|
|
| A Thoughtful Blend |
| by Wendy Rogers, AIA, LEED AP |
The relationship between curriculum and construction in K-12 schools is a thoughtful blend of both old and new ideas, intertwined with an assortment of state-of-the-art technologies, hands-on experiences, and relevant core values.
|
The relationship between curriculum and construction in K-12 schools is a thoughtful blend of both old and new ideas, intertwined with an assortment of state-of-the-art technologies, hands-on experiences, and relevant core values.
Through my work as a design principal and architect for Irvine-based LPA Inc., I’ve encountered my share of passionate teachers, principals, and school board members, along with those who admit they have more to learn. Something about this new generation has many educators wondering how they’re going to keep up.
This next generation of students takes digital saviness to a new level. In fact, they put the tech-users of previous years to shame. Their ability to multi-task allows them to learn in a way that is very different from any other generation.
These students desire curriculum with an emphasis on active participation. To understand and recognize the relationship between construction and this type of curriculum empowers our team to design buildings that respond to these needs, and teach as well.
As an LPA architect, mom, and leader in the K-12 green schools movement, it is my goal to create spaces that are environmentally aware and meaningful. I marvel at the ever present relationship between technology and sustainability; two seemingly polar opposites that complement and support each other with ease.
This article discusses three keys to the successful partnership of curriculum and construction.
Concepts That Cross Grade and Subject Boundaries
At Beverly Hills High School in Beverly Hills, CA, the urban campus found a way to assimilate curriculum into their new science and technology center through the use of tessellations.
Tessellations are repeated, interlocking shapes that are found in nature, science, and math. This makes them the perfect candidate to unify the various subjects housed in the building — science, math, and technology.
“As children move from elementary to junior high to high school, this concept follows them,” explains Dr. Myra Demeter, school board president for Beverly Hills Unified School District. “When students are in second grade ,we ask them, ‘What shapes can you put together to completely cover a surface?’ When they’re in high school, students use tessellations through art and on computers, from an algebraic point of view.”
As students walk around the courtyard, they experience the elements of balance, proportion, and harmony with nature demonstrated by the golden section — a mathematical principal of proportion. They have open space to conduct experiments, measure distance, and let objects fly.
From the fourth floor, students can look down and view the tessellation series used throughout the entire courtyard. In fact, the acorns on the oak tree in the courtyard share the same tessellation pattern as the courtyard itself; the concept is linked to biology as well.
“We are excited that LPA was able to incorporate a concept from our curriculum into the design of the building,” continues Demeter. “For me, it’s very gratifying because it brings together what is being taught inside the building with the courtyard outside.”
As an added bonus, Demeter notes the increased level of excitement, motivation, and comradery observed by students and teachers alike. The teachers work together to continually improve their use of new technologies such as smart boards, voice enhancement systems, and clickers — an interactive response system where teachers pose a question and students respond with the clickers from their seats.
Hands-On Experiences
Through examination of today’s learning environment and the classroom of the future, one discovers that everything is about collaboration. How do we balance the technology that will enhance this collaboration with the sustainable building features that will help pay for it?
If we can grasp the special needs of curriculum, we as architects and engineers can contribute to the learning process in a more tangible way. Our clients at South Tahoe High School in South Lake Tahoe, CA, have mastered this concept with designs that communicate, collaborate, and teach.
“The Academy of Construction and Transportation will feature a state of the art, sustainable design,” says Ivone Larson, principal of South Tahoe High School. “The transportation division will integrate green learning with bays for both traditional and hybrid vehicles, while the construction department will teach sustainable construction techniques, with an emphasis on solar technology and daylighting.”
As with Beverly Hills High School, we encounter a building that will house multiple subjects under one roof — architecture, construction, transportation, and art.
“The architecture students might design a building while working with the construction students, and then take it to the arts department for a model or watercolor rendering,” Larson continues. “They will learn how to collaborate on projects from vehicles, to building designs, to oil changes, and green fuel management.”
This concept benefits students of any career or educational path. For those who will graduate from high school and immediately enter the work force, their skills have been sharpened and increased. For those who will continue on with their education at junior colleges and four-year universities, they have achieved relevant work experience and will tackle their classes with added expertise.
Another South Tahoe High building planned by LPA Inc. is the Media and Design Arts Academy, which will combine the spheres of art, music, and theatre in a sustainable and high-tech environment.
Visual and Performing Arts Chairman, Bob Grant said, “We wanted the design of this building to hearken back to what we’ve seen on our annual trips to Hollywood. The learning experience will be as close as we can get it to real life activities and programs so that these students graduate ready for the real world.”
The Environmental Science Department at South Tahoe High is the culmination of ambitions for all of the new educational buildings. AP science teacher, Jamie Greenough, uses sustainability as the thread that ties her curriculum together.
“Sustainability is community development,” says Greenough. If she can provide a learning environment where the building demonstrates the principles she is teaching to “Keep Tahoe Blue,” then she has empowered them with the reasons and knowledge to stay and raise families in their town.
The buildings will also demonstrate a heightened responsibility for South Lake Tahoe and its natural surroundings; CHPS verification (Collaborative for High Performance Schools) provides tangible proof. In fact, the vision of this venture is so successful that they’ve already received state funding and are among the leaders in California for Career Technical Education funding.
Additional hands-on learning experiences will be had by students at the Livermore High School Agriculture and Technology complex in Livermore, CA. These clients will use their new building to enhance existing agricultural programs and further educate students in newly revived, career-tech fields of study.
“The building will be certified LEED for schools, and the classrooms will be university level,” comments Floyd Wilson, Facilities director for the Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. “Students will have spaces to keep specimens, conduct experiments, and learn through hands-on experiences in the greenhouse, metal shop, fabrication, and cryogenic labs, to name a few.”
Learning will be enjoyed via five-headed milling machines, CADD drawing programs, high-pressure water cutting systems, onsite water recycling and irrigation features, and a building made primarily with recycled materials.
“The students won’t just take classes in the building, they’ll learn from its sustainable features as well,” finishes Wilson.
Relevant Core Values
Our colleagues at the Waldorf School of Orange County have laid innovative groundwork in the field of relevant curriculum. While many educators grapple with these issues, Waldorf has forged ahead with a distinct approach.
“Two focal points weave in and out of Waldorf curriculum,” explains Catherine Sharbaugh, director of Capital Development for Waldorf. “The four elements — earth, water, air, and fire — and the four kingdoms — mineral, plant, animal, and human, which inhabit the earth.”
By characterizing the world in this way, Waldorf students are able to grasp the facts of the world clearly.
“These are dynamic categories which are intellectually true, yet applicable to all ages,” Sharbaugh continues. In the early school years, Waldorf curriculum emphasizes a love for the world because without love, what is there to conserve?
“In the middle school years, feelings are stirred by dramatic presentations. Without engaged feelings, ecology is just an intellectual study,” says Sharbaugh.
Waldorf students participate in petitions to save natural habitats, cleanup projects, and newspaper collections to practice the concept of conservation. Teachers place an emphasis on humans as moral beings who carry a responsibility for the condition of the earth.
Being good stewards of the environment is a central theme to many of our K-12 clients. How do we move forward at light speed while staying in touch with our responsibilities to the environment? Again, it comes back to that interesting balance of sustainability and technology.
Incorporating sustainable features into schools will save money that can, in turn, finance newer technologies. When aspects of technology appear to make students more socially and physically removed, sustainable features like daylighting will connect them back to the environment and help improve their learning, as multiple studies have shown.
Schools can use tools such as graphics, signage, recycling, and subtle design features to create a learning environment that encourages scholarship and stewardship of the earth.
At Marco Antonio Firebaugh High School in Lynwood, CA, a tree-lined path deemed “The Boulevard of Achievements” highlights inspirational individuals with billboards that highlight their accomplishments.
“Several of the billboards are of successful people born or raised in Lynwood to provide moments of encouragement for tomorrow’s leaders,” describes Steven Flanagan, AIA, LEED AP, principal designer at LPA Inc.
The school features sustainable elements like displacement ventilation and natural daylighting, which quietly provide a learning atmosphere in space that is environmentally aware.
Beverly Hills High School, mentioned earlier, utilizes relevant and interesting graphics to foster learning inside their Science and Technology Center.
An expansion designed for Fountain Valley High School in Fountain Valley, CA, challenges students with graphics reading, “The price of greatness is responsibility,” and “The time is always right to do what is right.”
LPA includes built-in recycling stations in all of the schools we design so that it doesn’t begin or end with a particular class, it’s easy and convenient. Here in California, we are growing a generation of “sustainability natives” and recycling is second nature to them. It isn’t a new fangled notion; it’s just what they do.
In the end, today’s curriculum and construction will heighten the awareness of tomorrow’s future business leaders, school principals, facility operators, and teachers. These sustainability natives carry our future on their backs and will balance passion for new technologies and sustainability to preserve their communities. I look forward to what these upcoming citizens will achieve.
Wendy Rogers, AIA, LEED AP is a design principal at LPA Inc.
|
| Source: SP&M, August 2008 |
Copyright 2010, Peter Li, Inc. All rights reserved. This article is protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property laws and may not be reproduced, rewritten, distributed, redisseminated, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast, directly or indirectly, in any medium without the prior written permission of Peter Li, Inc. |
|
