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Designing School Buildings with Change: Impacts on Children's Environmental

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 Designing School Buildings with Change:
Impacts on Children’s Environmental Attitude

Parisa Izadpanahi: Deakin University, Australia, Email: pizadpan@deakin.edu.au

Hisham Elkadi: Deakin University, Australia, Email: Hisham.elkadi@deakin.edu.au

Presented at EDRA 2014, New Orleans, USA

Abstract:

This paper investigates the differences in environmental attitude among children in sustainable

schools and conventional schools, and discusses about the impact of changing the school design

approach-from conventional to sustainable design- on children’s environmental awareness. 597

children of 10-12 years old from six randomly selected primary schools in Victoria, Australia,

took part in a survey. Three of the selected schools were sustainably designed and three of them

had traditional designs. NEP scale was used to examine whether those who attend schools with a

sustainable design, bear higher levels of environmental attitude compared with those attending

conventional schools. Outcome of the research indicates that sustainable design of the school

building provides the opportunity for children to obtain higher level of environmental attitude.

Keywords: Sustainable school design, Children, Environmental Attitude.

Environmental Education in Australia:

Educating for a Sustainable Future; A National Environmental Education Statement for

Australian Schools is the “first authoritative document to be released in Australia which

recognizes the role of Environmental Education in contributing to change towards sustainability”

(Tilbury, Coleman, & Garlick, 2005). The Environmental Education policies and status vary

across different states and territories in Australia. New South Wales (NSW) is the only state that

has Environmental Education as a mandatory curriculum among government schools. In other

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states “although there are many curriculum opportunities for Environmental Education, there is

generally no obligation, thus Environmental Education struggles for an influential presence in

curriculum” (Tilbury, et al., 2005).

A national review of Environmental Education in Australia reveals that most of the efforts to

date have been focused on articulating the content of Environmental Education rather than the

actual procedures of attainment. A review of environmental education books published in

Australia also highlights the focus placed on school education and development of a

sustainability curriculum. However, environmental education in schools needs a fundamental

reorientation from solely injection of the sustainability as a subject into the curriculum, to

actively creating an informative and thoughtful description of methodologies. The critical issue

of how we should learn and teach Environmental Education has been addressed as a uni-

dimensional issue of curriculum base education. This paper examines sustainable school building

design as an effective medium for providing learning opportunities in Environmental Education.

School Building Design as a Teaching Tool

It is believed that architectural settings can encourage or reduce student’s learning pace,

contribute to creativity or dull mental reception. Along with curriculum improvement and

strategies for enhancing the quality of education, the structure of the spaces in which our children

are being educated, must not be forgotten (Meek, 1995, p. 67). Many environmental educators

believe that life experiences in the environment are very beneficial and constructive for

developing environmental attitude and sensitivities (Chawla, 2006, pp. 359-374; Palmer &

Suggate, 1996, pp. 109-121; Tanner, 1998, pp. 419-423; Tilbury, et al., 2005).

Environmental Education is not only education about environment, but also education in the

environment, and as mentioned in AuSSI (Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water,

2
Population and Communities) physical surroundings are one aspect of a school’s ethos for

Environmental Education (Department of Sustainability & Government, 2010). Environmental

learning has three dimensions: “Learning about the environment supports environmental

understanding and knowledge; Learning for the environment is directed toward environmental

stewardship and action; Learning in the environment encourages interactions and experiences in

the environment” (Disinger, 1990; Murdoch, 1993). These three dimensions should be accessible

through schooling in order to provide a comprehensive approach to children’s environmental

learning (Malone & Tranter, 2003). This paper focuses on the third dimension of environmental

learning, and emphasizes the role of the school building among other means of transmitting

environmental notions to children.

School buildings are not simply physical structures. They nurture students with a silent language

through their spatial arrangement and building design. Buildings with low environmental impact

provide a unique opportunity to be used as a teaching tool (Newton, Wilks, & Hes, 2009). A

school building is an expert teacher itself, and children can be inspired by the school design as

much as by the curriculum. The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) in the

United Kingdom recommend that “by 2020 all schools manage and, where possible, design their

buildings in ways that visibly demonstrate sustainable development to everyone who uses the

school” (Department for Children, 2008). Architecture is recognized as transmitting deep

environmental values, especially to children, and facilitates the marriage of school building and

education.

On a global scale there have been some initiatives focusing on the built environment of schools.

Learning through landscape focuses on the landscape of schools through the transformation of

outdoor spaces of schools in the United Kingdom by placing different features such as a pond,

3
growing area or trim trail to connect children with nature (Charity, 2013). The Boston

Schoolyard Initiative is a program in the United States of America that converts “Boston’s

schoolyards from barren asphalt lots into dynamic centres for recreation, learning and

community life” (Collaborative, 2013). “Evergreen is one of Canada’s leading funders of

community and school greening projects” (Evergreen, 2013) that provided funding for more than

2500 projects across Canada. Evergreen facilitates schools to transfigure their barren concrete or

asphalt grounds into a green landscape of trees, shrubs, meadows, and butterfly gardens. As

literature shows, most of the schools focus has been on the school grounds so far as the built

environment, and less on the school building as a tool to promote Environmental Education.

School Design and Environmental Education in Australia

“In Australia, the NSW, Victorian and Queensland policies and guidelines for Environmental

Education in schools promote the use of school buildings and grounds as sites for learning. These

documents also highlight the importance of sustainable design and management of school

buildings and grounds to reduce resource use and limit environmental impact. Student

participation in the sustainable design process and management of school buildings and grounds

are also emphasized as part of the Environmental Education curricula” (Tilbury, et al., 2005).

NSW government and the government of Victoria provided funding and grants for extending and

developing school buildings and grounds, and in some cases designing outdoor classrooms and

vegi-gardens. The Eco-School Grants is a program run by NSW government that provides grants

for schools to facilitate students’ learning with improving their natural and built environment (E.

H. NSW-Government, 2013), and “in 2011, the Victorian Government committed $8.305

million over four years to build on the Resource Smart AuSSI Vic framework” (Ceres, 2013).

4
There have been some projects in Australia that have approached school buildings and grounds.

Learnscape was one of the collaborative projects started in NSW in 1997. This project is similar

to the international network of Environment and School Initiatives (ENSI). The main remit of

this project was to create learning experiences and learning environments, and generate active

interactions with the school site whether natural or built environment, indoor or outdoor. It

yielded different results, varying from worm-farm and community vegi-gardens to outdoor

classrooms (NSW-Government, 2004). NSW Eco-Schools Program was another project which

supported schools and provided resources to develop the Learnscape of their grounds (Tilbury, et

al., 2005). ResourceSmart AuSSI (Australian Sustainable School Initiative) Vic is also an

example of an initiative in Victoria which aims to provide practical support to Victorian schools

to live more sustainably. This initiative addressed the importance of the built environment of the

schools, school grounds and environmental management planning indirectly and through two of

the defined modules of core and biodiversity (S. Victoria, 2013b). AuSSI-WA is the only AuSSI

that has highlighted the built-environment of the school as one of the Action Learning Areas of

sustainability, including solar power systems, biomax toilet system, permaculture (permanent

Agriculture), kitchen garden, and raised vegetable beds (WA, 2013).

Methodology:

There have previously been a number of evaluations of Environmental Education in Australia,

such as “Evaluation of Operational Effectiveness of the Australian Sustainable School Initiative

(AUSSI)” (Department of the Environment, 2010a), and “Evaluation of the Governance of the

Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative” (Department of the Environment, 2010b). None of the

evaluations address the impact of the built environment on children’s attitudinal and behavioral

change. This gap in Environmental Education research is also missing in the evaluation of the

5
AuSSI as a nationwide initiative which places the emphasis on the role of the sustainable built

environment in Environmental Education.

The first step in this study was identification of two types of school designs, sustainable and

conventional, in Victoria. To categorize sample schools it is important for researchers to develop

their own criteria or refer to existing indicators. In this paper the researchers use the indicators of

Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative (AuSSI). This initiative is “a partnership of the

Australian Government, state and territory governments and the Catholic and Independent

School sectors” (Department of the Environment, 2010a) which launched as a pilot in Victoria

and NSW on 2003. AuSSI aims to generate a holistic and unified approach for sustainability

education and activities among Australian schools and their communities.

ResourceSmart Australian Sustainable Schools Initiative Victoria (AuSSI Vic) is the version of

AuSSI which contextualizes Victoria and has been used for categorizing the schools in this

study. AuSSI framework goal is to support Victorian schools reducing waste, minimize energy

and water consumption, develop biodiversity, and cut their greenhouse gas emissions (S.

Victoria, 2013b). In May 2011, the Victorian Coalition Government committed $8.3 million to

support this initiative. Of this, $3.6 million was pledged to fund 400 more schools and early

childhood centres to take part in ResourceSmart AuSSI Vic and support the existing 742 schools

to continue their sustainability activities, and $4.6 million to fund the required energy efficiency

infrastructures (P. o. Victoria, 2011). ResourceSmart AuSSI Vic award a 5-star certificate to the

schools which demonstrate “continuous improvement against benchmarks in the areas of

planning, biodiversity, energy, waste and water” (S. Victoria, 2013a). As such, three sustainable

schools were selected randomly from the primary schools awarded the 5-star certificate: St

6
Macartan’s, Epping View, and Gembrook. Figure 1 shows some of the features of the selected

sustainable schools (such as tangible landscape, visible water tanks, and outdoor classrooms).

Figure 1: Sustainably designed school- palpable landscape (Top left, bottom left, and bottom middle), visible water
tanks (Top middle), outdoor classrooms (Top right), and solar panels (Bottom right).

Four primary schools in Victoria were also selected randomly for the conventional designed

sample: Geelong East, Rollin’s, Belmont, and St Patrick’s. Figure 2 shows some of the features

of these conventional schools such as old-brick buildings, vast barren landscape, and asphalt play

ground.

Figure 2: Conventional school design

New environmental paradigm (NEP)

A questionnaire was developed, mostly based on NEP, to measure children’s environmental

attitude differences in two different types of schools (Bechtel, Corral Verdugo, & de Queiroz

Pinheiro, 1999; Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000; Manoli, Johnson, & Dunlap, 2007).

7
The “new ecological paradigm is the most widely used instrument for studying environmental

orientation among adults” (Manoli, et al., 2007). Dunlap and Van Liere developed this scale for

the first time more than three decades ago, in 1978. Unlike previous environmental scales which

predominantly focused on respondent’s attitudes towards specific problems such as energy

consumption, waste disposal, and air/water pollution (Albrecht, Bultena, Hoiberg, & Nowak,

1982), and Dunlap and Van Liere who broaden their investigation to a more general position

about the environment in the American population (Noe & Snow, 1990b).

An important characteristic of this scale, reliability of the NEP, has been validated several times

(Noe & Snow, 1990a; Vining & Ebreo, 1992). In addition, the cross-cultural applicability of the

scale has previously been assessed. This study was conducted in Australia, and as such the

instrument had to be matched with the cultural and social context, and specifications of the

country of the study. The literature reveals that “the NEP scale has been administered in ethnic

and cross-cultural studies seemingly without problems in translation” (Noe & Snow, 1990a).

Regarding the dimensionality of NEP, it is worth noting that Dunlap and Van Liere believed that

the NEP scale measured a single dimension (Manoli, et al., 2007), while others have found that it

measures two, three or even four dimensions (Bechtel, et al., 1999; Edgell & Nowell, 1989;

Furman, 1998; Gooch, 1995; Hammitt & Noe, 1992; Noe & Snow, 1990a, 1990b; Roberts &

Bacon, 1997; Scott & Willits, 1994; Shetzer, Stackman, & Moore, 1991).

To adapt NEP for use in a survey of children, Manoli et al. concluded that the NEP scale with 10

items instead of 15 items (as in the adult version), and with a few alterations in wording would

be appropriate for use with children in the age range 10-12 years old. They believe that the NEP

for children could be considered a three dimensional scale (Right of nature, Eco-crisis, and

8
human exemptionalism). They also argued that it is possible to treat it as a uni-dimensional scale

(Manoli, et al., 2007). This paper considers NEP for children as a one-dimensional scale.

Pilot-testing and internal consistency

In order to match NEP for children with the aim of this study, six questions were added to the

existing scale considering the age range of 10-12 years old and the Australian context of the

study. These questions relate to children’s environmental attitude and its relationship with the

built environment of the school:

- I would be willing to go to a school which has a focus on nature.

- I believe that artificial light in classrooms should be generated by solar panels.

- It makes me feel bad to use recycled water for watering the garden.

- I would be willing to grow food in the school garden.

- I feel more connected with nature when classes are held in outdoor spaces.

- It makes me feel better when we have natural day light rather than artificial light all day in

classrooms.

A pilot study was conducted to evaluate feasibility, ease of comprehension and applicability of

the developed scale. A selection of primary school teachers were asked to review the questions to

ensure that all items were understandable for the primary school children in grades 4, 5, and 6.

The questionnaire was administered as a pilot study in Geelong East Primary School. 27 students

from grades 4, 5, and 6 participated in the data collection in one group. The participating

children were asked to make comments on difficult terms and phrases or any ambiguity they

9
were faced with. The pilot study confirmed that the children’s NEP for Built Environmental

Attitude Scale (BEAS) is successful and could therefore be applied in the main study.

Main study:

Considering the fact that there is no unique environmental curriculum across Victoria State, the

study was conducted in six randomly selected public primary schools in Victoria, of which three

were conventional and three were sustainable. 597 children, comprising 322 female and 275

male from grades 4-6, and ages 10-12 took part in the survey. From the total sample size, 210

were from conventional and 387 were from sustainable schools.

Of the total sample, 231 children were in grade 4 (10 years old), 162 were in grade 5 (11 years

old), and 204 were in grade 6 (12 years old).

The collected data set was normally distributed and parametric. Item numbers 6, 7, and 13 were

reverse coded, as they were negatively worded items. An independent sample t-test was

conducted using SPSS to know if there is any significant difference between the children’s

environmental attitude in two different types of schools. Type of the school design (sustainable/

conventional) was considered as the categorical, independent variable, and children’s

environmental attitude was considered as the continuous dependent variable. The T-test output

revealed that there was a significant difference in the children’s attitude scores in questions

number 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, and 13, however, the magnitude of the differences in the means between

the two schools for all of the mentioned items were small (Eta squared<0.06).

Question 2 Sustainable schools (M= 3.08, SD=0.996) and Conventional schools (M= 2.71, SD=0.769; t (595) =
3.218, p=.001, two-tailed). Eta squared=0.034
Question 3 Sustainable schools (M= 3.81, SD=1.138) and Conventional schools (M= 3.30, SD=1.153; t (595) =
5.241, p=.000, two-tailed).Eta squared=0.044
Question 6 Sustainable schools (M= 3.35, SD=1.41) and Conventional schools (M= 3.80, SD=1.26; t (470.289)
= -3.918, p=.000, two-tailed). Eta squared=0.025
Question 9 Sustainable schools (M= 3.69, SD=1.092) and Conventional schools (M= 3.38, SD=1.068; t (589) =
3.251, p=.001, two-tailed). Eta squared=0.017
Question 11 Sustainable schools (M= 3.89, SD=1.252) and Conventional schools (M= 3.58, SD=1.293; t (581) =
2.820, p=.005, two-tailed). Eta squared=0.013

10
Question 13 Sustainable schools (M= 3.32, SD=1.45) and Conventional schools (M= 3.57, SD=1.38; t (594) = -
2.050, p=0.041, two-tailed). Eta squared=0.007
Table 1: Summary of the analysis

Since the scale was a Likert type scale (from 1-Strongly disagree to 5-strongly agree), the higher

mean score represents possessing more pro-environmental attitudes. Figure 3 depicts the findings

that the environmental school mean scores are higher than conventional schools in most of the

criteria. The analysis shows that children in environmental schools possess more pro-

environmental attitudes compared to those in conventional schools. The general environmental

attitude and built-environmental attitude of children in sustainable schools in questions 2, 3, 4, 5,

8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 were higher than the conventional schools, supporting the hypothesis of this

paper. The only two exceptions were Q6 and Q13. In these two items the difference is significant

and the mean score of conventional schools were higher.

5
4.57 4.35
4.5 4.43
Mean Scores

4.33 4.13 4.17 4.08 4.2

4.06 4.1
4 3.97 3.89
4.01 4.07 3.95
3.81 3.8 3.85 3.79 4.01
3.69 3.82
3.5 3.41 3.58 3.57
3.3 3.35 3.36 3.38 3.32
3 3.08
2.71
2.5
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16
Attitude Items

Sustainable Schools Conventional Schools

Figure 3: Environmental Attitude of Children in Environmental and Conventional Primary Schools

Question 6 is about the survival of nature, regardless of the bad habits of humans on earth.

Children in the conventional school based their answers on simplistic views, while children in

sustainable schools developed a more sophisticated understanding of what we refer to as ‘bad

habits’, and they based their answers on the severity of the bad habits.

11
Question 13 explores the negative emotions created through the use of recycled water for

watering the garden. One reason for conventional schools to achieve a higher score in this

question might be that children in these kinds of school have less discretion or sense of the

implications of using recycled water. They may not have experienced using recycled water

before, where almost all environmentally designed schools collect rain water in big water tanks

and use this for irrigating the school gardens. As such the students of this type of school have

experience that the colour of the water may not be clear, it can be smelly, and it may seem dirty

and full of germs, and this can cause a kind of bad feeling for them.

Conclusion:

This paper investigates the impact of sustainable school design on children’s environmental

attitude. The NEP scale for children was adopted and supplementary questions were added to

align it with the context of this study. The survey was administered to 597 children, aged 10-12

years old, in six primary schools in Victoria. Three sustainable schools were selected randomly

from those primary schools who have been awarded a 5 star certificate of sustainability from

ResourceSmart AuSSI Vic. Three conventional schools were also selected randomly from the

primary schools of Victoria.

The Australian government has invested in environmental education and devised measures for

sustainable primary school buildings. Although the measures could enhance children’s

environmental attitudes to recycling, loving nature and working in the school garden, not enough

consideration has been given to the school building itself. Therefore, it is crucial to revolutionize

primary school building design in order to encourage children’s understanding of the

environment.

12
The findings reveal that there is a significant difference in children’s environmental attitude in

two different types of schools in six items of the scale. The first four are related to children’s

general attitudes and the last two are linked to children’s attitudes in regards to the built

environment.

Comparing the means of those questions which have a significant difference shows that

sustainable schools have higher scores in the majority of all areas when compared to

conventional schools, with the exceptions of Q6 and Q14 which ask about survival of nature

regardless of our bad habit on earth and using recycled water in the school.

Children’s perceptions of human’s bad habits in two different kinds of schools is different. The

understanding of bad habits held by children in sustainable schools is much more sophisticated

than conventional school children. A deeper understanding of nature and the environment has

taught sustainable school children that nature is strong enough to protect itself, depending to the

extent of the human’s bad habits.

Children in sustainable schools experience some features of sustainability - such as compost bins

and recycled water from the school roof for flushing the toilet or watering the garden - which are

very desirable in terms of the environment, but not very pleasant for children to use. Children in

conventional schools appear to have no awareness and direct experience of these aspects, they

therefore gave higher scores to this particular criteria.

In terms of environmental design, questions 11-16 ask about a number of specific building

design features in schools. Children’s responses to the questions demonstrate that those features

which appeared to influence their environmental attitude more than others, were related to the

solar panels, outdoor classrooms and the general focus of the school on nature. Most of the

conventional schools did not use solar panels for generating energy and none of them had the

13
specific outdoor space as a classroom. This shows that the more we invest on these features of

school design, the more pro-environmental children will become.

In conclusion, the results of this research suggest that sustainable school design creates a

dialogue between children and the school building and infrastructures around them. This

contributes to the creation of opportunities for the improvement of the environmental worldview

of younger generations.

Although analysis in this study shows the significant difference in environmental attitude of

children resulting from the type of the school design, more investigation about other factors

affecting children’s attitude remains as one of the limitation of this study. Factors such as

curriculum, teachers’ and parents’ environmental awareness should be measured and entered to

the analysis to ensure the genuine impact of school design on children’s environmental concerns.

However, the impact of curriculum is the most complicated valiable to gauge, for as mentioned

earlier, there is no pre-defined curriculum across Victoria schools. The rsearchers are currently

involved in gauging these variables and also investigating the association of the sustainable

school building and children’s environmental behavior, in order to find out how environmental

attitude would transform to environmental behavior and actions.

14
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 Appendix:

Developed questionnaire for measuring children’s environmental attitude:

Scale Item: Strongly Agree Not Disagree Strongly
Agree Sure Disagree

1. Plants and animals have as much right as people to live.

2. There are too many people on earth.
3. Clever people will prevent the Earth from being ruined
4. People must still obey the laws of nature.
5. When people mess with nature it has bad results.
6. Nature will survive even with our bad habits on earth
7. People are supposed to rule over the rest of nature.
8. People are treating nature badly.
9. At some stage people will know enough about how nature
works to properly manage it.
10. If things don’t change, we will have a big disaster in the
environment soon.
11. I would be willing to go to a school which has a focus on
nature.
12. I believe that light in classrooms should be generated by
solar panels.
13. It makes me feel bad to use recycled water for watering the
garden.
14. I would be willing to grow food in the school garden.
15. I feel more connected with nature when classes are held in
outdoor spaces.
16. It makes me feel better when we have natural day light
rather than artificial light all day in classrooms.

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