Happy (belated) May Day (Labor Day in much of the world)!
🔥 Do you believe in evolution or revolution?*
Yes!
I reject the dichotomy. (I also reject the dichotomy between systems change and individual action when it comes to the climate crisis. Yes, both.)
For today’s letter (the first in an evolution-and-revolution-series-of-indeterminate-installments), I’m exploring revolutionary innovations in architecture applied in evolutionary AND revolutionary ways in education.
TL;DR (too long; didn’t read - ChatGPT helped me with this small piece)
The principles of biophilic design should be applied to education in a subfield I’m calling nature-based learning design. This approach would integrate human-nature connection into learning experiences through instructional practices and classroom design at the individual teacher level to achieve a host of benefits to humans and the planet.
Individual teachers can incorporate nature-based (biophilic) learning design into their practice by moving teaching and learning outdoors, integrating nature's textures, patterns, colors, sounds, and other sensory cues into classroom design, and adopting place-based and culturally relevant sensory elements. This could create a revolution in education when 80 million+ teachers worldwide apply these nature-based design principles.
Biophilia & Biophilic Design
On a stroll, I listened to Mary Davidge talk with Monica Olsen and Jennifer Walsh on the Biophilic Solutions 💗podcast (which I recommend!). This convo sent me into an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole about the ways biophilic design can inspire small, supportive evolutions in individual classrooms to produce a cumulative revolution.
As you know, I’m totally convinced about the (irrefutable) value of nature-based learning for education because of all.the.benefits. Super attainable. Anyone, anywhere. Boatloads of mental and physical wellness benefits, even in small doses. Cognition. Social emotional skills. Health and educational equity. Yadda yadda.
(Also sometime in this evolution:revolution series I’ll write to you about benefits like awe, spirituality, community cohesion, interconnectedness, nature as a protective factor against a rapidly blurring line between humans and computers. Climate regulation. Environmental protection. Planetary salvation. You know, little things like that.)
Anyhow, because mine are letters about learning, I want to provide some definitions:
Biophilia is…
our innate affinity for nature and all living things – because, well, we are nature and living things (which means it’s an affinity for ourselves…do you like yourself?). The theory is that since we spent 99% of our human history living in and evolving in nature, our senses developed outdoors, in nature. Now we spend around 87-93% of our lives indoors1!
Biophilic design is…
“an innovative approach to architecture and design that emphasizes the necessity of maintaining, enhancing, and restoring the beneficial experience of nature in the built environment.” -Stephen Kellert
In a statement that will surprise no one, I believe biophilic design and beautiful, bold, aspirational projects like the Living Building Challenge must be incorporated into schools and learning. Props to Claire Latané for making the case and a blueprint for this in her book Schools that Heal! This is a CRITICAL area that movers and shakers (🙏
& company; please drop others in the comments) in the biophilic design and education space must tackle.Learning Architects
Suffice it to say, I really love all the biophilic design stuff, and especially the work linking it to education. Still, I just can’t shake how removed it feels from real classrooms in places as divergent a small mountain town in Colorado to an informal settlement in Nairobi (pic below is from Port Harcourt, Nigeria; looks similar to what I’ve seen in Nairobi).
So I got to thinking - what happens when we take the principles of biophilic design and apply them with blue-whale volumes of constraints?
And, well, Mary actually spoke to this too:
“The Living Building Challenge is an aspirational certification, so not every project is able to do it. But everyone can use that toolkit toward developing more projects that have real elements of biophilia that are going to have an impact.” -Mary Davidge
Which made me wonder:
How might we empower individual teachers to incorporate nature-based design in their classroom?
This is actually not a strange question. Educators are learning architects. Why not coin a new subfield: Biophilic Learning Design? Or maybe Nature-based Learning Design? I’m gonna use the latter because lots of peeps don’t know about biophilia/biophilic design yet…
My working definition is as follows:
Nature-based Learning Design is an innovative subfield of biophilic design that integrates human-nature connection into learning experiences through instructional practices (pedagogy) and the design of physical learning spaces.
As a subfield of Biophilic Design applied to educational settings, Nature-based Learning Design renovates (evolves) public education within an individual teacher’s locus of control: their teaching practices and their classroom design.
Note: The actual work is already happening. TONS of individual educators scattered all across the planet are already inspiring practitioners of nature-based learning design.
When 85 million teachers worldwide apply these acorn-and-seedling renovations, this becomes an ecosystem-scale revolution.
Give me some examples!
Yes - I think it’s feeling a bit too fluffy ☁️ for the moment. Let me take 2 specific examples of biophilic design principles and paint a picture of what they could mean for individual teachers.
Example 1: The Living Building Challenge for individual teachers
Here’s how Mary Davidge distilled the Living Building Challenge into 3 categories:
Direct Nature
Natural Patterns
Places & Culture
For an individual teacher, here’s how this looks:
Direct Nature - a teacher moves teaching and learning OUTDOORS to nearby nature. 🌳 This is a best-case scenario – and it’s already possible in tons of educational environments worldwide.
Natural Patterns - Nature’s textures, patterns (e.g., fractals), colors, sounds, and other sensory cues are integrated into classroom design.
Places & Culture - I ❤️ this one. For now, I think this category is about categories 1 & 2 being applied in a place-based, culturally relevant way. And ties into culturally responsive teaching (more on that later).
Example 2: Interface/Oliver Heath’s “Designing for Cognitive and Sensory Wellbeing”2 for an individual teacher
Here’s some quick riffing on strategies from p. 33 that can be employed by an individual teacher — some FREE, many low-cost — indoors, in their classroom where many students and teachers are stuck most of the time (Don’t even get me started!)
Mimic nature’s gentle distractions & refuge - provide views of greenness/landscapes - open the blinds, hang a nature-themed shower curtain, paint a landscape mural on a wall
Integrate natural light, circadian rhythms, & natural soundscapes - play time-of-day relevant soundscapes (i.e. morning bird 🐦soundtrack), open the blinds, mimic natural light in a windowless room3, set screens to red-shift4
Incorporate biomorphic shapes, forms and patterns - get carpet squares that look like prairie grass5, hang leaves up, bring in nature objects (pinecones, seeds, river rocks), paint wave patterns on your walls…
Create Non-Rhythmic Sensory Stimuli’ - produce swaying leaves or rippling water with a fan behind a potted plant or a small water fountain
Use colors of thriving natural environments by leveraging the Ecological Valence Theory6 and Savanna Hypothesis7 to choose colors with positive associations in nature (e.g., yellows (warmth, sunshine), greens (healthy vegetation), blues (water, clear sky), and reds (berries for foraging).
Install natural materials - tree-stump seating, wooden panels as bulletin boards…
Call to Action
I know LOTS of individual educators are already doing great work in the subfield of nature-based learning design. Tell us about it!
📣 Open call for collaborators:
How have you practiced nature-based learning design outdoors or indoors?
What examples have you seen?
Drop some comments and pictures please!
Be well,
Becca
KLEPEIS, N., NELSON, W., OTT, W. et al. The National Human Activity Pattern Survey (NHAPS): a resource for assessing exposure to environmental pollutants. J Expo Sci Environ Epidemiol 11, 231–252 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.jea.7500165
Check out this natural-light-mimicking “window”
Red shift is often an option in the settings on computers
Maybe Interface will donate them? Maybe they already do? 🤷🏻♀️ No harm suggesting…
Palmer, Stephen E., and Karen B. Schloss. “An Ecological Valence Theory of Human Color Preference.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 107, no. 19, 2010, pp. 8877–8882, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0906172107.
Orians, G.H. (2016). Savanna Hypothesis, The. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2930-1