Environment plays an important role at the Monarch School where individuals, ages 3 to 29 who have neurological differences have been thriving for 14 years. Disorders associated with neurological differences include Autism, Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder, Learning Disabilities, Traumatic Brain Injury and others.

The outdoor environment provides a place to learn, relax and gain composure when self-regulation issues arise. Observing and working in the natural environment is a tool for learning. And the indoor environment—lighting, air quality, aesthetics—is carefully planned for the best learning conditions. The school is the cornerstone of the Monarch Institute, which includes the Monarch Diagnostics Clinic, Training Center, Therapy Services, Replication Program and Transitional Living Program.

Access to the outdoor environment was a high priority when the school was founded in 1997. “We knew from the beginning that learners with neurological differences not only often have a great affinity for the outdoors,” says Dr. Marty Webb, founder of the Monarch Institute, “but frequently perform better in natural settings.”

The campus has grown from used portable buildings on four leased acres at the Houston Mennonite Church on Wirt Road, to 11 acres a few miles away at Kempwood and Rosefield. Students have planted more than 100 trees, as well as vegetable and flower gardens. They have observed birds nesting and participated in installing three bee hives. Experiences with art outdoors include a graduating senior’s painted wall mural and a major year-long project working with an artist to build a cob oven and garden benches.

Learners also participate in multiple community service projects. They are working with the Galveston Bay Foundation to harvest saltwater cord grass and propagate it in kiddy pools. “The students are learning about pH and salinity testing,” says Richard Klein, professional educator of Environmental Education at The Monarch Institute. They will take the new plants back and plant them in the bay where the grass will decrease erosion and provide a nursery for sea life.

Nature provides a place to be physically active for students who have difficulty sitting still indoors. “I’ve been working with one student for two years now,” Klein says. “He would put his head down on the desk like he wanted to sleep through school.” Klein decided to try taking the student out for walks. “Out walking, you can’t sleep. His stamina increased and now he’s doing college level work,” Klein says. “I had a conversation with him yesterday after working outside in 95 degree weather. He said he really likes working outside and wanted to know how he could find a job working outdoors and not have to work in an office.”

Working outdoors is often therapeutic for students who need to calm down. “There are many different reasons why a student might become emotionally unregulated,” say Webb. “When a meltdown occurs in the garden, I sometimes say ‘go weed around that plant,’” explains Klein. “The recovery time for a student to become regulated can be a quarter of the time that it takes in the classroom. I attribute that to being in contact with nature and plants.”

Indoor learning also allows development of good stewardship of the environment as a practice and a teaching tool for the Monarch Institute. The facility is the first Gold Level LEED® special education school in Texas and the first Gold LEED® special education center in the United States.

Indoor air quality was an important consideration from the beginning when the building was being planned and building materials were being selected, as well as during construction. Non-toxic cleaners are used and people who work in the building are asked not to wear perfumes. “We are working with individuals who are neurologically fragile already,” says Webb. “So why in the world would we want to put them in a building with off-gassing and other toxicities?”

The Monarch building itself provides learning opportunities. When the school was chosen as a site for the Mayor’s Green Building Tour, the students designed and produced brochure about the sustainable, eco-friendly features of the building. The brochure can be cleaned and reused. “They made it a mini-flipchart,” says Klein. “It’s a wonderful brochure.”

Another project involves the building’s smart meter that records energy consumption at 15-minute intervals on a graph. Students in the math classroom are monitoring peaks and valleys of energy consumption throughout the day. “They noticed that around lunch time, use of microwaves caused energy use to peak,” Klein says. “They brought the information to the science-math team, and now we’re experimenting with lunch at 11 on Mondays and Wednesdays and 11:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays to see if it makes a difference.”

The question at the end of the day is: does this attention to the environment and stewardship enhance learning? Most research on learning is about academic achievement. According to Webb, Monarch School develops individual plans for each student based on four core goals within their unique levels based system. So when they measure a student’s growth, they are looking for progress not only in academics, but also in self-regulation and self-awareness, executive functions and relationship development. “These are measurable, and we are gathering our qualitative data, but the anecdotal experience is unequivocal,” Webb says.

“We literally saw it the first day we entered the new building—the pervading calm when the children entered the building, and peace throughout the day with children who can have great difficulty in regulating their emotions.” Webb says much can be attributed to the building: the indirect lighting, soothing colors, clean air and spaces specifically designed for individuals with neurological differences.

The next building adventure for the Monarch Institute is an 800 square-foot studio built to meet the Living Building Challenge (https://ilbi.org/lbc ) standards, which requires sustainability solutions that include “less-than-a-zero” foot print and the ability for the building to give back to the environment. Rather than a point system, certification for the Living Building Challenge requires that all standards be met. Water conservation is important for the project and will include water harvesting, an irrigation filtration system and a grey water pilot project, along with a sustainable energy project that includes a new wind turbine. “It’s an ambitious project, and we are eager to get started,” Webb says. If their achievements up to now are any indication, Monarch will take on this challenge, and succeed.

Related Links

Monarch Institute for Neurological Differences - http://monarchinstitute.org

U.S. Green Building Council/LEED certification - www.usgbc.org

International Living Future Institute/Living Building Challenge - https://ilbi.org/lbc