Enjoy all our latest education news and stories
At Natural Pod™, our purpose is to ensure every learner and educator has a practical, healthy, sustainable environment in which to learn and be inspired, enabling them to reach their full potential. You can find all our news and stories here, where we share ideas and thinking that inspire our work to help inspire yours.
Innovative Shelving That Supports Physical Distancing And Adaptable Learning Spaces
The idea of what is required from educational environments was evolving long before the pandemic, and although this year has been full of challenges there has been a consistent vocalization that we need flexible, sustainable, and adaptable learning spaces...
Giving Tuesday Is Here! Help Support Social And Environmental Justice In Schools
Giving Tuesday is here, offering a wonderful chance to join the global movement for giving that takes place each year after American Thanksgiving and Black Friday. This annual event celebrates our collective capacity to do good, unleashing the power of...
Proud To Be Featured In Metropolis Magazine
Natural Pod is honored to have our work highlighted by Metropolis Magazine in their featured article showcasing the wonderful Mi Casita Preschool and Cultural Center and the celebrated Brooklyn-based architectural firms that created their built...
Support Social And Environmental Justice In Our Schools On Giving Tuesday
At Natural Pod, we are deeply committed to creating better, sustainable education environments. Our goal is always to honor this by producing healthy, natural, and beautiful play and learning space furniture using environmentally responsible practices and...
Why Our Sustainable Tables And Benches Are Still Our Best Selling Core Items
Over the last few months we've been asking educators and administrators what they need in place to create a safe, physically distanced learning space that also provides an engaging environment that their students are inspired by and want to be in. These...
What You Really Need To Create Outdoor Play + Learning Experiences
If the effects of COVID-19 have created any positive outcomes I think one may be the increase in awareness and uptake of the benefits of outdoor play and learning. Due to the obvious focus on health, safety and physical distancing at the moment this movement is...
Placing Health And Wellness At The Core Of Green, Healthy Learning Environments
It happened in the blink of an eye. One day, schools were packed with kids shuffling down hallways between classes, teachers chasing down homework assignments, and administrators fielding parent requests and student events. Then everything changed. The...
Join Us At LearningSCAPES For Fresh Opportunities To Learn, Collaborate And Be Inspired
LearningSCAPES 2020 conference 'Passport to Learning' is November 4th-6th. If you aren't already involved, we highly recommend this fantastic annual conference for K-12 educators, architects, designers and industry leaders. This year it's going virtual and...
How Natural Pod Is Supporting These International Students To Become Responsible Global Citizens
The American School of Bahrain is a vibrant and inclusive learning community, proud of their diversity and mindful of the many cultures that make up the fabric of their school. "Our mission is to provide a challenging American and international education...
Green Schools are the Right Answer – Now More Than Ever
COVID-19 has changed our world in many ways. How we shop, work, govern, and attend school have all been altered due to this global pandemic. Education has been hit particularly hard. Closing out the 2019 – 2020 school year was a chaotic and disjointed effort for most...
Catalyzing Change: COVID-19 Opens Door To Educating For Sustainability
Our world is in crisis: a global pandemic, economic inequality, racial disparities, and…climate change. Although climate change may not move as fast as COVID-19 or have immediate consequences, it too threatens human lives and the global economy in real and...
Reimaging School Post-COVID-19: A New Vision For Health, Wellness, Equity, And Sustainability
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a time of reckoning for our country’s institutions, including schools. Our response to this crisis must include bold, new ideas for what schools should look like and prioritize. Now more than ever, schools must...
Is Natural Pod Really Different To Other Education Furniture Companies?
The short answer is yes. In addition to offering a unique product, Natural Pod also works differently to other education furniture companies. We're not a catalog company. We know that choosing furniture from a list does not create the best learning...
School Furniture Off-Gassing Can Cause Harmful Indoor Air Quality Issues – But There Is Funding To Help
At a time when many school districts are having to re-outfit their classrooms to meet COVID-19 physical distancing requirements while also trying to increase air quality to help combat the virus, it’s becoming apparent that unfortunately some of the new...
Our Sustainable Furniture Supports An Exceptional Award-Winning Nature Based Preschool
When we have the honour of being part of exceptional award-winning projects like this one we want to shout about it. The Environmental Nature Center and Preschool in Newport, California, is an incredible place, not only to visit, but as an inspiration to so many about...
Redefining Productivity In This Next New Normal
Many children and educators have now started school, others are about to, and some families have opted for virtual or home learning. So a ‘new normal’ really translates as ‘a fresh discovery phase’. While we are still exploring how education could look,...
Exploring How The Learning Environment Can Deepen Creativity And Learning – A Virtual Workshop
Whenever the Natural Pod team collaborates with educators there’s always a great sense of forward motion; it’s exciting! Although usually done in an in-person setting, we were required to pivot and offered our first virtual workshop this week. With a focus...
Why Outside Learning Is A Great Option, Even Beyond COVID-19
After all these months, it feels that collectively we’re taking a deep breath and accepting that unfortunately covid is here to stay for the foreseeable future. In some ways that makes the task ahead a little easier, in that most educational institutions,...
Learning Furniture That Supports Physical Distancing Now And Flexible Layouts For The Future
Despite the challenges posed by having to adjust in-person learning for physical distancing, it has been uplifting to experience the creativity of so many educators seeking to create the best, safest solution possible for students and teachers. For a while...
How Sustainable Furniture Is Supporting This New Learning Centre’s Mission To Educate The Whole Child
Even in the middle of the covid pandemic this amazing early learning centre was imagined and created, and we couldn't be prouder of the results. It goes to show what is possible when a creative vision is mixed with strong leadership. The new CEFA Early...
How Voyagers’ Community School Have Adapted Their Spaces For This New Era Of Learning
Voyagers' Community School was already a very intentional and inspiring learning environment to be part of. In light of the pandemic they have been working hard to adapt their learning environments to meet physical distancing needs while still being the...
Supporting Women Through A Collaborative Mission To Offer Quality Affordable Childcare
Photo shows from left to right: Aliki Gladwin, interior designer for the project; Candice Harper and Carol Choi from Union Gospel Mission, responsible for setting up the new center; Sharon Gregson, child care consultant and provincial spokesperson for the...
Where Do We Turn For Bold Leadership In This New Era Of Learning? – Thinking Out Loud Issue#2
With so many questions around the future of learning and education, it is certainly a challenging time. But I do feel this is also an unprecedented moment full of potential should we wish to take it. With bold leadership I think we have an opportunity to...
‘A Return To Learning’ – A Conversation About Possibility
With many resources available offering recommendations and options for a safe return to school and how to implement physical distancing, it seems a great time to have a conversation about what ‘A Return To Learning’ could look like. One with a greater...
Keeping Our Core Values At Heart As We Navigate Uncharted Waters this School Year
Thank you to Jennifer Seydel of Green Schools National Network for this heartfelt leadership piece:All of us are grappling with a number of feelings right now, chief among them uncertainty about the upcoming school year. Many if not all of you have already...
Learn How This School Is Using Repurposed Shipping Containers and Sustainable Furniture To Meet Their Learning Goals
The Oak Park Unified School District serves nearly 5,000 students and is the first Green Ribbon school district in California. When they had the opportunity to revamp their middle school learning environments, they took a more unusual approach to meet...
Returning To School – Solutions To Support A Safe Re-Entry
As schools assess how to return to school safely and navigate guidelines, helpful resources are being offered that address possible solutions for the three re-entry models of Full Return, Alternating Return, and the Flexible Return. Fielding International...
The Best Learning Outcomes Are Created Together – How We Support You
Who is Natural Pod? How are we different to other learning furniture companies? And how do we support students and their learning? We are a committed team dedicated to creating the best, most beautiful, and equitable learning environments for students and...
With The Future Of Education In Question – Where Do We Turn For Bold Leadership?
With a return to school becoming a reality for many, and with so many questions around the future of education, where does one turn to for leadership?It’s unlikely any one person has the answers, and nor could they. This time is unprecedented. And although...
Cleaning Natural Pod Furniture Is Easy, Even During Covid-19
For our present and future customers who are thinking about how to clean their learning environments to protect against the Coronavirus, here are our easy to implement guidelines to cleaning your Natural Pod furniture.Cleaning: To clean our products, dampen a soft...
The Winner Of The CreateSpace Classroom Giveaway
Thank you so much to all who took part in this CreateSpace classroom giveaway! We really appreciate the time and energy that went into all the amazing entries and you sharing with us some of the challenges you are facing, what you are looking for, and which furniture...
The Return To Schoolbook – Offering Creative Solutions Through Collaboration
Almost every aspect of life has changed over the last few months, and education has really been turned on its head. There are many ways to approach how we navigate these times, but the one myself and many others are advocating for, is to look for the...
What’s The Impact If We Don’t Keep Moving Forward In Education?
Anyone in education is standing at a crossroads right now with choices to be made. This time is unexpected, it’s challenging, and it’s uncomfortable - but it is also a catalyst for positive change.“The biggest changes in our society have only come about...
If You Can Imagine It, We Can Deliver It
Are you looking at ways to make your classroom adaptable to physical distancing while still being an inspiring place for you and your students to be? We can help you get creative and move forward. To support you in making smart investments for the future, we are...
Our Ocean Is Our Future – World Oceans Day 2020
Today, June 8th, is World Oceans Day - As the challenges to the ocean continue to grow, so does the need for novel solutions and the people driving them. To that end, the theme of UN World Oceans Day 2020 is 'Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean.'...
Children’s Books To Support Awareness And Anti-Racist Activism
The unfortunate truth is children are born into systemic injustice, inequality and racism. By the time they enter school they are already acclimatized. If we don't stand up and call out racism where we find it, it will continue and continue, to the next...
To Care For Each Other, We Need To Care For The Only Home We Have
This Day is highlighting that it's time #fornature - World Environmental Day 5th June If we are to create more equality in the world, it means caring for everyone, and to care for everyone means caring for our entire planet - the only one we...
How Supporting Local Business Also Supports You and Your Students
As schools are planning their reopening and educators, families and students are figuring out how teaching and learning will look going forward, we recognize the experience will be different for everyone. How we can help is to offer solutions from a place...
Creating Adaptable, Flexible Learning Environments
With schools either planning to reopen, or with some having already done so, this is a good time to examine how our learning spaces can look going forward.The main priority of course is to keep our educators and students safe. But maybe rather than trying...