School classrooms, libraries, laboratories, playgrounds, gardens, theatres, and sport centres all play a key role in the learning environment of students and teachers and therefore, are often referred to in education research as the third teacher (Merewether, 2017; Wootten, 2017; Darragh, 2006).
In 21st Century education models, the environment demands collaborative learning spaces that express a natural and welcoming as well as attractive and pleasing milieu for learners and teachers. These spaces inspire authentic and purposeful inquiry that underpin connections across the curriculum as well as critical thinking in a variety of activities (Wootten, 2017; Strong-Wilson, 2007; Ellis, 2007; Carter, 2007).
Traditional 19th Century classrooms mirrored the unimaginative needs of the industrial revolution worker with desks in rows facing the teacher, the focal point of classrooms, to memorize and learn by rote (Burton & Baxter, 2018; Baxter, Ellis, & Meredith, 2018; Wootten, 2017).
BNI HoS Dr. Wootten emphasizes, “The physical environment of school campuses is integral to the student’s learning process. All our classrooms are optimally designed to enhance research-driven attributes of the 21st Century learning environment, including spaces for innovation, student engagement, and a place that allows for imagination and creative expression”.
