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A living lab
Through this credit, you incorporate the building’s sustainable design features directly into the school curriculum, enhancing students’ educational experiences, while getting more benefit from the school’s investment in sustainability.
The school itself acts as a living lab that informs students about energy and water efficiency, indoor air quality, connection to the outdoors, and can motivate students to get involved in activities that promote sustainability and environmental awareness. Hands-on learning can provide both a more exciting learning environment and a more effective educational experience.
The school’s “green team” is the key player
It’s critical to enlist a group of faculty—the “green team”—to initiate and follow through with implementing the...
Step-by-step credit help
Got the gist of the LEED credit but not sure how to actually achieve it? LEEDuser gives step-by-step help. Members get:
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Credit language straight from USGBC
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10 Comments
Student Clubs to Fulfill Requirements?
A project we are working on is considering implementing a student club program in order to fulfill the requirements for this credit. Perhaps the student club could formulate a program that informs other students throughout the school about the sustainable features of the school/site (such as signage or activities/programs)? Would this be sufficient to fulfill this requirement?
Any information you have would be greatly appreciated!
Hi Mike,
Probably not, because it must include a curriculum which meets state or local standards and class time. A club will likely not meet those requirments. Please see the credit language above for more information.
Super Useful FYI - green building curriculum
The Green Education Foundation (GEF) offers a great curriculum that uses the building as a teaching tool - see PDF available online, http://www.greeneducationfoundation.org (click on the "green building" tab). This program is in it's pilot stage, but I don't think you have to participate in the pilot program - looks like you can just use the materials. You will notice that the lesson plans included here are for Kindergarten -2nd grade, but a full range of grade levels should be available very soon.
This program is nice because it offers a full 10 hour/15-lesson curriculum, complete with a teachers manual, unit plan, pacing guide and all lesson plans. All of the lessons (in the K-2nd curriculum) use Science, English, and Social Studies.
If I had this resource when we started this project, it would have been a HUGE time saver... I think you still need to involve your design team in the curriculum development, but this is a great resource, whether you use it as a starting point or as a plug-and-play curriculum. I'm assuming LEED-Schools will accept it, since it is being developed in partnership between USGBC and GEF :)
Sorry, the PDF link is http://www.greeneducationfoundation.org/images/stories/School_as_a_Teach...
This link will probably be outdated in the future (since it's currently in the pilot stage), so just go to their website and navigate to the "green buildings" tab.
We have a LEED for Schools 2009 project that is involved in the GEF Pilot Program. The building is a high school (11th & 12th grades on a community college campus) that is offering their Green Building Course as a semester elective. After submitting for this credit in the Design Review, we were denied the point because "two classes of 23 students meeting twice a week" that are enrolled in the elective did not match our PIF3 Occupant and Usage data of 225 students. "Documentation does not confirm that all full-time students at the school will receive ten or more hours of classroom instruction per year as part of this curriculum... for future submittals, please provide confirmation that all students at the school will receive at least ten hours of classroom instruction per year as part of this curriculum."
Anyone have any suggestions of overcoming this? I believe that it is unrealistic to assume that every student be required to take a course at the 11th and 12th grade level.
Thanks!
Tim, is the issue that you are just providing curriculum for the high school students and GBCI is asking what about the community college students?
If that's the case I'm not sure what to advise. I agree that it would not be reasonable to expect college students to use h.s. curriculum, but to meet this credit you would technically need to provide curriculum to those students as well, unless it can be sucessfully argued that they should be exempt. However, exempting most of the population of the building doesn't seem to really fit the credit intent.
School as a TeachingTool - clarifications?
The Principal at our school project asked a couple of questions about their sustainability curriculum program that I was unable to find a solid answer for:
1. Does the school need to commit to implementing the curriculum beyond the first year? If so, for how long?
2. Does the curriculum have to address the school building directly? Or can it address human and natural ecology, and green building in general?
I can guess the answer based on the credit intent "To integrate the sustainable features of a school facility with the school’s educational mission." However, I'm wondering if anyone has further evidense of these specific requirements...
Thanks in advance for your input!
Anya,
I haven't seen anything in the requirements as to how long the curriculum should be implemented, but I think the expectation is that the School as a Teaching Tool curriculum will be implemented on an on-going basis and provide a foundation for other sustainability related content in the future.
And yes, the curriculum needs to address the building directly, but from my experience all of the 10 hours don't need to be dedicated specifically to the green building technologies/materials in the building. The lessons can be related to or provide context for teaching about aspects of the building, like teaching about the importance of conserving energy and resources.
Thanks Daniel,
I hope you're right that the curriculum can include some lessons that provide context. Our Principal has already collected a 3-ring binderGlue used in manufacturing wood products, such as medium-density fiberboard (MDF), particleboard, and engineered lumber. Most binders are made with formaldehyde. full of lessons from the GEF website (under the "curriculum" tab). The site includes interesting topics like "air pollution math", "litter from lunch", "how to grow a sunflower plant," etc. These seem less connected to the building but still vauable learning opportunities about sustainable processes and practices.
Anya,
I have pursued The School as a Teaching Tool on a few schools now and have seen the requirements change over the past couple of years. On my first project I was able to describe the resources that I made available to the teachers and a general outline of sustainable features of the school. On my latest school project this strategy didn't quite make the grade. The reviewer asked for, " specific examples of curriculum, such as teaching plans, course outlines, etc. demonstrating how the sustainable features of this specific school facility will be integrated into the school's sustainability curriculum such that the school building and grounds themselves serve as a teaching tool" (Whew). I was surprised with this response since the curriculum doesn't need to be implemented until 10 months after certification is awarded. I'm not going to fight it, instead I'll just put it off until the construction application. Hope this helps.
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