Some teachers think stand-up desks could help fidgety students concentrate more on schoolwork while burning some calories.

By SUSAN SAULNY

MARINE ON ST. CROIX, Minnesota - From the hallway, Abby Brown’s sixth-grade classroom in a little school here about an hour-long drive northeast of Minneapolis looks typical enough, with an American flag up front and children’s colorful artwork decorating the walls.

But inside, an experiment is going on that makes it among the more unorthodox public school classrooms in the United States, and pupils are being studied as much as they are studying. Unlike children almost everywhere, those in Ms.Brown’s class do not have to sit and be still. They are permitted to stand and fidget all class long if they want.

And they do.

The children in Ms.Brown’s class, and in some others at Marine Elementary School and additional schools nearby, are using a type of adjustableheight school desk, allowing pupils to stand while they work. Ms.Brown designed the desk with the help of a local ergonomic furniture company two years ago. The stand-up desk’s popularity with children and teachers has spread throughout the United States.

“Sometimes when I’m supertired, I sit, said Nick Raboin, 11.“But most of the time I like to stand.

The stand-up desks come with swinging footrests, and with adjustable stools allowing children to switch between sitting and standing as their moods dictate.

With multiple classrooms filled with stand-up desks, Marine Elementary finds itself at the leading edge of an idea that experts say continues to gain momentum in education: that furniture should be considered as seriously as instruction, particularly given the rise in obesity in American children and the decline in physical education and recess.

Dr.James A.Levine, a professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic, advocates what he calls“activity-permissive”classrooms, including stand-up desks.

“Look at how children have changed,”Dr.Levine said of the sedentary lives of many.“We also have to change, to meet their needs.

Two studies under way at the University of Minnesota are using data collected from Ms.Brown’s classroom and others in Minnesota and Wisconsin that are using the new desks. The pupils being studied are monitored while using traditional desks as well, and the researchers are looking for differences in physical activity and academic achievement.

Pat Reisenger, director of the Education Minnesota Foundation, a teachers’union arm that awarded Marine Elementary its first grant to buy stand-up desks, is eagerly awaiting the results of the studies.

The new desks have“become something, to be honest, of a fad,”Ms.Reisenger said.

“We’re talking about furniture here,”she said,“plain old furniture. If it’s that simple, if it turns out to have the positive impacts everyone hopes for, wouldn’t that be a wonderful thing?”