From the April 2009 Scientific American Mind | 38 comments

How Room Designs Affect Your Work and Mood ( Preview )

Brain research can help us craft spaces that relax, inspire, awaken, comfort and heal

Using nature to boost attention ought to pay off academically, and it seems to, according to a study that will be published in spring 2009 and that was led by C. Kenneth Tanner, head of the School Design & Planning Laboratory at the University of Georgia. In their analysis of more than 10,000 fifth-grade students in 71 Georgia elementary schools, Tanner and his colleagues found that students in classrooms with unrestricted views of at least 50 feet outside the window, including gardens, mountains and other natural elements, had higher scores on tests of vocabulary, language arts and math than did students without such expansive vistas or whose classrooms primarily overlooked roads, parking lots and other urban fixtures.

Seeing the Light

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