with sticks of calcium sulphate or calcium carbonate, better known as chalk.

Blackboards were originally made of smooth, thin sheets of black or dark grey slate stone.

## Contents

* 1 Design
* 2 Chalk sticks
* 3 Issues with use
* 4 Etymology and history
* 5 Gallery
* 6 See also
* 7 Notes
* 8 Further reading
* 9 External links

## Design

A chalkboard with an eraser in the chalk tray

A blackboard can simply be a board painted with a dark matte paint (usually black, occasionally dark green).[1] Matte black plastic sign material (known as closed-cell PVC foamboard) is also used to create custom chalkboard art.[2] Blackboards on an A-frame are used by restaurants and bars to advertise daily specials.[3] Adhesive chalkboard surface is also available in stores as rolls of textured black plastic shelf covering, which is applied to the desired wall, door or other surface.

A more modern variation consists of a coiled sheet of plastic drawn across two parallel rollers, which can be scrolled to create additional writing space while saving what has been written. The highest grade blackboards are made of porcelain-enameled steel (black, green, blue or sometimes other colours). Porcelain is very hard wearing, and blackboards made of porcelain usually last 10–20 years in intensive use.[4]

Lecture theatres may contain a number of blackboards in a grid arrangement.[5] The lecturer then moves boards into reach for writing and then moves them out of reach, allowing a large amount of material to be shown simultaneously.

## Chalk sticks

Stick-slip effect with a chalk on a blackboard

File:Chalkboard-writing.ogg Chalk sticks are produced in white and in various colours, especially for use with blackboards. White chalk sticks are made mainly from calcium carbonate derived from mineral chalk or limestone, while coloured chalk sticks are made from calcium sulphate in its dihydrate form, CaSO4·2H2O, derived from gypsum.[6][7] Chalk sticks containing calcium carbonate typically contain 40–60% of CaCO3 (calcite).

## Issues with use

Chalk dust can aggravate respiratory conditions such as asthma and allergies, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI).[8] The dust can also damage or interfere with dust-sensitive equipment, including computers. Chalk sticks wear down quickly and are prone to breaking unless held in a protective chalk holder. Over time, blackboards may experience “ghosting,” in which residual pigment from chalk or chalk markers absorbs into the surface and cannot be fully erased.[9]

The scratching of fingernails on a blackboard, as well as other pointed, especially metal objects against blackboards, produces a sound that is well known for being extremely irritating to most people.[10] According to a study run by Michael Oehler, a professor at the University of Cologne, Germany, humans are "predisposed to detest" the sound of nails on a blackboard.[11] The findings of the study were presented at the Acoustical Society of America conference and support earlier findings from a 1986 study by Vanderbilt psychologist Randolph Blake and two colleagues found that the sound of nails on a chalkboard annoyed people even when the high-pitch frequencies were removed. The study earned Blake a 2006 Ig Nobel Prize.[12]

Airborne particles of chalk can contribute to classroom air pollution.[13]

## Etymology and history

Retouched drawing of a teacher at blackboard for an advertisement, 1924

The writing slate was in use in Indian schools as mentioned in Alberuni's Indica (Tarikh Al-Hind), written in the early 11th century:

> They use black tablets for the children in the schools, and write upon them along the long side, not the broadside, writing with a white material from the left to the right.[14]

The first classroom uses of large blackboards are difficult to date, but they were used for music education and composition in Europe as far back as the 16th century.[15] The term "blackboard" is attested in English from the mid-18th century; the Oxford English Dictionary provides a citation from 1739, to write "with Chalk on a black-Board".[16] The first attested use of chalk on blackboard in the United States dates to September 21, 1801, in a lecture course in mathematics given by George Baron.[17] James Pillans has been credited with the invention of coloured chalk (1814); he had a recipe with ground chalk, dyes and porridge.[18]

The use of blackboards changed methods of education and testing, as found in the Conic Sections Rebellion of 1830 in Yale.[19] Manufacturing of slate blackboards began by the 1840s.[4] Green porcelain enamel surface was first used in 1930, and as this type of boards became popular, the word "chalkboard" appeared.[4] In the US green porcelain enamelled boards started to appear at schools in 1950s.[20]

## Gallery

* The blackboard used by Albert Einstein during lectures on cosmology at the University of Oxford, 1931

* A schoolboy in Seattle, WA, USA, 1961

* An Austrian chemist with colored chalk, 1970

* Teacher explaining the decimal system of weights using a blackboard, Guinea-Bissau, 1974

* An advertising blackboard in Taipei, Taiwan, 2019

## See also

* Blackboard bold
* Blackboard Jungle
* Chalkboard gag from The Simpsons
* ChalkZone
* Conic Sections Rebellion, an 1830 student uprising when Yale students were required to draw their own diagrams on the blackboard
* Hagoromo Bungu, Japanese chalk company
* Sidewalk chalk
* Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings
* Slate
* Tacita Dean, an artist who often uses blackboards in her work
* Whiteboard

## Notes

1. ↑ Philip, Shaju (June 30, 2014). "CPM slams use of green boards in Kerala schools". https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/cpm-slams-use-of-green-boards-in-kerala-schools/.
2. ↑ Downs, Stacy (June 1, 2012). "The ABCs of chalkboard paint". http://www.kansas.com/living/home-garden/article1093159.html.
3. ↑ Goldsworthy, Jessica (September 23, 2018). "Temporary Signage Ideas For Restaurants". https://www.squaresigns.com/blog/temporary-signage-ideas-for-restaurants.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Buzbee, Lewis (2014). Blackboard: A Personal History of the Classroom. Graywolf Press. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-55597-683-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=sl5GAwAAQBAJ&pg=PT45.
5. ↑ "Film Locations: The Most Filmed College Classroom Is Inside Columbia University's Havemeyer Hall" (in en-US). 2013-06-27. https://untappedcities.com/2013/06/27/film-locations-the-most-filmed-college-classroom-is-inside-columbia-universitys-havemeyer-hall/.
6. ↑ "How chalk is made – material, making, used, processing, procedure, product, industry". http://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Chalk.html.
7. ↑ Corazza, M.; Zauli, S.; Pagnoni, A.; Virgili, A. (2012). "Allergic contact dermatitis caused by metals in blackboard chalk: a case report". Acta Dermato-Venereologica 92 (4): 436–437. doi:10.2340/00015555-1296. PMID 22367154.
8. ↑ "Reading, Writing, and Wheezing? Not Necessarily". WebMD. September 19, 2000. http://www.webmd.com/asthma/news/20000919/reading-writing-wheezing-not-necessarily.
9. ↑ "What Are Chalkboards | Majisign". 21 November 2020. https://www.majisign.co.uk/article/what-are-chalkboards#Blackboardghosting.
10. ↑ Wong, Sam (February 28, 2017). "The feeling you get when nails scratch a blackboard has a name". New Scientist (3115). https://www.newscientist.com/article/2123018-the-feeling-you-get-when-nails-scratch-a-blackboard-has-a-name/. Retrieved February 17, 2021.
11. ↑ Siegel, Robert (November 9, 2011). "Why Nails On A Chalkboard Drives Us Crazy". NPR. https://www.npr.org/2011/11/09/142184389/why-nails-on-a-chalkboard-drives-us-crazy.
12. ↑ Frances Romero (14 June 2010). "Top 10 Most Annoying Sounds: Nails on a Chalkboard". Time. https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1996489_1996488_1996483,00.html. Retrieved 31 May 2016.
13. ↑ Mbazima, Setlamorago Jackson; Moolla, Raeesa; Joseph, Jitcy Saji (February 4, 2024). "Release and health outcomes of exposure to chalk particles in classrooms: a systematic literature review". International Journal of Environmental Health Research 34 (10): 3515–3539. doi:10.1080/09603123.2024.2311228. ISSN 1369-1619. PMID 38311888. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38311888.
14. ↑ Alberuni's India. An account of the religion, philosophy, literature, geography, chronology, astronomy, customs, laws and astrology of India about A.D. 1030. 1910. https://archive.org/stream/alberunisindiaac01biru#page/182/mode/2up.
15. ↑ Owens, Jessie Ann (1998). Composers at Work: The Craft of Musical Composition, 1450-1600. Oxford University Press. p. 82. ISBN 978-0-19-512904-5. https://books.google.com/books?id=MXc8DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA82.
16. ↑ Entry for "blackboard, n", in the Oxford English Dictionary (Third ed., 2011)
17. ↑ Stephen E. Ambrose (1 December 1999). Duty, Honour, Country: A History of West Point. JHU Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-8018-6293-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=SC5wr5A_hbkC&pg=PA19. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
18. ↑ Jo Swinnerton (30 September 2005). The History of Britain Companion. Anova Books. p. 128. ISBN 978-1-86105-914-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=hd0wNKXAupwC&pg=PA128. Retrieved 14 February 2013.
19. ↑ Jackson, Allyn (2002). "Teaching Math in America: An Exhibit at the Smithsonian". Notices of the American Mathematical Society 49 (9): 1082. https://www.ams.org/notices/200209/comm-smithsonian.pdf. Retrieved February 17, 2021.
20. ↑ David, Lester (April 1952). "I Found My Future in the Past". Popular Science (April 1952): 144. ISSN 0161-7370. https://books.google.com/books?id=oiEDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA144.

## Further reading

* Aldrich Kidwell, Peggy; Ackerberg-Hastings, Amy; Lindsay Roberts, David (2008). "The Blackboard: An Indispensable Necessity". Tools of American Mathematics Teaching, 1800–2000. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 21–34. ISBN 978-0-8018-8814-4. https://books.google.com/books?id=bp99pEaO_O8C&pg=PA21.
* Ansell, Ben W. (2010). From the Ballot to the Blackboard: The Redistributive Political Economy of Education. New York City: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-61699-8. OCLC 876849496. https://books.google.com/books?id=nYZEce6R8XwC.
* Whitney, Frederick (1909). Blackboard sketching. Milton Bradley Company. https://archive.org/stream/blackboardsketch00whit#page/n5/mode/2up.

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