McBride Elementary School, USA

McBride Elementary School, named for Morris Ralph McBride, memorialized his heroism and fortitude in one of the DoDEA’s first 21st Century schools. Over many years of collaboration with educators, technology companies, architects, and the like, DoDEA adopted a new 21st Century (21C) curriculum and developed corresponding 21C Educational Facility Specifications to guide the design and construction of new 21C Schools. A core element of 21C is to make pedagogy and modality flexible for all learners all the time. McBride Elementary School quickly became a tool for learning, changing the very way that schools are perceived. Part school, part interactive museum, part everything to make education enlightening, exciting, and experiential.

Along with the experiences of the learning environments, environmental literacy was the focus of this design. It achieved a LEED Silver certification, using daylighting, acoustics, regional priority, and many other aspects of the school’s design to highlight learning opportunities like the nature trail, solar demonstration, and other specifically curated teaching tools throughout. These teaching tools help support 21st Century learning opportunities with hands-on activities, bringing insight into the little things like brick making or how copper patinated as it ages. Everywhere you go, there is something new to learn.

The 21st Century model changed the way the DoDEA designed schools. Community spaces such as the Commons, the Social Stair, student galleries, library, and other school core spaces were centralized. Grades were clustered behind security layers to improve overall safety and security. Just like communities, these grouped grades form neighborhoods to promote the idea of everyone working together. The neighborhoods surround the Commons and other spaces as a community to evoke the essence of one place shared by all. Within the neighborhoods, there are collaborative spaces for small group instruction. There are also large hub spaces for group activity where teachers can open their walls to the hub, influencing teaching and learning in new collaborative ways.