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Slideshow:
Green Schools Summit
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Envisioning a Green Future:
Thousands Attend Schools Summit
by Racquel Palmese
Call them sustainable, environmentally friendly, healthy or
high-performance. The greening of California’s schools is well underway,
and a growing number of the state’s 6.3 million students and 307,000
teachers are increasingly feeling the benefits. The largest green schools
conference ever, the Green California Schools Summit & Exposition, which
took place in Pasadena, California last December,
captured the essence and spirit of this rapidly growing trend.
Guided by an advisory board co-chaired by Rosario Marin, California
Secretary of State and Consumer Services; Dr. David Long, California
Secretary of Education; and David Thorman, State Architect, the event
provided three days of networking, learning and planning. It brought
together the widest possible range of attendees, representing all sectors
of the education community – from local school districts to state
educational regulators – as well as hundreds of innovative companies with
green products and services.
From the onset of the event, it became obvious that interest in green
schools has reached a new level. As David Thorman took the microphone at a
welcome reception in the Gold Room above the historic Pasadena Civic
Auditorium to outline the goals of the next two days, he looked out at an
overflow crowd from education, industry and government.
"For a first event it was a
roaring success. It was the right time, the right environment, the right
audience, very nicely orchestrated. The events were thoughtfully placed
and informative. There’s so much new technology, so much information out
there that needs to be simplified and communicated. It is extremely
valuable to have a conference that focuses just on green schools."
Dave
Thorman
California State Architect
Setting the Stage
At the opening general session, attendees filled the Civic Auditorium for
keynotes and the first Green California Schools Awards. Pasadena Mayor
Bill Bogaard, one of Southern California’s leading advocates of
sustainability, opened the event expressing pride that his city was
hosting the largest green schools event ever convened.
Dr. Long, David Thorman and Secretary Marin, each from their perspectives,
urged the movement forward for the sake of the environment as well as the
health of California’s students.
Secretary Marin oversees all funding and construction planning for
California’s public schools. In an opinion piece published just before the
Summit, she noted, “At a time when Californians from both public and
private sectors are grappling with the prospect of climate change and the
need to better manage resources, schools are assuming an additional
significance. Increasingly, they represent an opportunity to model
sustainability, to provide students and communities with their first
experience of a well-considered, restorative relationship with the
environment.”
“I was
excited to see the great interest in California’s green schools movement
generated at the conference. The panel discussions our staff participated
in, as well as the many discussions held by other state and national
experts, provided attendees with important perspectives and lessons on
green schools. We look forward to putting the ideas into practice as we
build schools for the children of Los Angeles.”
Guy
Mehula
Chief Facilities Executive
Los Angeles Unified School District
The opening session also brought the first Green California Schools Hall
of Fame Awards, established by the Summit Advisory Board to recognize
individuals and organizations for pioneering efforts in developing green
schools, for contributions and commitment to the green school movement,
and for innovative ideas and successful implementation of these ideas and
inspiration to others.
Charles Eley, executive director, and Bill Orr, board member, of the
Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS), received the Pioneer
Award for CHPS’ creation of certification standards for high-performance
schools. The second award of the day went to innovative green school
designer Scott Shell, principal and director of sustainability at EHDD
Architecture, who won the Industry Award.
Remarks by California Public Utilities Commissioner Timothy Simon and
Secretary Marin preceded an opening keynote by celebrated environmentalist
Ed Begley, Jr. Like those who spoke before,
Commissioner Simon spoke of progress: “When I look out into the audience I
see a tremendous opportunity for all of you, members of the education
community, to further the accomplishments of Los Angeles and the state in
curbing global warming and achieving a bright, healthy, clean, and
prosperous future for all of California’s students.”
While noting the real problems we now face, Ed Begley Jr. told attendees
he was “filled with hope” by the growing green movement. Mixing humor
with hard facts about energy savings, he challenged his audience to
embrace green in every aspect of life.
Exhibition
Over 2,600 attendees and providers of green products and services filled three separate indoor and outdoor
exhibit areas of the Pasadena
Convention Center. They
learned about green products and services from more than 200 exhibitors
showcasing an array of products, from non-toxic paints and carpets,
state-of-the-art recycled paper, fuel cell and solar system technology, to
eco-friendly, recycled, playground equipment, school gardens, sustainable
design concepts and environmental curriculum.
Bouma Construction took on the challenge of building an actual working
model green school building in the middle of the exhibit hall. It provided
an opportunity for attendees to touch, experience and learn from experts
about the many aspects of a green school. A complete classroom with
advanced lighting concepts, an energy efficient HVAC system, sustainable
furniture, wall and floor coverings provided a space for educational
sessions. The outside of the building offered a range of sustainable
design and structural components.
"The
Summit, as the first large-scale green schools event, was forward
thinking, cutting edge. It provided Bouma with exposure to the green
school movement at its earliest stages and an opportunity to interface
with like-minded businesses that share the same interest in the green
movement."
Dennis Johnson
Chief Marketing Officer
Bouma Construction
Running parallel to the professional program was the Green California
Schools Student Summit, which took place at the Pasadena Sheraton on
December 5. Organized by Educator Michael Winters of Gabrielino High
School and John Zavalney from LAUSD, with assistance from Michael Haro of
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, teachers and students of Southern California
high schools were brought together to discuss the same educational topics
that were being covered at the actual Green California Schools Summit next
door. Green-focused student projects were on display in the lobby of the
convention center.
Breaking New Ground
An atmosphere of excitement and newness pervaded the event, as many of the
more than 80 workshops and breakout sessions were filled to overflowing.
The guest speakers and lineup was perfect and very well received. The
breakout sessions were amazing. I only had a chance to do one, and it was
standing room only. I have been to so many trade shows, and this is
probably the first time that I have been in that situation where there was
that big of a turnout.
Nichole Lowe, the Hon Company
Each session was carefully crafted to fully embrace an aspect of green
schools with multiple presenters who are experts in their respective
fields. A pre-summit half-day workshop on funding strategies, for example,
was presented by Rob Cook, executive officer of the California state
Office of Public School Construction, the agency which approves funding
requests (and administration of Proposition 1D funds).
"The
Green California Schools Summit was quite a treat! With so much buzz
regarding Green and Sustainability, it was very helpful and effective to
attend an event full of the experts, sharing actual methods and practices
specifically for school officials in California. I walked away with tons
of ideas and work. The networking alone was worth the price of admission.”
J. William Naish, CEM, LEED AP, CEP, CSDP
Energy/Utility Management Section Coordinator
San Diego Unified School District
A panel from LAUSD, moderated by Ying Wang, who is in charge of the
district’s green building program, shared lessons learned over seven years
of setting up and implementing a massive green building program.
The US Green Building Council estimates that a green high school can save
as much as $100,000 a year in energy expenditures. With the average life
of a school at 42 years, a single school can potentially save $4.2 million
over its lifetime. The growing acknowledgement of these savings make a
business case for green schools, and several sessions shared ideas about
not only building new energy efficient schools, but how to get the most
efficiency from existing schools.
USGBC announced its new LEED for Schools rating system during a
presentation at the Summit. “This was one of the first opportunities for
us to come to California and start a dialogue about LEED for Schools,”
said Rachel Gutter, schools sector manager for USGBC.
“I thought it was a very unique conference. I go
to a lot of conferences that address the subject of high performance
schools, but this one was unique in that it brought together such a wide
variety of stakeholders - architects, school boards, people in green
schools design, construction, and maintenance. I saw parents there, I met
teachers. I don’t know how you pulled together the outreach, but it was
very well done.”
Rachel Gutter
Schools Sector Manager
USGBC
In other sessions, attendees had opportunities to learn from and dialogue
with the widest possible range of green schools leaders, from architects
to indoor air quality experts to energy efficiency technologists.
Green schools are about more than buildings, they are also about land
reclamation, landscaping for water retention, recycling, and using the
school itself as a tool for teaching students about sustainability and the
environment. Several sessions showcased the high-performance schools built
by districts with explanations from architects, community members and
others involved on how they met the design and funding challenges and the
resulting benefits they have achieved.
“The
most powerful aspect of the conference for my company was the mixture of
participants. Along with the vendors who were offering services and
products for school buildings, there were teachers, administrators and
agencies interested in curriculum issues. Consequently there was an
opportunity to create new relationships that you don’t get in conferences
for strictly vertical markets, where everybody already knows each other.
I found business development opportunities with partners that I never
would have seen in one place anywhere else.”
Dave Hendry
President
Real Curriculum
On the evening of December 5, the
Disney Environmentality Challenge hosted a reception at the Castle Green,
an historical landmark in Old Town Pasadena. Environmentality
award-winning teacher Bob Comlossy from the Lake Tahoe
Environmental Magnet School
spoke of the importance of building an awareness of environmental
challenges among young students like his fifth graders.
Following a second day of packed
workshops, the closing general session on December 6 included keynotes by
the lovable and quixotic Bill Nye the Science Guy, whose television series
won 28 Emmys in five years, and An Inconvenient Truth producer Laurie
David. David spoke, along with co-writer Cambria Gordon, about their new
book, The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming, which offers suggestions
on ways kids can help combat climate change.
Michael Winters was surrounded by his students as he accepted the Green
California Hall of Fame Educator Award for his unique, student-run
research and development program at
Gabrielino High School.
Guy Mehula, chief facilities director at LAUSD, along with
Julie Korenstein, LAUSD Board Member,
and Angelo Bellomo, Director of LAUSD Office of
Environmental Health and Safety,
received the District Award on behalf of
LAUSD, which won for its $20 billion New School Construction and
Modernization Program.
“I thought the event was really phenomenal, a
great opportunity to discuss new ideas. It was refreshing for me to run
into folks who were not familiar with the school bond program (ID) at all.
I look forward to bringing the State Allocation Board meeting to the next
event in December and exposing board members to the sustainability
dialogue. I walked around with some people that I had released school
funding to, and who had actually built their schools, and they were
impressed with what they saw at the Summit. That was the acid test for
me.”
Rob Cook
Executive Officer
California Office of Public School Construction
As the last of the exhibits were broken down and loaded into trucks,
stragglers still gathered outside the Civic trading business cards. Mud
Baron, who works with LAUSD’s Department of Health Education as a school
garden specialist, posted himself along the thoroughfare surrounded by
batches of flowers. As people passed by, they received roses in homegrown
bouquets and gathered to hear stories of the many gardens Mud and LAUSD
students care for – and to make plans to meet again at the Summit in 2009.
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