Researching the Teaching Labs

Undergraduate teaching laboratories must accommodate both lab experiments and lectures. In one class period, students might take notes while listening to a professor, view a computer presentation, and perform experiments alone or in teams. And then, over the next class period, the teaching lab might accommodate an entirely different scientific discipline, such as offering lab report writing help.

The primary component of teaching lab flexibility is the comprehensive preparation area, where science materials can be assembled and later brought into the lab. For cash-strapped universities and high schools, shared spaces decrease the need for laboratories dedicated only to one scientific discipline.

Preparation rooms can be either centralized or distributed near classroom clusters. Flexible storage options are key, using high-density storage systems or industrial storage systems that are well organized and properly staffed.

Configuring lab and instructional space often takes up most of the discussion when planners sit down to create a new teaching laboratory. Flexible design actualizes science classrooms that rely on teamwork and hands-on assignments, where the lecturer may take on the role of a coach or make use of interactive teaching software.

All at once, furnishings must allow students to work in teams, access interactive learning programs, and pay attention to their instructor. In some cases, this means basic ergonomics, something that is only beginning to impact laboratories. As one university administrator quipped upon opening a new teaching laboratory, “Student chairs are comfortable and equipped with casters – the greatest boon to science reform.”

Fundamental shifts also are occurring in ventilation standards, which have been a driving force in laboratory design since the 1960s, when most science facilities made the move to 100 percent outside air and directional airflow to prevent the migration of fumes into classrooms and hallways.

Although this change was much needed, it proved cumbersome to designers. But requirements for laboratories are relaxing with recent establishment of the International Building Code (IBC). “Previous codes had very stringent and justifiable limits on the quantities and classes of chemicals and their distribution in buildings,” says Janet Baum, a principal at Health Education + Research Associates Inc. (HERA), a national planning and architecture firm specializing in laboratory design. “From our understanding of the IBC, this has loosened up a little bit, meaning that greater quantities and more even distribution is possible.”

In addition, the development of microchemistry allows undergraduate science departments to reduce the need for full-size beakers and test tubes. “Microchemistry uses almost dollhouse-size glassware and minute quantities of chemicals that allow more flexibility and their distribution in buildings,” says Baum.

Most importantly, scientists themselves have embraced facilities planning as a way of achieving their pedagogic goals. The National Science Foundation supports Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), an organization dedicated to implementing and evaluating new approaches to learning in the classroom and lab. PKAL places equal importance on faculty, curriculum, and facilities issues. Since 1992, the organization sponsored 18 workshops and seminars on facilities planning with the participation of nearly 400 colleges and universities.

Just as scientists work with designers, designers work with manufacturers. HERA, which plans and designs laboratories both inside and outside academia, has worked with manufacturers to develop specialized furnishings for the fast-changing laboratory market. “There’s a constant dialogue between designers and furniture manufacturers,” says Baum, who sold designs for Health & Emergency Laboratory Panel (HELP) to Fisher Hamilton last year.

“The HELP station is something we found we needed in all the teaching labs. Now, it’s a ‘standard special’ item we can get from Fisher Hamilton-instead of having to detail it on every project.” More recently, the firm designed a new specimen examination table for science students to layout a wide array of samples for visual inspection, (The unit, dubbed the “FXT,” has yet to be acquired by a manufacturer).

Although a premium is placed on modular furniture systems that can be moved, this isn’t possible with some expensive scientific equipment that demands a controlled climate. In these applications, equipment is placed in a fixed location with furniture systems that accommodate shared instrumentation. Thus, the same equipment can be used for different science courses.

Baum says laboratory design requires keeping up with scientific trends by reading scholarly journals, touring other labs, and listening to reports by faculty and administrators. For example, genetics is a subject that only recently came to be taught comprehensively in undergraduate facilities. Today’s college genomics programs go beyond the mere study of fruit flies to include DNA analysis and electrophoresis. These methods, in turn, require bio-safety cabinets and incubators for tissue cultures – an important trend to note for equipment planning.

The arrival of computers presents additional planning challenges. “Computers bring even more angst to the decision-making process,” says Baum, referring to questions such as: are the PCs shared between two or four students? Is the university providing computers, or will students use their own laptops?

“In two years, the school may change its philosophy and its hardware, so our teaching labs have to accommodate the total change-out of technology,” says Baum. “It’s a much bigger question than just, ‘Where do students dissect the frog?'”

For more information on teaching lab planning and programs, go to:

www.pkal.org
www.labplan.org

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