WE LEARN BEST BY DOING….

This adage applies to all people, and especially to children whose physical energy and capacity to absorb new experience and are boundless. Unfortunately too many of today’s schools can’t expose kids to hands-on learning because of multiple challenges such as growing student populations, small and/or antiquated classrooms, high student-to-teacher ratios and ever tightening budgets. Creative, experiential curricula typically call for an ample amount of space for kids to work alone or in small groups at their own pace, ideally with their own set of tools or equipment for the activity. They also need an environment that supports flexible arrangements and can accommodate messy work – whether it involves plaster or clay for art activities or water for scientific experiments. The typical classroom is often too space-constrained to sponsor this type of learning. That is why we conceived of an entirely new type of classroom with our school partner, the Montessori Children’s School in Jacksonville, North Carolina - an Indoor-Outdoor Lab named the “Chameleon Pavilion.”

Overview
The Chameleon Pavilion is an apt name for an environment that is focused on transformability in order to support a vast range of activities and exploration, while at the same time strongly connecting with the natural world. The classroom and the learning opportunities literally extend into the outdoors. Similar to many other schools in the country and the world, the Children’s School has very limited options for funding of school building expansions or renovations. Therefore, this Indoor-Outdoor Lab is conceived as one new space – a satellite to their existing classrooms. This way, many students can benefit from this relatively small addition. The classroom is a 500 square foot space that is designed for use by the toddler through 3rd grade children. With the availability of additional resources in the future, there are plans to develop a complementary classroom for the fourth through sixth grade children as well. The space will serve as a laboratory for hands-on, messy activities that cannot be easily accommodated in their existing classrooms. The new classroom will be connected to the main school by a covered outdoor pergola and porch; the porch will provide expansion space the classroom. The building has been designed to be sustainable, have zero-net energy consumption, independent of the school’s water system and cost-effective both in terms of first costs and life-cycle costs.

Supports a Wide Range of Curricula
The Indoor-Outdoor Lab is a classroom that is large, flexible and appointed with an infrastructure that supports a full range of curricula. Some of the infrastructure elements include:

- Operable Walls Walls fold-up, slide to the side or roll out of the way to expand the lab into outdoors.

- Trough Sink An essential component to the lab because it allows many children to use the sink at one time and conduct larger scaled experiments such as ship building and floatation studies.

- Reading Nook A quiet area within a busy space for reading and research. Soft cushions and pillows create a kid-scaled, cozy spot with views to outside.

- Flexible Furniture Similar to the classroom itself, the furniture is transformable to serve many purposes and can be easily stored under the counter when not needed.

- Hanging Rods To suspend pulleys, dramatic play curtains/props and large art canvases.

- Ample Storage This is a critical factor to making a flexible space like this work.

- Solar Panels To be used for electricity demonstrations in addition to the classroom’s electricity needs.

- Cistern To utilize the treated rainwater for the student experimentation in addition to the classroom’s other water needs.

- Stage Simple furniture configuration provides a stage area for graduations and performances

Interconnected with the Natural World
What makes this new type of classroom particularly unique is its strong connection to the natural world. All children deserve the opportunity to engage with nature on a daily basis, but sadly this right is not possible for many children. This Indoor-Outdoor Lab is physically united to the outdoors and serves as a convenient home base for discovery and exploration of the outdoor environment. Many of the walls are designed to open so the distinction between the indoor and outdoor world dissolves. The classroom’s water and electricity are provided by rain and sun.

Curriculum opportunities are ever-expanding when a school’s outdoor environment can be incorporated. In the case of the Children’s School, they are in the process of reconfiguring their playground to support nature-based play and natural science curricula; therefore the new Indoor-Outdoor Lab will be a perfect complement. Gardening will be an important feature of the new playground. The teachers and children are looking forward to growing their own vegetable gardens and flower gardens for the butterflies and birds. This strong outdoor connection is valuable even for schools in urban areas where outdoor space is limited and/or has only asphalt surfaces. Studies of weather, physics, plant life cycles, animal adaptations can all be easily achieved in limited outdoor areas with the Indoor-Outdoor Lab. For example, gardening projects that tie to plant life cycles and nutrition curricula can be effectively done with small raised planters. Schools in climates with cold winters can also make great use of an indoor-outdoor lab. In the winter months, the lab can serve as a greenhouse for early plantings and as a protected but cool space for studying snowflakes under microscopes.

Inexpensive to Build & Maintain
This classroom will not require traditional building climate control systems. It will be an unconditioned space with no connections to the existing school’s building systems. Although it will not have conventional heating or air conditioning systems, the classroom will still maintain or exceed comfort standards because of alternative building construction methods/systems.

Sustainable Design Principles

- Ventilation: Maximum cross ventilation with ample operable windows and ceiling fans

- Water: Potable water is provided by rainwater stored in a 2,500 gallon cistern that is treated with a purification system

- Electricity: Electricity is provided by solar panels on the roof. Dedicated panels are provided for demonstrations tied to the curriculum

- Temperature: The indoor temperature is regulated by roof overhangs, white roof and a highly insulated building envelope

The structural system will be simple to construct, will employ local building materials/traditions and will have proper system connections and details to comply with the specific hurricane zone code requirements because of this school’s location near the Atlantic coast. The system will utilize reinforced concrete Sonotube foundations with Glulam beams and local Atlantic White Cedar wood framing which is naturally resistant to decay, insect and water damage. The large, top-hinged wall panel on the south side of the building will be an insulated translucent, fiberglass panel that will cost-effectively provide proper solar control to the classroom when closed and will shade the adjacent outdoor space when it is opened as a canopy. The wall materials will be Atlantic White Cedar siding on both the interior and exterior with polyeurethane spray foam insulation (with an R-value of approximately R-20). The floor will be a concrete slab with a raised cedar decking assembly that will permit water to drain easily to the exterior. This assembly will result in an environment that is cost-effective both for its first cost and life-cycle cost.

Sustainable Approach to Construction & Curricula

Every aspect of this Indoor-Outdoor Lab has been considered in terms of sustainability and how the building can reinforce an environmental awareness in the children. The classroom will be a space that is off the grid and will have monitors on the systems so that the children can qualitatively and quantitatively observe how effective the solar panels and rain water collection systems are throughout the day, the seasons and over the years. There will be a composting system that will show the children how yard waste can transform into nutrient-rich soil for their plants. The construction materials have been selected to be regional, durable and composed of recycled content whenever possible so that its use of the earth’s resources at the outset, and throughout its life, is minimized.

This is a Good Fit for Our School Partner

This Indoor-Outdoor Lab is a natural extension and evolution of the school’s educational philosophy. Their current classrooms are large spaces that serve a range of ages and encourage independent discovery and exploration. The classrooms work well for their needs except for the fact that they have limited connection to the outdoor environment. The school has a part-time naturalist who has developed a natural-science curriculum that could be expanded with the indoor-outdoor lab. The staff, parents and children of the Children’s School have been significantly involved with the design concepts of the lab as well as the curricula and projects that the space can sponsor.

The children had their own brainstorming design charette where they came up with fantastic ideas about how the space could be configured and the types of projects that they would like to do in their new classroom. Their ideas were documented by the teachers and rendered in their own artwork. The design reflected the children’s interest in gardening, science experiments, study of animals and all kinds of art projects. Although we couldn’t include all of the fun ideas that the children suggested, like roller rinks and bowling alleys, we were able to incorporate many elements such as the reading nook and the sand pit that they had identified during the charette.

This school has a critical mission within its community and the Indoor-Outdoor Lab will serve the families as well as the children in many ways. The school is located in Jacksonville, North Carolina, the home of Camp Lejeune, a large Marine Corps base camp. A majority of the children have parents who are in the military and are deployed for extended tours of duty. The school has become a de facto community center and support system for the families. The Indoor-Outdoor Lab will provide a perfect environment for family and community events that are currently challenging to sponsor because of limited space. Because the classroom and its furniture can be transformed into a stage, the school will be able to hold outdoor graduations, plays and concerts. It can also be readily used for potluck dinners, parent-child art classes and large group meetings.

This is a Good Fit for Other Schools Too

The high cost of traditional construction is unfortunately an obstacle for many schools to create a physical environment that supports the best practices in education. The indoor-outdoor lab is a creative solution to this problem and it can be applied in just about any setting. It is cost-efficient in both initial construction costs and on-going maintenance costs because it is unconditioned and does not rely on the school building’s infrastructure for heating, cooling, plumbing, and electricity. It can work in any climate because the walls are well insulated and heating and cooling are provided by sustainable methods (thereby avoiding non-renewable energy sources). The space is flexible, durable and interconnected to the outdoor world which makes it an ideal laboratory for a wide range of hands-on projects and exploration. It won’t replace the existing classrooms but will serve as a ideal extension.

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