St. Olaf redux Posted on September 26th, 2011 by

Rooftop greenhouseRegent’s Hall of Sciences

On July 22, A second crew from Gustavus (including Margaret Bloch Qazi (biology), Mark Bjelland, and Anna Versluis (both of geology))  went to Northfield for a tour of St. Olaf’s Regent’s Hall of Sciences (previous).  They returned with a lot of ideas for our project.  Margaret summarized her observations in the following four point:

  • Many open, flexible spaces for learning. Furniture in hallways, classrooms and labs can be moved and supports interaction among students, students have access to classes, labs and open workspace indoors and outdoors to work during day, evening & weekends (the sci center opens before the library on weekends, so a variety of students use it to study ‘off’ hours. There was some issue with students going into seminar rooms, closing the doors & pulling down shades to hall making the space less inviting for others. The faculty have been attentive to challenging this ‘closed’ culture’ by regularly opening the doors open and to raise shades to encourage an atmosphere of openness in these spaces. Although there were concerns about student distraction with all of the open window/walls, it has not turned out to contribute to student distraction.
  • Related to the point above, everything seemed geared to student engagement. Larger classrooms support interaction among students with undulating table edges and movable tables. There is not an over-reliance to technology when a ‘simple’ solution will do. For example, many classrooms have ‘white board’ walls so even in large classes, student groups can ‘do’ problems on the walls near where they are sitting that can then be seen and discussed by the entire class.
  •  The building is a teaching tool. Art (much with scientific themes) is displayed through out. There are displays of historical and culture relevance as well. Finally, there are posters describing how the building works such as the roof water reclamation process.
  •  There is ample & efficient storage space in labs – including plant & animal collections – that is safe and accessible.

Here’s a photo gallery from the visit.

 

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