Greening America’s schools : the need, the promise, the reality

The United States has over 26 million students in primary and secondary schools nationwide. The result of such a large school-aged population, in combination with an increasingly environmentally conscious culture, has been a national effort towards green and sustainable school design. In theory, high performance school design utilizes a combination of key technologies in order to improve the learning environment while saving money, resources, and energy. An abundance of literature supports the lofty promises of this design strategy, but in an industry that has only recently begun to gain widespread support, very little substantive research of case studies has been documented. This report explores the history and characteristics of green schools, followed by a case study of Pickle Elementary School, located in Austin, Texas. Through the use of quantitative, qualitative and anecdotal research, this report begins to unveil the reality of this ever-growing movement towards greening America’s schools.