For Immediate Release: April 9, 2013
Media Contacts: Emma Filar, Marketing & Communications Associate
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Celebrate Earth Day at the National Building Museum
Discover Green School Trends and Bring Green Learning to Your Community
The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C. offers unique opportunities this Earth Day:
- Discover the latest Green School trends like gardens, green roofs, and recycling
- Visit and explore a net zero energy modular classroom on the Museum’s lawn
- Bring green learning to your community with a special teaching kit
Visit the Green Schools Exhibition
More than 60 million Americans spend their days in K-12 school buildings. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has estimated that 25,000 school buildings now in use are in need of extensive repair or replacement, and that thousands of these schools are circulating air that is unsafe to breathe. With the very real problems of overcrowding, age, budget crises, and inconsistent results facing school districts across the country, many green visions have fallen short.
This Earth Day (Monday, April 22) visit the Green Schools at the National Building Museum, the first-ever museum exhibition dedicated to the greening of American schools. Featuring over 40 exemplary projects from new construction to rehabs to modular classrooms, the exhibition surveys the extraordinary breadth of green school design in the United States through sample building materials, photographs, video, and green products.
The exhibition also showcases the award-winning Sprout Space™ classroom, a cost effective and healthy solution for modular and new school construction, designed by Perkins+Will, a leading international architecture and design firm. The exhibition explores the multiple facets of green schools, from their architectural form and physical systems, to the impact the buildings have on the health and well-being of the children and adults who occupy them. Green Schools will remain on view through January 5, 2014. Learn more at http://go.nbm.org/green-schools.
Green Community Teaching Kit
The National Building Museum’s is proud to offer the Green Community Teaching Kit, a comprehensive approach to studying green, sustainable communities. The kit enables students and educators can create a town from the ground up−complete with model buildings, land use categorization, and planning strategies. Like the Museum's other educational programs, students create their own community by following the steps of the design process. Through this process, students develop skills such as communication, cooperative learning, decision making, analysis, creativity, and innovation.
The Green Community Teaching Kit introduces students to the town of Grayville, a fictional community synthesized from a combination of real-life case studies. While studying the problems of Grayville, students are introduced to the basics of urban planning including land use and zoning. Students then explore the principles of sustainable communities through the investigation of real life towns and cities and through an examination of green buildings and sustainable technologies. They then use these concepts to re-plan Grayville into a new, livable, green community named Greenville.
The curriculum and materials in the Kit are designed to be reused each school year. The Kit includes a large fabric map, lesson plans, and visual aids, all of which are made out of durable, environmentally-friendly materials. The Kit is designed for students in grades 5-8. Educators can watch an introductory video about the Green Community Teaching Kit and apply to receive one on the Museum’s web site: http://www.nbm.org/schools-educators/educators/green-community-teaching-kit.html
The National Building Museum is America’s leading cultural institution dedicated to advancing the quality of the built environment by educating people about its impact on their lives. Through its exhibitions, educational programs, online content, and publications, the Museum has become a vital forum for the exchange of ideas and information about the world we build for ourselves. Public inquiries: 202.272.2448 or visit www.nbm.org. Connect with us on Twitter: @BuildingMuseum and Facebook.
