With the significant amount of time invested in researching the best techniques for delivering instruction to their students, Humble ISD is always on the forefront of education. Taking the recommendations of their active and vocal community groups, the district embarked in the design of the 26th elementary school, Atascocita Springs Elementary…

The "sage on a stage" is looking increasingly like a potted plant. While there will always be a role for a great teacher who can command a room, colleges and universities today are putting greater emphasis on student collaboration, small work groups, and interactive learning. Unfortunately, the classrooms of yesterday, with their focus on a single…

Things are changing. For starters, ebooks, apps, and the web are now a part of students' daily lives. So how do school librarians determine the best way to turn their library space into a learning center that is right for today's rapidly changing digital world? In this article, the author suggests five design considerations that school librarians…

Self-declared energy and carbon reduction goals on the part of progressive colleges and universities have driven ground source geothermal space heating and cooling systems into rapid evolution, as part of long-term climate action planning efforts. The period of single-building or single-well solutions is quickly being eclipsed by highly engineered…

Staff are a university's key resource. Typically, research has concentrated on the contribution of academic staff, and has largely overlooked the crucial role of professional staff. However, recently there has been an increase in research by professional staff, about professional staff. In Australia, professional staff comprise more than half the…

As a child the author had the ability to roam and adventure in green space. Every day as a child she had the ability to lead herself in the 700 hectares of forest that was her backyard. The ability to explore in nature alone is not a common activity for children today. A telling study from Sheffield, England (Derbyshire, 2007) highlights the way…

"My thumb got me into this!" declares the new APPA President Mary Vosevich when asked how she entered the field of educational facilities management. It was 1984, and Vosevich, a Midwest native, was working at Monsanto in St. Louis as a research biologist, having earned her B.S. in horticulture/agriculture from the University of…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive framework for capturing the complex concept the authors call school improvement. Design/methodology/approach: The author begins by anchoring that framework on an historical understanding of school improvement. The framework itself is then presented. Five dimensions are described: the…

When science departments are designed for new builds, or are to be refurbished or moved to other parts of the school, design of preparation areas should be a major feature. It is vital that the brief contains everything that is needed including, in particular, a chemical store. But no matter how well a brief is specified, the people who actually…

Millions of U.S. children attend schools that are not safe from earthquakes, even though they are in earthquake-prone zones. Several cities and states have worked to identify and repair unsafe buildings, but many others have done little or nothing to fix the problem. The reasons for ignoring the problem include political and financial ones, but…

The twenty-first century has seen the rapid emergence of wireless broadband and mobile communications devices which are inexorably changing the way people communicate, collaborate, create and transfer knowledge. Yet many higher education campus learning environments were designed and built in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries prior to…

Personalized learning spaces are emerging in schools as a critical reaction to "industrial-era" school models. As the form and function of schools and pedagogy change, this places pressure on teachers to adapt their conventional practice. This paper addresses the question of how teachers can adapt their classroom practice to create…

School districts in Canada are part of a growing international movement that puts strong emphasis on school design to serve the diverse needs and learning styles of students for the 21st century economy. Diverse, purposeful spaces for individual and group activities, "schools within schools," support for cross-disciplinary collaboration…

The anatomy curriculum at Namibia's first, and currently only, medical school is clinically oriented, outcome-based, and includes all of the components of modern anatomical sciences i.e., histology, embryology, neuroanatomy, gross, and clinical anatomy. The design of the facilities and the equipment incorporated into these facilities were directed…

Reducing school district energy expenditures has become a universal goal. However, school board members, superintendents, and directors of buildings and grounds are often unaware of the many options available to conserve energy. School energy conservation used to be relatively simple: turn off the lights and turn down the heat in the winter and…