Green Schools 2011 List Announced

Going green is cool enough for schools. The Best of Green Schools 2011 list was released this week, commending educational institutions around the country for embracing environmental initiatives.

School administrators and government leaders were recognized in 10 categories for a "variety of sustainable, cost-cutting measures, including energy conservation, record numbers of LEED® certified buildings and collaborative platforms and policies to green U.S. school infrastructure," according to a press release by Center for Green Schools at U.S. Green Building Council.

The press release stated:

According to published reports, green schools save on average $100,000 per year on operating costs - enough to hire two new teachers, buy 200 new computers, or purchase 5,000 textbooks. On average, green schools use 33 percent less energy and 32 percent less water than conventionally constructed schools, and if all new U.S. school construction and renovation went green today, the total energy savings alone would be $20 billion over the next 10 years.

As students headed back into the school season this year, many were met with greener schools. A new elementary school in Lexington, Kentucky was lit by solar tubes and had toilets that flushed with collected rainwater.

Green schools are making their mark around the world. The first of 20 sustainable schools popped up in the Gaza Strip. According to Inhabitat, the schools will provide peace of mind for students and parents who worry whether their children can go to school if the electricity or water supplies are cut off amid political or financial issues.

In the UK, the students themselves want to learn more about the environment than traditional subjects like history or math, according to a survey from earlier this year.

Check out the slideshow below to see who was acknowledged in each category for 2011's Best Of Green Schools. All captions courtesy of Center for Green Schools at U.S. Green Building Council.

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Comments

[luapmi2]

07:15 AM on 12/21/2011

Junior can't read....but we're green!

[DINGCHIROPTERA]

09:29 AM on 12/20/2011

You didn't research enough! The most green school on the East Coast is North Country School in Lake Placid ( a boarding school-also has camp treetops),it has fit in nicely without ruining the surrounding forest, and it was just written up in a government paper as the first school to use alternative non solar heating. It's a school that specializes in sustainable living. We grew all our own veggies,raised 90% of our own meat, made our own maple sugar, it now makes cheese as well, had a compost pile, recycles, uses non-oil/non-petroleum heating. If you're going to write about green schools, do your research!! Because I KNOW my old school is greener than those you listed.

[hawaiianstile]

04:01 PM on 12/19/2011

in my school we were taught how to raise kalo by one of the best kalo farmers of our time, 'anakala Eddy Ka'anana, as well as a verity of other plants. we would kill pig every year and cook for our grandparents, harvesting from our schools own lo'i, pounded kalo, wrapped laulau. in my opinion these were some of the most important lessons i took from my beloved school.

[Linus521]

12:23 PM on 12/18/2011

How can a school be green when they killed the green of the Earth for the construction of the school and its entombing the one living organism that is life itself, the ecosystem? Green was seeded when the father of ecology witnessed an ecosystem die in the absence of her wolves. Without the wolves, the deer devoured the Earth and the ecosystem, and the deforested ecosystem died. A building, dead trees and concrete are as life supporting and creating as the surface of Mars.

Can a school release oxygen, balance the gaseous composition of the atmosphere, naturally regulate and moderate the climate, sequester heat trapping gases, provide the nitrogen cycle and the hydrological system, the entirety of the Earth's biogeochemistry, the creation and renewal of a life rendering soil...

provide decomposition, pollination, seed dispersal, mitigate floods, provide 75% of all new medicines, 99% of all pest control, and the regulation and checking of human disease pathogens that cause global pandemics, like the plague and influenza virus? Slathering the planet with dead concrete, dead trees and cities [heat islands] is inverse to everything that denotes green.

[appellativo]

10:46 AM on 12/20/2011

The answer to all your questions is 'no.' So, therefore, I guess your reasoning is that we should not educate our kids. Or live in houses. Come on.

[Linus521]

01:15 PM on 12/22/2011

Scientists literate in the science of ecology, maintain man is suicidal when he kills ecosystems. Guess you reflect the majority view and is intent on killing all the reasons man breathes. I call it brainwashing, and you call it the the financial economy before life itself. Real smart, and it's never education; it is the quality of that education and at the foundation, should be the education as to what creates and sustains human existence.

And, it has nothing to do with schools, paper monies and green buildings.

[Linus521]

01:19 PM on 12/22/2011

Scientists literate in the science of ecology maintain man is suicidal when he kills ecosysems for any reason.

Perhaps, it shouldn't be about education, but the quality of the education. At the foundation of that education should be how the Earth's ecosystems create and sustain all life, like, duh oxygen releasing, the climate, the atmosphere, fresh water, food and life.

[jwilsonarchitect]

05:51 PM on 12/16/2011

Have you investigated the "Green School" on Bali, Indonesia, built brilliantly of bamboo, which the consider a renewable resource because of its rapid growth rate and hardiness plus unique natural structural qualities. I have visited it and discussed it at length with its founders and engineers. It's a great new approach which could use a little more refinement such as timber connectors, etc.

Jeremy David Wilson, Architect written from Santo Domingo

[Yikes11]

12:32 PM on 12/16/2011

I meant Poultney, VT

[Yikes11]

12:32 PM on 12/16/2011

What about Green Mountain College in Poultney, VA. It was ranked the #1 School in 2010 by Sierra Magazine and #2 in 2011?

[DINGCHIROPTERA]

09:31 AM on 12/20/2011

North Country School still beats anything on the East coast ( according to new government paper)