Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning Smart Green Schools

Smart Green Schools

Australian Research Council Linkage Grant 2007-2009

This project involves the investigation of educational and environmental sustainability opportunities resulting from innovative school building design. It will explore the use and perception of the built environment for learning and as a 3D textbook.

 

This ARC Linkage project will investigate the influence of innovative and sustainable school building designs on the education of middle years students (Years 5-8) in four different school settings in Victoria, Australia. It will focus on understanding how learning spaces may support new and future teaching and learning pedagogical approaches, including the integration of ICT and multimedia technologies. The concept of utilising the buildings themselves as learning objects, or 3D textbooks, will also be investigated within the context of environmental sustainability education.

The school environment is just one aspect of an interrelated system of cultural, economic, pedagogical, organisational and motivational factors. Research suggests that teachers do not perceive the physical environment as a major component of education and are therefore unlikely to fully explore the potential of the environment as a 3D textbook to facilitate learning (Nair and Fielding 2005). This research will make recommendations on how environmental considerations might be better embedded into teacher education and school management training. It will investigate the extent to which teachers recognise the importance of the environment as a key part of their thinking and practice.

The engagement of middle years' students will be a key focus of this research. They will help collect environmental data and learn more about climate and energy. In this proactive research methodology, students, teachers and architects will collaborate to manipulate the curriculum and learning spaces to suit different learning modalities. Students will participate within teams to further their problem solving, communication and organisational skills. Teachers will learn to effectively manage space both environmentally and pedagogically. Partner architects will have the unusual opportunity of experiencing and critiquing their designs through the eyes of users.

 

Background

A substantial part of the school building stock within Australia needs replacement or refurbishment. Embodied energy, environmental impacts, operating costs and life-cycle costs demand cost-effective decisions. Education is changing from classrooms into learning and information environments. If we do not bring environmental and educational imperatives together in innovative ways, then embodied energy costs and government funds will be wasted on buildings that do not last. Environmental imperatives and the rapid pace at which the virtual world is pervading and enriching student learning both require appropriate design responses. Today's students are natives in a world of information technology. They are adept at using digital media. Schools are therefore shifting from teaching institutions to learning organisations through increased connectivity between students and their local and global environments. In particular, knowledge is increasingly being constructed across disciplines rather than within the traditional subject 'silos'. This necessitates a rethinking of how space can support this interaction (Gibbons et al, 1994). A recent review of the benefits of environmentally responsible or 'green' schools failed to find well-designed, evidence-based studies concerning the overall effects of green schools on the health or development of students and teachers (Higgins et al, 2005). It concluded that:

 

School designs cannot be imposed nor bought off-the-shelf. Success lies in users being able to articulate a distinctive vision for their school and then working with designers and architects to create integrated solutions. The open-plan classroom movement showed that purely physical design solutions that are not owned by their users or supported with effective systems and behaviour change will not work. (Higgins et al 2005: 3).

 

Some well-designed studies (Clements-Croomea et al, 2008; Mendell & Heath, 2005) correlated specific factors such as moisture problems with respiratory problems; air quality and day lighting with student learning and teacher productivity; and reduced noise levels with improved student achievement. However, results from empirical research in which variables are isolated, need to be viewed with some caution. A failure to synthesise findings can result in misleading interpretations. For example, the implications for noise control and temperature research tend to conflict. A further problem is that elemental research is commonly predicated on traditional 'chalk and talk' learning and student test outcomes. This evidence may be used to inform a similar future when schools need to be reflecting quite different 21st century learning needs.

 

Green Schools and Health and Learning Outcomes

This cross-disciplinary research will touch upon many of the key Australia's National Research Council's (2006) priorities. Students spend a large proportion (up to 15,000) of their waking hours within a school environment. A healthy and stimulating school environment in which environmental and educational imperatives are aligned will:

 

top of page