From the Editor
The following conversation is happening more frequently all over the country:

Father: How was your day, son? What did you learn in school?
Son (enthusiastically): Oh, it was great. We got to go up onto the roof of our school and we learned about how a solar panel makes electricity, and how saving electricity can save our planet. Can we get some solar panels, dad? 
Father: Sure, son – let me make a few calls.

Okay, that last bit may be a stretch, but you get the idea. Using school buildings as learning laboratories is an idea whose time has come. Several years ago, I had a conversation about this topic with a green building consultant. He called this notion “architecture as pedagogy,” and I thought that was a fantastic way to describe how to use elements of a building to teach students about the importance of sustainability. For facility managers, working with teachers and administrators to include sustainability in curriculum can have far-reaching effects beyond just those at that school building. 

Of course, there has been much activity in the last several years targeted at transforming our nation’s school buildings to sustainable. The California Collaborative for High Performance Schools is probably the most well-known guide to creating healthy, efficient school buildings. LEED for Schools is also a valuable resource for creating sustainable school buildings. And many school districts have developeed their own sustainable guidelines — like New York City’s Green Schools Guide.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. If you’re a facility manager at a K12 school, college or university, how do you work with teachers to incorporate your sustainable design, construction, operations and maintenance strategies into the curriculum of your students? How do you help them learn about the importance of being sustainable?

Cheers,

Greg Zimmerman, editor  

 

Green Strategies
Bridge Builder

John Shea’s bottom-up and top-down approach to sustainability is transforming New York City’s schools.

In the News
USGBC Launches The Center for Green Schools
With an ambitious goal of ensuring that every student has a chance to attend a green school within this generation, The Center for Green Schools at USGBC will work to drive wholesale change in how buildings at the nation’s 140,000 schools, universities and colleges are designed, constructed and operated.

Green Multimedia
Green Campus Housing
This short podcast gives some tips on how to get students involved with energy efficiency and other green goals. A friendly competition between dorms on which can save the most energy is one suggestion.

GreenTech Conference & Exposition

The School as a Learning Laboratory: Using Sustainability to Improve O&M

This presentation by John Shea, CEO of the Division of School Facilities of the New York City Department of Education, shows how focusing on green operations and teaching children about sustainability can have far-reaching effects beyond just in his school buildings.