Rationale

Rationale


Buildings, including schools, affect the natural environment, consume a great deal of electricity, and contribute to CO2 emissions. Our goal is to teach children that systems planning and design can significantly reduce the negative impact on the ecosystem if all buildings were built, maintained and operated "Green". It is essential for our future that students begin to learn about sustainability at an early age. If students understand the systems of a green building in conjunction with other sustainable practices in a place where they spend a great deal of time...in school, it would create a setting for life-long learning. With the threat of global warming and climate change combined with other human created environmental crises, the timing is right for a curriculum integration of this nature where students take an active role in evaluating their local environment and create action steps to influence change.

Learning about the design built world, particularly buildings, provides a systems approach and a familiar setting for students to understand the systems and the relationship between their home, their school, their town and the global community. In the United States millions of students attend public and private schools everyday. These same students will eventually become consumers and will make decisions about what to buy, where to live and what vehicles to drive. Their decisions could influence the marketplace and will either force favorable change that will benefit the environment, or continue in a non-sustainable way. They will be part of the workforce and their generation will be building blocks for our sustainabl e future only if environmental literacy is placed as a high priority in schools.



T he rationale for using a Pr oble m/Project Based Learning (PBL) format is to provide each teacher the opportunity to identify environmental situations in the school that need resolution, and develop PBL real-world and relevant scenarios to introduce to their students. Developing instructional designs using this approach moves away from a one size fits all process or program and identifies authentic situations that are relevant to the student’s environment. The teacher facilitates the process while students take ownership over their actions. They discover green solutions and become the key stakeholders in greening their school. The resulting instructional designs will teach the technologies, the steps that promote sustainability, and begin the process of understanding how to balance societal progress without sacrificing the environment.



The instructional resources developed will connect the green building industry with Environmental Education as well as Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. Another important focus will be to combine the bui lding systems and outdoor habitats as a context for learning. Connecting students with the process for transforming their school to become a green building is a way to increase student involvement with real-world situations and introduce student’s to 21st century skills that will prepare them for blue, white and green collar careers of the future.

