Evaluation of Green Spaces in the Elementary Schools with an Emotional-Oriented approach
Publisher: name: The University Of Kurdistan
Year: 2021

description: Educational environment has always been one of the most important factors that\nplay an important role in learning and education among students and as\ninstitutional spaces for learning communities, including students and\nteachers, that can be used as a tool for teaching .As part of the mechanism for\nimproving student learning, green spaces in primary schools provide a\nvaluable bed for designers and planners to play a role in realization of this\ngoal through providing these spaces. In educational spaces, nature often\noccurs in a very restricted way, and this limited presence is created without\nconsidering the children’s certain needs as well as the natural environments’\nhigh capabilities in meeting these needs. Hence, to reform the body of\neducation, it is essential to create spaces related to student activities, spaces\nwith appropriate and favorable conditions for children’s physical, mental,\nemotional, and social development, realized by designing the details of the\nspaces in accordance with the pattern of children’s sentimentality.\nConsidering the creation of a suitable environment for the child’s growth\nbesides getting familiar with his/her needs and pure nature required during\nhis/her childhood, provides the bed for the proper development of the\nchildren’s personality and upbringing as a healthy generation of tomorrow.\nThe school is one of these environments, i.e. part of children’s daily lives that\nhas been severely neglected.\nIn the meantime, the design of green space in primary schools is one of the fields\nin which sentimental design may be well employed. Emotions are a key partof life affecting how one feels, behaves, and thinks. On the other hand,\nemotions enhance creativity while increasing one’s ability to enjoy life. In\nreviewing the current situation of schools in Tehran, it was seen that green\nspace is just considered in open environments; moreover, schools have not\ntaken into account the sentimental approach in design.\nThe present research seeks to test the interior and exterior spaces of green\nprimary schools in terms of sentimental approach experimentally. This is an\napplied study in terms of purpose, with a mixed approach (qualitativequantitative). The approach of the current study is to investigate the\nimportance of primary school’s indoor and outdoor spaces with a sentimental\napproach. To this end, we try to prioritize these spaces as a solution to make\nbetter use of schools and help students’ progress and academic motivation. In\nthe qualitative phase, library studies were employed for obtaining\ninformation about educational space and green spaces, besides getting\nfamiliar with the sentimental approach and its related components; then, the\nrelevant theories were collected from books, papers, journals, and\ndissertations. Library studies revealed that school design could promote\ngrowth or inhibit learning. Architectural designers should consider how to\ndesign the schools’ natural space and the quality of the presence of nature.\nThe presence of nature and its designers’ strategies may affect the quality of\nchildren’s education and green space may be employed as a tool for the\nchild’s learning and multi-faceted growth. The questionnaire and the\ninterview resulted in six indicators for studying the primary schools’ green\nspace, given the students’ sentimentality. These indicators include entrance\ngreen space, closed educational space, breeding space, open spaces, rest and\nsitting spaces, and educational space in nature.\nIn the quantitative phase, these extracted framework and components had to be\napproved by a group of experts in the education field. Accordingly, a\npairwise comparison questionnaire was designed with the statistical\npopulation consisting of managers, experts, education specialists, and\nteachers. Purposive sampling method was used in this phase and 180 people\nwere studied. Fuzzy AHP method was employed for ranking and statistical\nanalysis. Given the ranking results, it can be claimed that the presence of\ngreen space in the library may contribute to the scientific level and greater\neffectiveness of the school in learning; since along the way of green spaces,\nstudents can have access to different books and enhance their level of\nlearning. On the other hand, considering the children’s sentimentality, green\nspace in school gyms may contribute to motivate students more and make\nthem more interested in learning; then this is very significant in design. Thedesign of green space in classrooms in the right environment as much as\npossible may help students’ learning. The indoor and outdoor spaces are\nmixed in such a way that the child can satisfy many of his/her needs in that\nspace including discovering the unknown and curiosity about it, initiation,\ncreativity, experiential learning, etc.\nBesides considering physical standards and physiological needs, students’\nmental inclinations should be considered in creating an educational\nenvironment. As one of the factors in increasing the quality of education,\ninvestigating sentimentality is a considerable and significant discussion. It\nseems that the time has come for other architects to think about the users’\ncharacteristics and quality needs in education, in addition to the quantitative\naspects of education. Hence, using the opinions of the expert professors and\nmanagers of various organizations and institutions, the present research\nrevealed that considering the users’ needs, feelings, and moods will not only\nimprove the students’ level of learning at the physical and quantitative levels,\nbut also meeting these needs will lead to the users’ satisfaction and peace of\nmind. Constant communication with natural environments results in a\npositive emotional attraction to nature and formal and informal experiences\nthat children gain from the environment will have a great impact on their\nenvironmental learning.\nThe researcher designed and distributed a pairwise comparison questionnaire\namong them. Using the experts’ opinions, six indicators were found to study\nthe primary schools’ green space. These indicators include entrance green\nspace, closed educational space, breeding space, open spaces, rest and sitting\nspaces, and educational space in nature. Given the ranking results, the\npriority of creating green spaces by considering the three dimensions of\ninstinct, behavior, and reflection may be expressed as library indexes, sports\nhalls, and finally classrooms as the first, second, and third priority.\nConsidering the significance of the effect of contextual, behavioral, and\nsocial factors and students’ sentimentality in learning, the officials and\ndesigners are recommended to use this research’s results in reviewing and\ncompiling green space with a sentimental approach.