Sustainability in the Classroom

Sustainability in the Classroom

Today, I worked on a survey for students to evaluate the active learning space - I do need to come up with a better name for these kinds of spaces here at Auburn University -- happy to hear suggestions.

For other information -- I heard back from the Interior Designer who worked with me on this project -- she sent me data on sustainability of the furniture and carpet in the room.  Here some of that information:

Interface is the company we got the carpet from, and their information on recycled materials and such can be found at https://www.interfaceflor.com/default.aspx?Section=2&Sub=3&Ter=3.

Please also see the links below for environmental info about the furniture products

http://www.izzyplus.com/environment.aspx

http://www.steelcase.com/en/company/sustainability/pages/products.aspx

http://csr.steelcase.com/

http://www.steelcase.com/en/company/sustainability/pages/our-perspective.aspx

Also, because the glassboards last much longer and perform better than whiteboards, we are saving lots of whiteboards from being landfilled after end-of-life. The glassboards will last the life of the building and be able to be moved to any future building—and will still keep on performing!

So, that may not make this room LEED certified (it is, after all, in the building on campus that had the first air conditioning on campus, which, unfortunately translates now into one of the more ineffective systems on campus), but it is good to see that today's companies take these challenges seriously.

Incubator classroom, Day 2

Well, it looks like we may have lost one class because the monitors are too high up and/or too small, so statistical procedures and problems are too difficult to read.  We have started the discussions on how to adjust the monitor locations so that this is less of an issue.

Clickshare USB deice, aka hockey puck

In case you were wondering what I meant by Clickshare -- this is the device that plugs into laptops so that students can connect their laptops to the monitors.  The corresponding app allows for iOS and Android devices to do the same thing, although the laptop sharing is more flexible.

Incubator Classroom

Today is the big day -- classes are starting in the incubator classroom here at Auburn University.  Last night, the almost final touches were added to it, so that folks will be able to connect via laptop through HDMI and via wireless through Clickshare.

The colors of tables and chairs are really nice, and the touch screen in the room corresponds with the colors of the tables to make the controls hopefully more intuitive.

Incubator Classroom

Faculty have been working in groups to rethink the classes they teach in here, and we will have ongoing discussions this semester how these changes are working, to improve the classroom experience and to help future faculty think about issues.