Green School Rejuvenates Dying Town

Three years ago the small town of Greensburg, Kansas was wiped from the map by a deadly tornado, today it is being reborn thanks in part to the building of a new green school. This school is a symbol of the rebirth of a once dying community.

The $50 million, state-of-the-art, LEED Platinum school, was designed by BNIM. The school boasts two new gyms, a new food court-style cafeteria area, and an outdoor classroom. Motion sensors ensure that the students use only the light they need. Exterior walls are windows, reducing the amount of light needed during the day. Geothermal systems provide the heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. A wind turbine near the football field provides energy. Five cisterns around the school catch and store rainwater for the landscaping.

The school expects to save 40 percent or more in utility costs. Lowered utility bill frees up money for educational improvements. The school has also incorporated sustainability into its curriculum. In science, students learn about renewable sources of energy like geothermal.

The town's sustainable school is making a big difference. Greensburg GreenTown, offers tours and demonstrates sustainable living with the school as the main attraction. The school is not the only green building town, the courthouse was remodeled to be energy-efficient. In the future Greensburg plans to build more sustainable buildings including a library/museum and a movie theater. Greensburg is remaking itself as a model green town.

The City Administrator began talking about building a better and more sustainable town in the days after the tornado. Town leaders knew that building green was a way to set their community apart. Now, thanks to one green school a small town is basking in national attention.

Greensburg has discovered that being a model green community has lucrative benefits.
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Da Vinci Arts Middle School in Portland

The da Vinci Arts Middle School in Portland Oregon has the first and only LEED-platinum and net zero energy use classroom in America. LEED-plantinum is the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest rating for energy efficiency. A zero energy building (ZEB) or net zero energy building is a general term applied to buildings with zero net energy consumption and zero annual carbon emissions.

The 1,500-square foot music classroom and studio was constructed from plans developed by architecture firm SRG Partnership and the University of Oregon’s Energy Studies in Buildings Lab. The school's features include a passive temperature control system and solar roof tiles. These and other green features yield an efficiency improvement of 70 percent over Oregon building code requirements.

Gutters capture rain for landscape irrigation and use as greywater inside the building. The school's experimental natural lighting system called “the Halo” provides adequate light, even with overcast skies, making additional light sources entirely unnecessary during the day. The sun’s rays pass through a diffuser which spreads the light evenly throughout the room. After dark, by amplifying and dispersing small amounts of electric light, the diffuser requires only half the energy normally required by traditional classroom lighting.

The da Vinci school teaches sustainability by example and it seems to be infectious. Even in their extra-curricular activities, students at the school show their loyalty to green. A project by da Vinci's after school class, Community Evolution / Garden Revolution, built a greenhouse for the residents of Dignity Village. See their blog for details.

The da Vinci addition is only the beginning, every public school building in Portland will be subject to rebuilding or remodeling over the next 20 years. An assessment of the performance of the various green featurs of the da Vinici school will help determine which sustainable features will be integrated into future classrooms.
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The Future of Green School Buildings

The greening of schools is leading the green building trend. With large numbers of public schools deteriorating, boards across the US are taking a serious look at new green schools and retrofits that save energy as well as improve learning.

In the US, Federal incentives are already helping boards to green their schools. Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s fiscal stabilization fund, $48.6 billion was awarded to the US Department of Education. The construction, renovation and repair of green school buildings qualify for these government funds.

In the future all levels of government as well as new building codes will contribute to even greener schools. The next generation of green schools can be expected to do an even better job of controlling temperature, air, light and noise.

Each classroom will have independent climate controls and the ability to independently deliver fresh-air. Part of delivering fresh air, involves the ability to open high and low windows that can quickly refresh a room without drafts. Green schools will also manage solar overheating with awnings and shades that do not eliminate light or obscure the view.

The next generation of green schools will also do a better job of managing traffic noise, room reverberation, and noise transmission between rooms.

New green schools will be designed with materials that are easy to clean. This is important because the cleanliness of surfaces directly contributes to indoor air quality. Materials used in desk and contact surfaces must be easily disinfected to help prevent the transmission of infectious diseases.

As early adopters of new innovations green schools will continue to improve their environmental, health and performance benefits.
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Green School Buildings: The Many Benefits of Natural Lighting

The use of natural light in green schools benefits students, teachers and administrators. By reducing energy requirements, natural light also offers an environmentally friendly means of bettering the bottom line.

The sun provides higher light levels than traditional lighting while reducing energy costs. Natural light affords excellent illumination of educational materials and this appears to improve test scores. A well known school-building study, completed by the Heschong Mahone Group, identifies test scores 7-26 percent higher for schoolchildren in classrooms with plentiful natural light than for those in classrooms with little or no daylight.

A study from Alberta Education, titled A Study into the Effects of Light on Children of Elementary School Age indicates that natural light does have a positive effect on health and on rates of achievement. Children in classrooms with a natural spectrum of light including trace amounts of UV radiation had 1.75 fewer cavities than children in schools with traditional lighting. Children exposed to high pressure sodium vapor lighting were absent 3.2 days per year more than students in classrooms with full spectrum light.

The Alberta Education study also linked scholastic achievement to natural lighting. Students exposed to high-pressure sodium vapor lighting demonstrated the poorest rate of academic achievement.

A Sacramento California study titled, Light Helps Pupils Learn, is one of the largest ever done on natural light in schools and it suggests children learn faster and do better on standardized tests in classrooms with more daylight. Learning rates were 26 percent higher in reading and 20 percent higher in math in rooms with more daylight.

Windows let in light and when opened they provide natural ventilation. Windows also provide visual access to the outdoors, from morning to night and season to season, this is important to our circadian rhythms and our sleep cycles.

Ideally natural light in a green school lets in light without glare, while preventing overheating and excessive UVs.

Cost efficiency, energy reductions, improved scholastic performance and health benefits make natural lighting a logical choice.

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