Ten years ago, if an architect said he was designing a green school, most people would have assumed he had decided to paint the façade a pleasant shade of sage. But now it's 2008, and "green schools" are part of a growing movement that is changing the environments in which students learn by building high-performance facilities that are both better for the planet and for the children who learn in them.

And, backed by parents and buoyed by politicians, school districts across the country are jumping on the bandwagon and hiring some of the best architects in the business to construct sustainable facilities across the country, from Hawaii to Texas to New Jersey.

At their core, green schools are about helping the environment. They are built from recycled materials and use renewable and efficient energy systems. On average, they use 30 percent less energy and 30 to 50 percent less water than conventional school buildings, and they reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent.

But beyond the obvious environmental concerns, green schools are about saving money. The lower energy use results in savings of more than $100,000 annually per school. In fact, if all new school and renovation construction followed these guidelines, the energy savings would amount to $20 billion over the next 10 years.

Then there is the most important factor in designing a school: education. Green schools create a healthy atmosphere for learning that has measurable results. The combination of natural light, fresh air, open plans, and multi-use facilities that encourage community involvement has helped student test scores rise by 20 percent and reduced asthma rates by 39 percent. In green schools, teacher retention increases and missed school days decrease. The bottom line is that green schools make both students and teachers happier--and they facilitate better learning in the classroom.

Still, the green-school movement faces some formidable obstacles. "The irony here is that the greatest barrier is education," says Bob Kobet, a sustainable-architecture consultant. "There is still the misconception that green buildings cost more, that they are too complicated and take too long to build." School districts' small budgets exacerbate the problem; it's difficult to justify the extra up-front cost when you barely have enough money to replace textbooks.

But the reality is that green schools cost only 2 percent more to build and the potential long-term savings are in the billions of dollars nationally. This becomes an even more meaningful statistic when you consider the lifespan of schools. "If you blow it, you blow it for 35 years," says Kobet. If you consider that school buildings make up the largest sector of nonresidential construction projects in the U.S.--a projected $80 billion from 2006 to 2008--and that each of the country's more than 55 million students attends school for an average of 1,300 hours annually, the small investment makes a lot of sense. Add in all the potential savings, both monetary and physical, and it quickly becomes clear how crucial and timely the green-school movement is.

Last spring, the U.S. Green Building Council officially launched LEED for Schools, a rating system that certifies and grades new K through 12 building projects according to their level of sustainability. Currently, hundreds of schools are on the waiting list for certification--another telling measure of the movement's rapid growth.

Boora Architects, based in Portland, Oregon, helped paved the way with the first LEED-certified, K through 12 project, a high school in Clackamas, Oregon. It rigged an innovative lighting system to provide natural daylight to 90 percent of the school and installed an energy-monitoring-and-control system that measures outdoor and indoor temperatures and CO2 levels to determine which rooms to heat or cool. In all, the planning has saved the school an average of $70,000 per year in energy costs.

The realization of Clackamas--and the hundreds of other LEED certified schools built since--calls attention to another important part of the green school movement: integrating the school buildings themselves into a student's education by having students interact directly with the facilities they use. At Clackamas, the students were enlisted to help develop the plan for the new high school. The shop class built a full-scale plywood mock-up of a classroom on the building site, helping the firm test the natural ventilation and lighting systems.

When the school was finished, the same students experienced the effects of their labor firsthand; they now learn in classrooms filled with fresh air and sunlight instead of in stuffy, dark spaces. Says Hans Rudolf, principal Boora Architect: "We wanted to make the building teacher in itself." Consider this the mark of a quintessential green school.

[image: Clackamas High School via BOORA Architects]