Bioclimatic approaches from bioengineering and vegetation technologies to create pleasant learning spaces in Vienna and Lower Austria.
Das Thema des Talente-regional-Projekts „MikroSCHULklima“ ist zukunftsweisend und zugleich verbindend: das Mikroklima im schulischen Lernraum, im städtischen wie auch im ländlichen Kontext. The project “MicroSCHOOLclimate” has a future-orientated focus and deals with the microclimate of learning spaces in urban and in rural areas. The term microclimate describes climatic conditions which directly.effect humans.
It is above all, dense building development and large-scale sealing of the ground which leads to higher temperatures in urban areas than in rural areas. Against the background of global climate change and increasing urbanisation new solutions and approaches to raise the quality of life in urban areas are necessary. Plants play an important role here: they cool the surroundings by evaporation thereby increasing the air humidity and contributing greatly to the general well-being and quality of life of city dwellers. On hot summer days, plants cool through the effect of evaporative cooling and increasing humidity, contributing to greater well-being and helping to improve the quality of life in cities.
The project “MicroSCHOOLclimate”aims to achieve the following objectives in 14 (pre-)school educational institutions in Vienna and Lower Austria:
- Raising the pupils´ awareness for the topic “microclimate – vegetation – urban climate – climate change and interactions and relations to local and global environmental situations with particular reference to the specific school location and local environment”
- Demonstrating and visualising how plants perform and noticing their positive effects on the microclimate in the school and surrounding urban areas
- Age-appropriate as well as gender and diversity-sensitive communication of specialist topics relating to microclimate e.g., microclimatic aspects at schools in rural and urban areas.
- Multi-sensory learning and teaching in the context of the entire school environment: excursions, research workshops and final presentations
Children and young people are given the opportunity to actively research and experiment. Climatic aspects of the school surroundings are compared to climate aspects of areas in Vienna or the suburbs. In excursions opportunities to experience the thematic field „climate” in everyday school life are made possible and experimental ways of implementing the topic are implemented. Interactions of the surrounding microclimate with the urban climate, aspects of plant care and use as well as habitat preferences are also shown. The positive effects of plants on the bioclimate of the school environment can be experienced directly by the pupils through experimental test arrangements. The present project paves the way to think beyond just need-based and experience-orientated designs of the school environment to expand future planning to include the bioclimatic approaches of purposeful plant use and green structures early on.
