Landscape Science Rooms: Creating a Higher Level of Students’ Engagement

As part of the restructuring of the school’s buildings, Karamu High School in Hastings has developed a new science block featuring six landscape shaped science laboratories in the aim of enhancing teacher-to-student learning environment. Furnware teamed up with Kevin Beaumont, Head of Faculty of Science to make this vision a reality.

Layout and Purpose

When setting up the physical layout of a learning environment, the decisions are determined by the pedagogy. In Karamu School’s case the science curriculum relies on teacher-to-students interaction whereby students are attentive to the experiments conducted by the teacher. As outlined by Martin O’Grady, Principal, the purpose of constructing the new science rooms in a landscape shape was mainly to ensure the interactions between teachers and their students were maintained throughout a session; “Expanding the laboratory space this way has enabled inquiry learning and left no science student behind.”

The old portrait shaped science labs had lab benches laid out using L shape arrangement. This meant four students would be grouped at one time, arguably resulting in higher level of off-task time and disengagement. “With the old portrait layout room a lot of space is wasted at the front due to the teaching area and the lab equipment pushing everything else to the back” Kevin says. “As a result students get more tightened up and inevitably you will get negative interactions.”

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