James Biehle will present Science Facilities 101 – “So You Want New Science Facilities” and Science Facilities 102 – “The Architects Have Started Without Me: What Do I Do Now?” at the NSTA Baltimore Area Conference on Friday and Saturday, December 10 and 11, 2010.  Science Facilities 101 begins Friday at 3:30 PM in Key Ballroom 7, followed by Science Facilities 102 on Saturday at 8:00 AM in the same location.

James Biehle will present Science Facililties 101 – “So You Want New Science Facilities” and Science Facilities 102 – “The Architects Have Started Without Me: What Do I Do Now?” at the NSTA Nashville Area Conference on Friday, December 3, 2010.  Science Facilities 101 begins at 2:00 PM in Room Tennessee A, followed by Science Facilities 102 at 3:30 PM.

James Biehle will present Science Facililties 101 – “So You Want New Science Facilities” and Science Facilities 102 – “The Architects Have Started Without Me: What Do I Do Now?” at the NSTA Kansas City Area Conference on Thursday, October 28, 2010.  Science Facilities 101 begins at 12:30 PM in Room 2503A, followed by Science Facilities 102 at 2:00 PM.

James Biehle and LaMoine Motz will present a workshop entitled “Planning Science Spaces for Project-Based Learning” at CEFPI’s Midwest/GreatLakes Regional Conference in Grand Rapids, MI on Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 1:15 PM.

Credit: Tower Pinkster, Grand Rapids, MI, Architect of Record.

Science is a hands-on subject in which students experience science by carrying out investigations. Generally these investigations require equipment and materials to be set up before a class starts and taken down when the class ends. Planners should determine the appropriate cost of new or renovated science facilities before budgets are set as their costs differ a lot from standard classrooms.

“We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us.”
- Sir Winston Churchill

Most educational facility planners are familiar with Churchill’s comment, however, this concept is nowhere more valid than in the planning and design of science facilities. Unfortunately, the budgets for school science facilities are often set well before any real planning has taken place and are set by those who have never taught science and, therefore, do not know the appropriate questions to ask.

An eminent educational facility planner recently asked me about the recommended formula for determining the number of science lab/classrooms needed for a high school (Appendix I of the NSTA Guide to Planning School Science Facilities, Second Edition). That formula determines the number of such spaces by calculating the number of students likely to be taking science each year, dividing that number by 24 (the maximum number of students in a science class for safety), dividing that number by the number of class periods in a day, then dividing that number by a factor of say 70%. My questioner indicated that his school district clients would not allow the use of the 70% factor because that would leave expensive space vacant for 30% of a day. Clearly these clients do not understand how science is taught.

Science is a hands-on subject in which students experience science

Astrometrics Lab in Entry Tower

by carrying out investigations. Generally these investigations require equipment and materials to be set up before a class starts and taken down when the class ends. Of course, a teacher could do this during class time, using the first, say, ten minutes of the class period to set up and the last ten minutes to clean up, leaving the students time to do whatever high school students might be inclined to do with unsupervised and unstructured time in class. However, if a typical class period is, say, 50 minutes long, the set-up and take-down time then occupies 40% of the available teaching time. Knowing this I suspect most schools would opt to have the set-up and take-down time take place when students are not in class.

Student Project Space

In another recent example, the science faculty of a suburban high school spent many hours with a science facility planner developing the ideal spaces and arrangements of spaces that would serve their district’s hands-on, inquiry-based approach to science education. Included in the resulting space program were long-term student project spaces and small group meeting rooms in which students could plan and carry out projects which would take more than a single class period. Once the programming effort was completed, a “project executive” took control of the design and construction process. This resulted in a larger, more expensive and less efficient building that omitted the project spaces and the small group meeting rooms and separated the lab/classrooms from the centralized prep and storage spaces which they had originally been programmed to surround. Neither the “project executive” nor the school board he served understood the need for the project and meeting spaces nor the safety issues involved in separating the prep/storage areas from the lab/classrooms they served. Thus what could have been a wonderfully flexible and functional facility was reduced to something barely adequate for twenty first century science instruction.

In the mid 1990s a group within the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) set about developing a national guideline for the planning and design of school science facilities. To avoid reinventing the wheel, the group researched guidelines published by various states as well as some foreign countries. Maryland, Texas, California, North Carolina and the United Kingdom had published fairly extensive guidelines and other U.S. states including Connecticut, Florida and Indiana had some less extensive guidelines for science facility design. In virtually all cases, the maximum safe class size was recommended to be 24 students and the minimum floor area per student in the teaching space ranged from 45 to 60 square feet. Subsequent detailed research by Dr. Sandra West, a member of the planning group, revealed that significantly more science classroom accidents occurred when either the number of students per class rose above 24 or the floor space per student dropped below 60 square feet. The first edition of the resulting book, the NSTA Guide to School Science Facilities, published in 1999, recommended a maximum class size of 24 and a minimum floor area per student of 60 square feet for high school lab/classrooms. This position has been adopted by NSTA.

Science teaching in the twenty-first century is considerably different

Biology Lab/Classroom

from the science teaching most of grew up on. The teacher no longer spends several class periods lecturing to students and then sending them to the lab on Thursday afternoons where they are given a recipe, tools and ingredients and expected to recreate the same experiment in two hours. Current practice is very much hands-on. A teacher may begin a class session by introducing a concept in a more or less traditional classroom setting, but then move quickly into a hands-on activity in a different area of the same room. Following this activity the class may reassemble in the “classroom” portion of the space for a discussion of the activity they’ve just experienced. It has been estimated that this “learning by doing” approach results in 40% more hands-on science experiences than the old, traditional lecture then lab format.

Another type of activity also often occurs in today’s science classes: the teacher poses question (“What impact might a new bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis have on the native flora and fauna in the area of the new bridge?” for example), then sends the class forth to answer the question. The students may be grouped in pairs, or in teams of four, say, and each team may head in a different direction to answer the question.

Small Group Meeting Room

Some may start by sitting down in a small group meeting room and planning their investigation, others might get on the Internet to determine what is already known about this subject. During the days and, possibly, weeks that follow, students may take field trips to the proposed site of the bridge, interview scientists at local universities, raise fish and subject them to the types of stresses they might encounter during construction, etc. As the project reaches its conclusion, the teams will document their findings and then present them to their classmates. The theory here is that people retain a small percentage of what they’re told, a slightly larger percentage of what they read, a much larger percentage of what they do, and a significantly greater percentage of what they teach.

You would be right to imagine that such an approach to science education could require much different facilities than those you experienced as a high school student. Combination laboratory/classrooms, which allow students to move between discussion and hands-on activities and back again, are now the primary learning spaces. Flexibility of furniture arrangement is critical. However, as many of the student activities and projects take more than a single class period, places to set up apparatus and leave it set up (project spaces) are needed. For safety, these spaces need to be

View Windows in Prep Room

adjacent to the primary lab/classroom and to a corridor and should have large view windows between the project space and its surroundings to allow for supervision. The area of such project spaces is in addition to the recommended 60 square feet per student for the lab/classroom.
The size and location of prep and storage rooms are also critical to good and safe science instruction. These should be immediately adjacent to the lab/classroom with doors leading directly between the two. They should also have view windows into the adjacent lab/classroom for supervision when the teacher is in the prep area and students are in the lab/classroom (students should not be in the prep/storage area). The NSTA Guide to Planning School Science Facilities recommends a minimum of ten square feet per student for prep and storage space in addition to the space for the lab/classroom. Teachers should not have to haul materials and equipment through the corridors to a remote lab/classroom as this can easily constitute a safety hazard to all occupants of the school.
With energy conservation and sustainable design driving new construction, it is important to understand that both the location and equipping of the science facilities can have a major impact. Science facilities should have their own ventilation system so that the odors released by certain investigations are not recirculated throughout the school. Some science spaces require fume hoods which also need their own exhaust systems and, as a result, make-up air to replace the exhausted air. Fume hoods tend to be the biggest energy hogs in a science facility, both from basic operation in which they remove air from a science space which must be replaced and conditioned, and because many hoods are left operating 24/7. Minimizing the number of fume hoods, centralizing make-up air units, and centralizing the separate ventilation system required for science can save both energy and many dollars in the construction budget. Turning fume hoods off when not in use will save significant amounts in operating costs. Further, centralizing science centralizes the plumbing required including backflow devices and water heaters to temper water for the safety shower/eyewash units. In schools with smaller “schools within schools” or “house” designs, the science facilities can serve as the hub of a radiating scheme (see diagram).

Finally, science education doesn’t need to end at the door to the science lab/classroom. Many schools have extended science education throughout the school with such ideas as creating an astrometrics lab (elaborate sundial) in an entry tower, installing a water barometer in a stairwell, or retaining and enhancing an existing wetland as a teaching tool. One school in the Denver area has a resilient tile floor in a fractal pattern, another in St. Louis has paw prints of various animals set in a courtyard walkway, a school in the Boston area replaced several ceiling tiles with clear lexan and installed lights so that students could see the many hidden building systems above the ceiling.

Planners who understand these various factors can then begin to determine the appropriate cost of new or renovated science facilities before the bond issue is submitted for a vote. A typical history classroom may be only 900 square feet and will not have the specific casework and utility requirements of a science space. English classrooms will not require significant prep and storage spaces with casework and utility requirements, but science lab/classrooms will. In general, a science lab/classroom will cost about 3.4 to 3.75 times as much as a history classroom based on the additional area required and the cost of the casework, equipment and utilities required. This information must become part of the budgetary planning for science long before the bond issue is passed and construction begins.

INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS
In preparation for this article, the author researched published guidelines for high school science facilities. Unfortunately, much of what was found was not particularly encouraging. For example, New York State’s Building Aid Guidelines, updated in July 2004, require a minimum area of 1,000 square feet for high school science classrooms (including prep and storage space) for general and earth science and 1,200 square feet for biology, chemistry and physics spaces housing 24 students. The United Kingdom’s Designing and Planning Laboratories L14, dated March 2000 gives as “a useful rule of thumb” the allowance of 3 square meters (32.28 square feet) of “free floor area” per student of age 16 or more. I assume that “free floor area” does not include the space occupied by fixed casework and equipment. Ireland’s “General Design Brief for Post-Primary Schools,” published in February 2000, suggests 91 square meters (979 square feet) as appropriate for 24 students for “Science Laboratory & Preparation Area.” A “Typical Layout Plan of Science Laboratory Room” dated November 2006 from the Republic of the Philippines shows a 18 meter x 7 meter space (1,356 Square feet) housing 48 students, a “control room,” “storage” and two toilets (28.25 square feet per student total).

The unfortunate likely results of insufficient space and inadequate science facility design will be increased accidents caused by overcrowding and unsafe handling of materials and equipment, lawsuits in which board members, administrators and science teachers are accused of negligence, and less hands-on science education for our students.

The new science standards suggest a science education model much different from the “cookbook” approach – the teacher will write a question on the marker board and tell student teams to use the scientific method to design their own investigations to answer the question. Obviously, if 12 teams of two students each tackle the question from 12 different directions, the materials, equipment and space required for each investigation will be different.

The National Science Education Standards, published in 1996, suggest that inquiry-based, hands-on science teaching is a national science education goal. The new science standards suggest a science education model much different from the “cookbook” approach – the teacher will write a question on the marker board and tell student teams to use the scientific method to design their own investigations to answer the question. Obviously, if 12 teams of two students each tackle the question from 12 different directions, the materials, equipment and space required for each investigation will be different.

Students will need a large place where they can conduct investigations; cut and join wood, metals and other materials; build apparatus; and leave it in place for the time necessary to carry out the investigations. The space should have a high-bay area for taller apparatus, bare concrete floors, a dust collection system, a water source and floor drain, and flexible lighting to grow plants or animals. Integrated curricula may encourage an engineering solution, which could require computer-assisted drawing as well as computer-based monitoring and testing apparatus. Hey, does anyone know where we could find a space like this? The old, dirty shop down in the industrial arts area would work well, since it already has the power and dust collection system and probably also has water and drains.

Several schools have recently turned to vocational shops for the type of spaces needed in today’s inquiry-based, hands-on science. South Carroll High School in Carroll County, MD used a large vo-ag shop and built a “clean room” space for computers and planning within it. The high bay space remained a shop with overhead doors, bare concrete floors, power and water where needed, and floor drains. Students design their own projects and work with a teacher facilitator to obtain the materials and equipment needed. The facilitator even helps students write grant applications to fund their work.

South Carroll High School converted a vo-ag shop as a long-term project space.

At River Oaks Public School, a 1991 K-8 school in a suburb of Toronto, Ont., student teams conduct an integrated project in which they develop a concept for a new toy; write a proposal to build, market and sell this toy; prepare a business plan, including cost estimates; use computer-aided design and drafting to produce production drawings; build a prototype of the toy; then develop a plan for mass production. The spaces required for such a program include a glass-enclosed computer-assisted design space and a separate manufacturing area with heavy-duty tables, and power and hand tools for building prototypes and production runs. The faculty manager is a facilitator, giving students appropriate input and supervision, but not telling them “how.”

River Oaks students develop a toy as a lab project.

The 1992 science facilities at Durham Academy in Durham, NC, included a high-bay, concrete-floored student project room connecting two physics labs. Durham’s physics curriculum has a strong engineering component in which students must design and build their own apparatus throughout the year. The project space includes power tools and movable tables, plus a circular stair to a platform above where gravity and pendulum investigations can be carried out. As part of a recent study of the expanded needs for science, it was recommended that this space be doubled in size to accommodate the increased interest in this type of activity.

Durham Academy's Project Space

Kent Denver School in Englewood, CO, recently expanded and renovated its Gates Science Center, including a ground-floor Center for Innovation. This space has large, double doors opening directly outdoors, heavy-duty tables, workbenches and industrial shelving, a bare concrete floor and exposed structure with the ability to hang heavy objects from a grid of “unistrut” throughout the space. Students will design their own projects in the adjacent Digital Art Center and build them in the Center for Innovation using small hand and machine tools under the guidance of a faculty facilitator.

Kent Denver's Center for Innovation

Troy High School in Troy, NY, is adding a two-story library and science addition adjacent to their existing vocational wing. During detailed planning for the science spaces, the opportunity to use the adjacent industrial shops in conjunction with science suggested that science be located on the first floor. The space between the new two-story addition and the existing one-story vocational wing will be roofed over to create a large, high-bay student project space. Glass walls will separate the project space from the adjacent lab/classrooms and will allow passing students to look into this exciting area as they pass. Clerestories will allow large amounts of daylight into the project space.

Troy High School's proposed science and library wing.

_____________________
This article was originally published in the August 2002 issue of School Planning & Management magazine.

If this is truly the future of secondary education, it seems that fixed, designated-subject science laboratories may become dinosaurs. Perhaps a large, flexible student project space could be combined with a number of other, support spaces, to provide the appropriate learning environment for science. As students become more and more responsible for developing their own projects with which to explore the science curriculum, the need for individual laboratory/classrooms and prep areas should be greatly reduced. Rather than daily doses of large-group lectures in a classroom, more and more content would be delivered either by reading, study of documentation on a computer (CD-ROM or Internet), or by actual experimentation, thus requiring significantly less traditional classroom space and significantly more project space.

The diagram below suggests the science resource area of the state-of-the-art high school and includes the following facilities:

Project Area: This is the primary learning space for all students. It would have a high ceiling (or no ceiling), flexible and adjustable lighting, water/gas/electricity/data connections throughout the space, and little or no fixed casework. The primary furniture would be tables and chairs which students could arrange to suite their needs. One or more fume hoods would be provided for those projects requiring same, and increased ventilation for the project area would be required. Space and resource allocation would be the function of the teachers who are now truly facilitators with the knowledge and experience to guide students in their learning process. As this space would serve all students in all grades, it would necessarily be large and might, for acoustical purposes, need to be subdivided into two or more such spaces which could be connected through large, roll-up doors to permit rearranging equipment or long-term projects.

Flexible Project Area at Thomas Haney Centre

Outdoor Project Area: Ideally, the main project area could open directly via overhead or sliding doors, to an adjacent outdoor project area where outdoor experiments such as weather observations, stream mechanics, animal and plant studies could be conducted.

Weather Station at Samuel Shepard, Jr. Gateway Education Park

Supplies/Equipment Check-out: With small group and individual projects being accomplished on a random schedule, a centralised storage and check-out space for supplies and equipment would be required, replacing the individual storage and prep rooms normally associated with dedicated laboratory/classrooms. If the project area is subdivided, it might be necessary to have more than one supply/equipment check-out room, or one such space might be located strategically between two or more project rooms to serve all. The supplies/equipment check-out space would have a number of banks of shelving, possibly rolling, compact shelving to save aisle space, and would have service windows with roll-up grilles opening into the project area. At the Thomas Haney Centre, kits for individual laboratory projects are put together in advance in plastic tote trays of various sizes; when a student or team is ready to do a particular project, they merely check out the appropriate tote tray which also includes instructions and safety precautions. The student or team would then proceed to a vacant workstation or table in the project area to set up and perform the project. Staffing for this area would depend on the number of project areas being served and the number of students in the student body. This space would be open at all times that the project area is open.

Supplies/Equipment Check-out at Thomas Haney Centre

Project Prep Area: This would be the make-up area for the project kits. Rather than scurrying to prepare a dozen laboratory set-ups for a class of 24, a teacher would prepare several tote tray kits for each project at a convenient time, and place them in a pre-assigned location in the supplies/equipment check-out space. When kits are returned, the various glassware and instruments must be cleaned and the consumables replaced. This work could be performed by students or by teachers as convenient.

Greenhouse Area: Rather than provide the type of environment appropriate to a greenhouse in the entire project area, a separate greenhouse area should be constructed. This space could be located adjacent to the project area, or be remote, but should have access to the supplies/equipment check-out space. The size and equipment of the greenhouse will depend on the planned curriculum which would make use of this facility. It could be used for long-term demonstrations of composting, solid and liquid waste processing, growing of biological specimens such as fish and plants, etc.

Greenhouse at Samuel Shepard, Jr. Gateway Education Park

Biological Wastewater Treatment Area: Where possible, the use of an environmentally sensitive, biological wastewater treatment system could act as both a building utility and a science demonstration area similar to that installed at the Boyne River Ecology Centre of the Toronto (Canada) Board of Education. This space should be located on the exterior wall with direct sun and could be adjacent to or a part of the greenhouse area.

Biological Wastewater Treatment at Boyne River Ecology Centre

Controlled Environment Area: This space would offer the opportunity to conduct projects requiring a more controlled environment than would be available in a large, open project area. Dust control, humidity control, lighting, temperature and other variables could be different in this space than elsewhere in the resource area. As with the greenhouse, this space could be located adjacent to the main project area or be remote. It probably should not connect directly to the supplies/equipment check-out space so as to avoid contaminating the controlled environment, but should be near by this space. The space is meant to be as flexible and functional as the main project area.

Small Group Meeting Areas: These conference rooms should open directly off the main project area and should have glass partitions to allow for supervision and to create a sense of connection to the projects in the larger space. The small group meeting areas are meant as places for small groups or teams to meet to discuss the progress of their projects or to analyse the appropriate method for achieving a particular project goal. As separate spaces they can have sound isolations from the general noise of the larger space while allowing the small group to conduct their own discussions without disturbing those in the project space. It might be possible for a team to check out such a space for several days at a time if the requirements of a project produced a need for extended discussions, paperwork and computer-related activities. The space should be equipped with electrical outlets, appropriate lighting, computer networking capabilities and, possibly, a desktop computer connected to the Internet. A markerboard and tack surface should be standard equipment.

Small Group Meeting Space

Larger Group Meeting Areas (24 Seats): In spite of the individualised or small group nature of the science experience, there will still be times when the teacher and students need to meet as a group to present a new concept, lay out ground rules for a new project, etc. Other uses might include a group presentation of project results by an individual or team or the group viewing of a film or other media presentation. The room should be sized to hold an entire class group (ie: 24) and should be equipped with markerboard, tack area, projection screen, LCD projector, computer network connections, adjustable lighting and adjustable seating to permit a wide variety of functions to make use of the space. The number of such lecture areas should be calculated by determining the likely number and frequency of group presentations in the curriculum. These spaces would not be assigned to individual teachers as “home” spaces.

Seminar Room (12 Seats/Tables): In the Thomas Haney Centre experience, full class size meetings are rare; teachers make presentations on a particular issue when a sufficient group of students are ready for the material. One or more smaller seminar-sized spaces with movable tables and chairs should be provided. Teachers can hold group discussions, or review material with two or three teams of students at once; the spaces could also be used by groups of students working as a larger team or several teams working on the same project to discuss findings or plan out a method of attack. Both the lecture areas and the seminar rooms could open directly off of the project area or be more remote.

Faculty Offices & Conference Room: These are the “home” spaces for the faculty and may be individual offices, small cubicles in a larger space or offices shared by two teachers. They should be adjacent to the project area so as to allow students to visit with teachers as necessary during the course of their projects, but should also have enough privacy that a teacher can conduct a private meeting with a student or carry on a private telephone conversation. One or more small conference spaces should be provided in this area to allow teachers to meet with small groups of students, or with a student and his/her parents, or for groups of teachers to meet to plan curricula and projects. If a science library is part of the school’s resources, it might also be located in this area.

Science Faculty Offices

In the contemporary high school where individualised study and group project spaces are the rule, such a science resource area will fit right into the plan; whether the science resource area could be integrated with other project areas depends on the types and extent of science projects attempted. It might be possible to equip the multipurpose project space used by all disciplines with the appropriate utilities for science; the question remains, however, if the noise, clutter and smells of science projects would be tolerable if integrated with the other disciplines.

Many of the individual concepts elaborated in this paper have been constructed in schools within the United States and Canada by various architects. However, the proporal of combining all of them into a flexible science resource area is the intellectual property of Inside/Out Architecture, Inc. and is copyrighted material.

_____________________
This article was originally published in PEB Exchange, The Journal of the OECD Programme on Educational Building, Issue 41, October 2000.

If this is truly the future of secondary education, it seems that fixed, designated-subject science labs may become dinosaurs. Perhaps a large, flexible student project space, somewhat like the example at South Carroll High School in Carroll County, MD could be combined with a number of other support spaces to provide the appropriate learning environment for science.

As students become more and more responsible for developing their own projects with which to explore the science curriculum, the need for individual lab/classrooms and prep areas should be greatly reduced. Rather than daily doses of large-group lectures in a classroom, more and more content would be delivered either by reading, study of documentation on a computer (CD-ROM or Internet), or by actual experimentation, thus requiring significantly less traditional classroom space and significantly more project space.

The diagram to the left suggests the science resource area of the state-of-the-art high school and includes the following facilities:

Project Area
This is the primary learning space for all students. It would have a high ceiling (or no ceiling), have flexible and adjustable lighting, have water/gas/electricity/data connections throughout the space, and little or no fixed casework. The primary furniture would be tables and chairs which students could arrange to suit their needs. One or more fume hoods would be provided for those projects requiring same, and increased ventilation of the project area would be required. Space and resource allocation would be the function of the teachers who are now truly facilitators with the knowledge and experience to guide students in their learning process. As this space would serve all students in all grades, it wold necessarily be large and might, for acoustical purposes, need to be subdivided into two or more such spaces which could be connected through large, roll-up doors to permit rearranging equipment or long-term projects.

Outdoor Project Area

Ideally, the main project area could open directly, via overhead or sliding doors, to an adjacent outdoor project area where outdoor experiments such as weather observations, stream mechanics, animal and plant studies, could be conducted.

Supplies/Equipment Check-Out
With small group and individualized projects being accompished on a random schedule, a centralized storage and check-out space for the required supplies and equipment would be required, replacing the individual storage and prep rooms normally associated with dedicated lab/classrooms. If the project area is subdivided, it might be necessary to have more than one supply/equipment check-out room, or one such place might be located strategically between two or more project rooms to serve all. The Supplies/Equipment Check-Out space would have a number of banks of shelving, possible rolling, compact shelving to save aisle space, and would have service windows with roll-up grilles opening into the project areas. At Thomas Haney Centre, kits for individual lab projects are put together in advance in plastic tote trays of various sizes; when a student or team is ready to do a particular project, they merely check out the appropriate tote tray which also includes instructions and safety precautions. The student or team would then proceed to a vacant workstation or table in the project area to set up and perform the project. Staffing for this area would depend on the number of project areas being served and the number of students in the student body. this space would be open at all times that the project area is open.

Project Prep Area
This would be the make-up area for the project kits. Rather than scurrying to prepare a dozen lab set-ups for a class of 24, a teacher would prepare several tote tray kits for each project at a convenient time and place them in a preassigned location in the Supplies/Equipment Check-Out space. When kits are returned, the various glassware and instruments must be cleaned and the consumables replaced. This work could be performed by students or teachers as convenient.

Greenhouse Area
Rather than provide the type of environment appropriate to a greenhouse in the entire project area, a separate greenhouse area should be constructed. This space could be located adjacent to the project area, or remote, but should have access to the Supplies/Equipment Check-Out space. The size and equipment of the greenhouse will depend on the planned curriculum which would make use of this facility. It could be used for long-term demonstrations of composting, solid and liquid waste processing, growing of biological specimens such as fish and plants, etc.

Biological Waste Water Treatment Area
Where possible, the use of an environmentally sensitive, biological waste water treatment system could act as both a building utility and a science demonstration area similar to that installed at the Boyne River Ecology Center of the Toronto (Canada) Board of Education. This space should be located on the exterior wall with direct sun and could be adjacent to or a part of the green house area.

Controlled Environment Area
This space would offer the opportunity to conduct projects requiring a more controlled environment than would be available in a large, open project area. Dust control, humidity control, lighting, temperature, and other variables could be different in this space than elsewhere in the resource area. As with the greenhouse, this space could be located adjacent to the main project area or remote. It probable should not connect directly to the Supplies/Equipment Check-Out space so as to avoid contaminating the controlled environment, but should be near by this space. The space is meant to be as flexible and functional as the main project area.

Small Group Meeting Areas
These conference rooms should open directly off the main project area and should have glass partitions to allow for supervision and to create a sense of connection to the projects in the larger space. The small group meeting areas are meant as places for small groups or teams to meet to discuss the progress of their projects or to analyze the appropriate method for achieving a particular project goal. As separate spaces they can have sound isolation from the general noise of the larger space while allowing the small group to conduct their own discussions without disturbing those in the project space. It might be possible for a team to check out such a space for several days at a time if the requirements of a prooject produced a need for extended discussions, paperwork, and computer-related activities. The space should be equipped with electrical outlets, appropriate lighting, computer networking capabilities and, possibly, a desktop computer connected to the Internet. A markerboard and tack surface should be standard equipment.

Larger Group Meeting Areas (24 Seats)
In spite of the individualized or small group nature of the science experience, there will still need to be times when teacher and students meet as a group to present a new concept, lay out ground rules for a new project, etc. Other uses might include a group presentation of project results by an individual or team or the group viewing of a film or other media presentation. The room should be sized to hold an entire class group (ie: 24) and should be equipped with markerboard, tack area, projection screen, LCD projector, computer network connections, adjustable lighting, and adjustable seating to permit a wide variety of functions to make use of the space. The number of such lecture areas should be calculated by determining the likely number and frequency of group presentaions in the curriculum. These spaces would not be assigned to individulal teachers as “home” spaces.

Seminar Room (12 Seats/Tables)
In the Thomas Haney Centre experience, full class size meetings are rare; teachers make presentations on a particular issue when a sufficient group of students are ready for the material. One or more smaller seminar-sized spaces with moveable tables and chairs should be provided. Teachers can hold group discussions, or review material with two or three teams of students at once; the spaces could also be used by groups of students working as a larger team or several teams working on the same project to discuss findings or plan out a method of attack. Both the lecture areas and the seminar rooms could open directly off of the project area or be more remote.

Faculty Offices & Conference Room
These are the “home” spaces for the faculty and may be individual offices, small cublcles in a larger space,. or offices shared by two teachers. They should be adjacent to the project area so as to allow students to visit with teachers as necessary during the course of their projects, but should also have enough privacy that a teacher can conduct a private meeting with a student, or carry on a private telephone conversation. One or more small conference spaces shoud be provided in the area to allow teachers to meet with small groups of students, or with a student and his/her parents, or for groups of teachers to meet to plan curriculum and projects. If a science library is part of the school’s resources, it might also be located in this area.

In the contemporary high school where individualized study and group project spaces are the rule, such a science resource area will fit right into the plan; whether the science resource area could be integrated with other project areas depends on the types and extent of science projects attempted. It might be possible to equip the multipurpose project space used by all disciplines with the approporiate utilities for science; the question remains, however, if the noise, clutter and smells of science projects would be tolereable in integrated with the other disciplines.

Many of the individual concepts elaborated in this paper have been constructed in schools within the United States and Canada by architects other than Inside/Out Architecture, Inc. However, the proposal of combining all of them into a flexible science resource area is the intellectual property of Inside/Out Architecture, Inc. and is copyrighted material.

Credits: Thomas Haney Centre, CJP Architects; Samuel Shepard, Jr. Gateway Education Park, Kennedy Associates, Inc.; Oakville Junior High School Science Addition, Sverdup Facilities, Inc.; Boyne River Ecology Center, Douglas B. Pollard, Architect; Lafayette High School, Cannon PTN.

In 1996, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) published Pathways to the Science Standards, a guidebook for high school science departments on ways to achieve the National Academy of Science’s 1996 National Science Education Standards.

Appendix C of this volume, Designing High School Science Facilities,” makes a number of recommendations that will help schools achieve these national standards. Following is a sample.

Space requirements
Pathways recommends

• 60 square feet per student (min.) For a combination lab/classroom
• 45 square feet for a lab without lecture space
• 24 students be the maximum number served in a science lab/classroom
• Aisles at least 36″ wide running between all fixed items and sufficient space to allow for a wheelchair to turn around in all dead-end locations (60″ diameter circle or a T-shaped space with a minimum dimension of 36″ and an overall dimension of 60″ square)
• 15 square feet per computer station should be added to the total area required. Most science rooms have not been designed with adequate space for computers and the accompanying keyboards, mouses, books and papers, and users.