Investing in Our Children’s Future
How Healthy, High-Performing Schools Improve Learning
By John Mlade and Stuart Brodsky
Strategic investment in school building design and construction can directly impact teaching and learning outcomes for students and staff. Facets of well-designed learning environments — including improved lighting, acoustics, air quality, and elements of biophilia — support engagement, equity, and academic achievement.
When considering the indoor environment and how it affects us, several factors are worth noting. Americans spend approximately 90% of their time indoors,1 and about a quarter of the population, primarily children, spend the majority of their day in school buildings.2 Physical environment, including safe water, clean air, healthy workplaces, and safe housing, is recognized by the World Health Organization as a primary determinant of health.3 Although the connection between high-performing schools and student and faculty health and well-being is well established, it is often overlooked, or not fully realized, when new projects are designed.
Imagine an approach to educational design that optimizes the physical environment to support the biological and psychological needs of students.
Written for school board members committed to both high-value learning environments and fiscal responsibility, this piece makes a practical case for investing in facilities as a core strategy for improving student success and community value. High-level strategies are presented with key supporting data, and referenced studies highlight the role of purposeful architecture and sensory design in creating holistic learning environments that support students’ physiological needs and educational success.
Influence of Lighting Design
We understand that working in a space with lighting tailored to the task at hand improves productivity and comfort — the same is true for education settings. Lighting significantly impacts students’ biological and psychological states, directly affecting their ability to learn. Thoughtful lighting design and planning incorporate elements such as flicker-free lamps, shielding to prevent glare, user controllability, appropriate color temperature, and a high Color Rendition Index (CRI). These criteria are not novel 4 and generally add little to no hard costs, aside from the research time required for design and specification.
Beyond task lighting, access to natural light and associated views to the outside are particularly notable contributors to student performance and well-being, a concept reinforced by the premium often placed on corner spaces with ample windows, such as in executive offices, hotels, and high-end apartments.
Cognitive Performance and Learning Rates: Natural light (daylighting) is a critical factor in supporting student cognitive performance, health, and comfort. Research indicates that students in classrooms with the highest levels of daylighting progressed 20% faster on math tests and 26% faster on reading tests over one year than students in classrooms with the least daylight.5
Circadian Rhythms and Alertness: Lighting designed to align with human circadian rhythms supports a healthy daytime biological cycle. Cooler light (higher color temperatures) can elicit alertness, while warmer light can promote calmness. This biologically informed approach to lighting helps suppress daytime melatonin production, enabling sustained energy and focus throughout the day.
Emotional Well-Being: Greater access to natural light in schools has been shown to enhance the happiness and emotional well-being of both students and staff, creating a more positive learning atmosphere and helping reduce stress while improving mental clarity.
Influence of Acoustical Design
Acoustics are often overlooked in design, despite their importance to occupant experience. While the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has published acoustics guidelines for mechanical systems, they are not universally required. Investments in sound attenuation and adequate vibration isolation can be worthwhile investments when other solutions are limited.
Beyond mechanical systems, architects and interior designers can effectively address acoustics through space planning and programming early in the design process. Designers also recognize that soft or porous materials, as well as those with adequate mass and proper sealing, perform better acoustically than conventional hard surfaces. However, performance uncertainty remains when acoustic design extends beyond best practices. Nonetheless, acoustics are described as “fundamental to learning,” as they directly affect how students process auditory information.
Speech Perception and Memory: Studies show that longer reverberation times in classrooms have a significant negative impact on short-term memory and speech perception.6 Optimizing speech intelligibility requires using interior materials that control reverberation and achieve adequate Noise Reduction Coefficient (NRC) performance.
Background Noise Levels: Effective communication occurs when background noise levels are at least 15 decibels lower than speech. Higher levels of background noise, including noise generated by HVAC systems, can interfere with a student’s ability to hear and process verbal instructions.
Quiet Environments: Modern HVAC systems, including displacement conditioning, deliver air near the floor and exhaust it at the ceiling, achieving sound levels as low as 35 dBA compared to roughly 55 dBA for conventional HVAC systems. This approach supports a quieter environment by minimizing the sound of air blowing, which is considered ideal for more focused learning.
Sound Separation: The use of partitions with a high Sound Transmission Coefficient (STC) is essential for separating adjacent spaces and preventing external noise from disrupting cognitive tasks.
Influence of Indoor Air Quality
The COVID-19 pandemic drove an industry-wide focus on improving indoor air quality (IAQ). American Rescue Plan (ARP) education funds were allocated to upgrade air quality systems in schools, increasing awareness of the role clean air plays in healthy educational settings. As a result, IAQ strategies such as programming adjacencies, filtration, and air exchange rates are now considered standard practice.
More advanced measures, including IAQ monitoring and air cleaning using Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI), electrostatic precipitators, or activated carbon adsorption, may carry a premium cost, but should still be considered based on the value they provide. Even straightforward measures, such as operable windows, can deliver meaningful positive benefits by improving the overall indoor air quality.
Poor IAQ can have both short-term and long-term health impacts on students and staff. Common physical symptoms include headaches, coughing, eye irritation, and fatigue.
Poor air quality can worsen asthma symptoms for students, contributing to nearly 13.8 million missed school days7 each year.
Breathing is a basic physiological need and forms the foundation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maintaining proper IAQ through effective ventilation and filtration is therefore essential to create a safe, healthy, and productive learning environment.
Influence of Biophilic Design
Biophilia is defined as humankind’s innate biological connection to nature. Biophilic building design involves integrating this concept into spaces using strategies and elements that connect occupants to the natural world.8 In classroom settings, incorporating biophilic elements has been shown to improve learning outcomes while supporting student health and well-being. An intentional workshop-based design process can result in more biophilic strategies being holistically included with little to no capital cost.
For example, daylight, views to nature, the use of natural materials, and the incorporation of biomorphic forms and patterns (such as nature-inspired prints on shades or carpets), can all contribute to a biophilic experience without significant budget implications. Other strategies, such as living walls, natural playgrounds, and dynamic lighting, may carry a higher cost, but these investments may be justified by the anticipated benefits this design approach offers to students and staff.
Stress Reduction: Incorporating dynamic and diffused lighting can contribute to improved learning outcomes and enhanced stress recovery for students. Research cited in the sources indicates that enhancing physical learning spaces with biophilic design elements contributes directly to student stress reduction, as measured by Heart Rate Variation (HRV), a physiological indicator of stress.9
Improved Recovery Rates: By prioritizing natural connections, biophilic classrooms help students recover from the “fight, flight, or freeze” response and return more quickly to a reflective “thinking brain” state than traditional classrooms.
Attention Restoration Theory, or ART, proposes that exposure to nature is not only enjoyable but can also help us improve our focus and ability to concentrate. Having a view of a tree instead of a parking lot can increase focus because nature views offer “soft fascination” — which is effortlessly processed, allowing our attention to rest and recover quickly — improving cognitive performance, enhanced creativity, and reduced mental fatigue.10
By intentionally considering the physical environments where children spend much of their day, school leaders can leverage design as a powerful, cost-effective tool for improving learning outcomes and supporting student and staff wellbeing.