Bracing Biophilia: When biophilic design promotes pupil’s attentional performance, perceived restorativeness and affiliation with nature

A biophilic designed learning environment promotes attentional performance, perceived restorativeness, and affiliation with nature"Bracing Biophilia" is an educational program that combines an outdoor learning environment and a biophilic designed indoor environment to stimulate biophilia (affiliation for nature) and promote psychophysical restoration. A biophilic designed environment is an environment in which natural elements and processes are integrated into the built environment to promote health and well-being. This study attempted to verify if school environments created with biophilic design offer an advantage to students in relation to attention restoration and attentional functioning. It also considered if learning environments created with biophilic design could enhance students’ connectedness to nature.

This study was conducted over a period of three years with 18-20 students (age 6-11) in a small elementary school in Italy. The school is located in a well-preserved natural environment providing opportunities for learning in a nature-rich outdoor setting. Assessments for data collection were conducted at regular intervals at three different times (autumn, winter, spring) of each school year. During the summer between the first and second year, three of the school’s indoor spaces were transformed from conventional learning environments into biophilic designed learning environments. The redesign of one of the classrooms – a multipurpose classroom – followed the principles of the Biophilic Quality Index (BQI) to achieve an indoor environment that would, as much as possible, have the restorative properties of natural outdoor environments. This sequence of events allowed for assessments during the first year to be conducted in a conventional learning environment and assessments for the next two years in a biophilic designed environment, of which one was a BQI certified biophilic designed classroom. Three different tools were used for each assessment period: the Perceived Restorativeness Scale-children (PRS-ch), the Continuous Performance test (CPT), and the Connectedness to Nature Scale-children (CNS-ch). The PRS-ch scale includes 18 items, 17 measuring the perception of four restorative factors (being-away, fascination, coherence, scope) and one measuring environmental preference. The CPT measures attentional performance; the CNS-ch, the feeling of affiliation with nature.

Assessments results were used to compare the conventional learning environment with the biophilic designed, the biophilic designed BQI certified, and the outdoor learning environment. The most preferred environment and the environment perceived to be the most restorative was the outdoor learning environment. The biophilic designed classrooms and the BQI certified biophilic designed classroom received higher ratings in terms of preference and were perceived as more restorative than the conventional classroom. Of the three classrooms, the BQI certified biophilic designed classroom was closest to the preference and restorative perception of the natural outdoor learning environment. Connectedness to Nature scores also improved over time.

This research shows that “learning environments with biophilic design, in addition to being preferred and perceived as more restorative, are more effective in supporting pupils’ attentional performance than conventional learning environments and, over time, strengthen the feeling of affiliation with Nature.”