Today, many art and music teachers struggle to teach and inspire their students in inappropriate or outdated facilities. Many must settle for "art on a cart." New or modernized facilities can make a vital difference in building enthusiasm and appreciation for the arts in young children. Spacious, flexible music and art rooms of schools in Florida…

The organization of space profoundly affects learning. Students feel better connected to a building that anticipates their needs and respects them as individuals. Built in 1971, Crow Island School, in Winnetka, Illinois, is a prize-winning facility that has provided generations of children with windowed classrooms, skylights, adjacent workrooms,…

Creation of many strong connections among areas of the brain (via thematic instruction and cooperative learning techniques) substantially aids memory enhancement. A pleasant, academically oriented school climate can influence the mind's readiness to accept and retain information. Friendly classmates, nice surroundings, gentle colors, cleanliness,…

Discusses the mix of features in the learning environment that must be considered for adult learners: visual environment, acoustics, temperature, lighting design, and layout. Addresses the interplay of these features with the learner's behavior in the space. (Contains 41 references.) (SK)

The purpose of this study was to explore the biopsychosocial consequences of spasmodic dysphonia (SD) as experienced by people with SD. Qualitative research methods were used to investigate the insider's perspective of living with SD. Six adults with SD participated in face-to-face phenomenological interviews. The results are summarized in a model…

Creative achievement of teams is increasingly recognized as an organization's most valuable production. With dramatically advancing technology producing an almost unlimited amount of available information, the crucial challenge to many corporate and government organizations is how to use that information most creatively. While little expense is…

The paper is an interpretation of J.-J. Rousseau's book on the government of Poland. The central part of the paper is devoted to complex relations between the notions of nature, nation, childhood, and civic education. Methodologically, the analysis involves interpretation of historical contexts and positions significant in the writing of the book,…

State-of-the-art school buildings can improve educational standards and have a positive effect on everyone who uses them. That is why England's Department for Education and Skills (DfES) launched an ambitious five year strategy to improve educational facilities for all children in the country and create high quality resources for the whole…

When environmental studies programs broaden their curricular offerings into the humanities, their first stop is often environmental literature, particularly classics such as Henry David Thoreau's "Walden," Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac," and Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." Environmental literature courses consider many of the works of…

Designing school buildings to respond to change is not a new idea. But perhaps what is different today is the kind and degree of change which we have to anticipate. The OECD is carrying out projects that can help in the planning and design of future educational facilities--exploring trends in education and studying innovative learning…

Background/Context: The main goal for vocational education at the secondary level has historically been the preparation of youth for the world of work. As a result, research, policy, and practice in this area have mostly focused on how to smooth this transition, address high costs, and ensure that there are positive economic returns to the…

Teachers of the visual arts have long considered the importance of how to collect and display their students' work. Throughout history, bulletin boards have covered classrooms and school hallways neatly displaying children's art work. This article briefly summarizes how documentation functions within the Reggio Emilia approach and then discusses…

Disturbance-generated biomass results from endogenous and exogenous natural and cultural disturbances that affect the health and productivity of forest ecosystems. These disturbances can create large quantities of plant biomass on predictable cycles. A systems analysis model has been developed to quantify aspects of system capacities (harvest,…

Education for sustainability has attempted to extend the range of concerns teachers and students are meant to address from the environmental into the social and economic. But this has brought with it aspects of an anti-industrial sentiment and an essentially defensive, issues-focused agenda aimed at the individual. It has weakened the role of…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to outline a three-stage process for engaging with students to develop school level indicators of health in sequential class groups students first generated, then categorised indicators and finally developed schematic representations of their analyses. There is a political and practical need to develop…