Goudou 31,
Kaijo Junior & Senior High School　Science Center

Dec. 02,2022

School and UniversityClass Room

Project Description

New school building stimulates intellectual curiosity of Kaijo High school students

In July 2021, the construction of the new "Science Center" building for Kaijo Junior and Senior High School was completed. This new school building was long-awaited by KAIJO Junior and Senior High School students and it focuses on science subjects.

The new building houses many experimental facilities for more specialized studies than before, including a classroom dedicated to Geology, which was not available in the old science building.

In addition, the entire school building is used as a teaching aid to stimulate students' curiosity, with a display showing the working of the school building specializing in energy conservation, and an exhibit of geological layers made of pole-shaped sediment collected during the boring work at the time of construction.

Besides the main laboratory, the classroom "Goudou 31" is set up as a place for students to watch and learn from the teachers' experiments, to give presentations showcasing the results of their studies, and for special lectures by visiting lecturers.

Simple and easy-to-use tiered classroom

Goudou 31 is a 60-seat tiered classroom with a large 200-inch screen. We have provided more number of seats than the number of students in one class so that it can be used for lectures other than the regular classes.

The classroom is designed such that the teaching platform can be easily seen from every seat. The seats are arranged in a polygonal shape around the teacher's desk. Furthermore, the level difference of 500 mm between the front and rear seats allows you to naturally see the podium from every seat without the head of the person in front obstructing the view. The clear view of the teacher enhances the students' ability to concentrate on the lecture in the class.

Fixed desks and movable chairs are installed on each tier. Both of them are made of wood and have a simple design emphasizing the ease of use.

The desk tops are black to match the teacher's desk, and the chair seating pads are blue to match the floor carpet, which is in harmony with the interior design.

The depth of the fixed desk top is 400 mm. The dimensions are calculated to ensure that A4-size textbooks fit on the desk easily, making it comfortable to use even when a lot of study materials are being used.

The front panel of the desk, which hides the legs when seated, is long and extends almost to the floor. The height difference between each tier of the classroom brings the backs of those sitting in the front rows and the feet of those sitting in the back rows closer, but this space is separated by the long panel, avoiding contact and ensuring safety.

The top of the front panel is a little higher than the desk top to prevent documents and writing materials from falling down.

To enhance the user-friendliness of the classroom, an electrical outlet socket is provided under the top panel.

The chair chosen to go with the desk is the 'Stacking chair: FC-7545D' with a seat pad made of molded plywood.

Fixed-type chairs are normally used along with fixed desks, but in this case, highly flexible stacking chairs are used. One can easily move the chair and sit closer or farther from the desk as per the comfort.

These chairs also offer a flexible space utilization, such as providing more space for one person by reducing the number of chairs, or clearing out the space for wheelchair use.

Goudou 31 is often used for topics other than science subjects. It is expected to become an indispensable classroom for increasingly diverse learning styles.

Facility Overview

Kaijo Junior and Senior High School, founded in 1891, is an integrated junior and senior high school. Throughout the six years of the school, the focus is on nurturing "talented individuals" who have a good balance of "new social skills" and "new academic skills". The new social skills are a combined ability of interactive communication and collaboration skills. The new academic skills include the ability to set challenges by oneself, collect and analyze information, evaluate its value, and come up with some solution. One of the new academic skills we have incorporated is science classes and courses with student participation that incorporate many experiments, observations, and field observations.

The Science Center, a new school building completed in July 2022, is the centerpiece of this facility. There are numerous opportunities for students to conduct experiments and observations that stimulate their intellectual curiosity, especially in the first year of junior high school, where about half of the classes are conducted each year.