STANDING IN SCIENCE: A MIDDLE
SCHOOL PROTOTYPE
Andrew Colston
“If you wanted to create an education environment that was directly
opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably would design
something like a classroom. If you wanted to create a business environment
that was directly opposed to what the brain was good at doing, you probably
would design something like a cubicle. And if you wanted to change things,
you might have to tear down both and start over.”
- John Medina, Brain Rules
Introduction
The 21st century lifestyle that we lead is more sedentary than at any other
time in our history. The need to hunt and gather our food, collect wood,
or find water, has been replaced with the convenience of restaurants and
supermarkets, central heating, and modern plumbing. Anthropologists
estimate a hunter/gatherer female walked on average 10 - 14km a day while
the average American in 2010 took just 5,990 steps, or roughly 5km per day
(Nieman, 2011). Technological advancements and wealth have made our
lives increasingly easier and less physically stressful, but in many ways, our
bodies are still designed to be as active as we were on the plains of Africa
20,000 years ago.
Evolutionary design not only affects the way we move, but how we learn,
think and make decisions. Our brains developed to complete these cognitive
processes while we were on the move, essential to our survival. In recent
years, scientific research has proven the relationship between how much
we move and how effectively our brains work. As one leading neuroscientist
puts it “physical activity is like cognitive candy for our brains”(Medina, 2008),
