Each year The Green Guide, a bimonthly newsletter that the National Geographic Society purchased earlier this year, surveys schools to pick those friendliest to the environment. Using 10 categories including green building and construction, recycling programs, food choices and environmental curriculum, the Guide awards up to 10 points per category, for a maximum of 100 points. Punahou garnered 77.7 points, and much of the credit is likely due to the innovations on display at the Case Middle School, a nine-building complex that opened in 2004.
According to Steve Piper, director of physical plant at Punahou, the administration didn’t intentionally set out to build what turned out to Hawaii’s first LEED-certified school, much less a gold-certificate earner. (The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design [LEED] sets criteria guidelines for buildings and awards standard, silver, gold or platinum certification.) But when the Case Middle School was in the works—Steve Case was the lead donor of the $50 million project, which is named for his parents—the project team realized that they had already designed a silver-certificate building, and were probably within 10 points of achieving gold status.
“What we realized was that we were already walking the talk,” says Piper. In fact, the school has been constructing environmentally friendly buildings for decades (its gym from the 1970s features daylit locker rooms three stories below ground) and has long included an outdoor education component for its students. But the process of making a new middle school served as a focal point for the institution’s commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability.
The buildings are all oriented to take best advantage of the natural available natural resources: sun, wind and water. “The buildings are heavy concrete to increase the thermal envelope for the space,” Piper points out. Generous overhangs provide shade, and high-performance dual-paned glass with argon between the layers also helps with insulation. Light shelves reflect sunlight back into classrooms to cut back on the need for electrical lighting, which adjusts to the natural light levels and the number of people in the room.
Lockers are made from recycled plastic, and have the advantage of being very durable: no rusting, which means no painting is needed. Hallway and classroom flooring is made from 100 percent rubber; the classroom floors require just a daily dust mopping and a once-weekly water mopping: no chemicals. All wood used in construction comes from forests that are managed according to standards that promote environmental sustainability.
Careful thought has gone into all aspects of energy use: the glass-covered roof of the sixth-grade school is a not only a beautiful light-filled hallway, but reflecting light wells also provides light for use in the rest of the building. The eighth-grade learning center has an array of photovoltaic cells that provide electricity for the building. And all the boys bathroom urinals are waterless, surprising some students. “It doesn’t even stink!” one of them told seventh-grade science teacher Dave White. Speaking of water, a rooftop system funnels rainwater into underground tanks, where it’s eventually used to irrigate the campus.
Keeping a subtropical campus comfortable is a big challenge. While the insulation and energy-saving features cut down on the amount of air-conditioning, the school’s system makes use of nighttime, nonpeak-hour ice production in order to take advantage of lower energy costs.
The buildings are all designed with ready access to outdoor views—not a bad thing when the view includes Diamond Head, Waikiki Beach and the Pacific Ocean. But the outward-looking architecture reflects the ways that the curriculum is designed to integrate knowledge of the students’ place in the natural world. All students participate in outdoor education, beginning in kindergarten and first grade, where a “Garden to Market” curriculum unit teaches everything from how to plan and grow a garden to how to successfully market and sell its projects. Science teacher Dave White’s students can get credit for working in the native plant nursery, which provides cuttings to local inhabitants who want to bring back some of the island’s original botanical life, much of which was supplanted by exotic imports.
Meanwhile, over at the school’s Luke Center for Public Service, director Carri Morgan works with students on community projects that include initiatives related to environmental stewardship and sustainability. A five-day sustainability summit resulted in a number of student initiatives that will reduce waste, water consumption and energy use. Students at various grade levels have conducted studies on school usage of these resources and materials, organized a campus cleanup, and attended community and local political meetings to understand how to create change within institutions.
Junior School principal Mike Walker is now looking ahead to the construction of a new building for the K-1 grades, and notes that “we’re now at a point where we can reflect back on the lessons learned from the middle school.” While middle-school teachers “are still learning how to bridge LEED design with curricular opportunities,” he says, “with K-1 we’re building them in.”
Environmental stewardship and a view of Waikiki. It’s enough to make you want to go back to (middle) school.
title: “Obama S Hawaii Alma Mater A Green Leader” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-08” author: “Christopher Hopkins”
Each year The Green Guide, a bimonthly newsletter that the National Geographic Society purchased earlier this year, surveys schools to pick those friendliest to the environment. Using 10 categories including green building and construction, recycling programs, food choices and environmental curriculum, the Guide awards up to 10 points per category, for a maximum of 100 points. Punahou garnered 77.7 points, and much of the credit is likely due to the innovations on display at the Case Middle School, a nine-building complex that opened in 2004.
According to Steve Piper, director of physical plant at Punahou, the administration didn’t intentionally set out to build what turned out to Hawaii’s first LEED-certified school, much less a gold-certificate earner. (The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design [LEED] sets criteria guidelines for buildings and awards standard, silver, gold or platinum certification.) But when the Case Middle School was in the works—Steve Case was the lead donor of the $50 million project, which is named for his parents—the project team realized that they had already designed a silver-certificate building, and were probably within 10 points of achieving gold status.
“What we realized was that we were already walking the talk,” says Piper. In fact, the school has been constructing environmentally friendly buildings for decades (its gym from the 1970s features daylit locker rooms three stories below ground) and has long included an outdoor education component for its students. But the process of making a new middle school served as a focal point for the institution’s commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability.
The buildings are all oriented to take best advantage of the natural available natural resources: sun, wind and water. “The buildings are heavy concrete to increase the thermal envelope for the space,” Piper points out. Generous overhangs provide shade, and high-performance dual-paned glass with argon between the layers also helps with insulation. Light shelves reflect sunlight back into classrooms to cut back on the need for electrical lighting, which adjusts to the natural light levels and the number of people in the room.
Lockers are made from recycled plastic, and have the advantage of being very durable: no rusting, which means no painting is needed. Hallway and classroom flooring is made from 100 percent rubber; the classroom floors require just a daily dust mopping and a once-weekly water mopping: no chemicals. All wood used in construction comes from forests that are managed according to standards that promote environmental sustainability.
Careful thought has gone into all aspects of energy use: the glass-covered roof of the sixth-grade school is a not only a beautiful light-filled hallway, but reflecting light wells also provides light for use in the rest of the building. The eighth-grade learning center has an array of photovoltaic cells that provide electricity for the building. And all the boys bathroom urinals are waterless, surprising some students. “It doesn’t even stink!” one of them told seventh-grade science teacher Dave White. Speaking of water, a rooftop system funnels rainwater into underground tanks, where it’s eventually used to irrigate the campus.
Keeping a subtropical campus comfortable is a big challenge. While the insulation and energy-saving features cut down on the amount of air-conditioning, the school’s system makes use of nighttime, nonpeak-hour ice production in order to take advantage of lower energy costs.
The buildings are all designed with ready access to outdoor views—not a bad thing when the view includes Diamond Head, Waikiki Beach and the Pacific Ocean. But the outward-looking architecture reflects the ways that the curriculum is designed to integrate knowledge of the students’ place in the natural world. All students participate in outdoor education, beginning in kindergarten and first grade, where a “Garden to Market” curriculum unit teaches everything from how to plan and grow a garden to how to successfully market and sell its projects. Science teacher Dave White’s students can get credit for working in the native plant nursery, which provides cuttings to local inhabitants who want to bring back some of the island’s original botanical life, much of which was supplanted by exotic imports.
Meanwhile, over at the school’s Luke Center for Public Service, director Carri Morgan works with students on community projects that include initiatives related to environmental stewardship and sustainability. A five-day sustainability summit resulted in a number of student initiatives that will reduce waste, water consumption and energy use. Students at various grade levels have conducted studies on school usage of these resources and materials, organized a campus cleanup, and attended community and local political meetings to understand how to create change within institutions.
Junior School principal Mike Walker is now looking ahead to the construction of a new building for the K-1 grades, and notes that “we’re now at a point where we can reflect back on the lessons learned from the middle school.” While middle-school teachers “are still learning how to bride LEED design with curricular opportunities,” he says, “with K-1 we’re building them in.”
Environmental stewardship and a view of Waikiki. It’s enough to make you want to go back to (middle) school.
