Students Attend Classes in a Net-Zero Energy Building with a Hydroponics Unit
Discovery Elementary School is a public K-5 school in Arlington, VA, named for astronaut and Sen. John Glenn, who once lived near the park where the school now stands. Opened in 2015, Discovery was the largest net-zero energy elementary school ever built in the United States and the first net-zero energy school of any kind in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The 97,588-square-foot school, which has around 700 students, is a U.S. Department of Education Green Ribbon School and a National Wildlife Federation Eco-Schools USA Green Flag School.
Recently, The Earth & I conducted an interview with Discovery Principal Dr. Erin Healy.
E&I: Dr. Healy, you were hired as the principal one year before the opening of the Discovery Elementary School. Could you please tell us what steps you took to prepare the teachers, staff, and PTA to create a green sustainability-centered school.
Dr. Healy: When we first opened, we had to build community. We were pulling students from three overcrowded elementary schools … We had to come together and decide: “What do we want Discovery to be?”
We screened a movie about some outdoor school in Europe (School’s Out: Lessons from a Forest Kindergarten.) They have kids go outside—in the sunshine, rain, and snow—from ages two to seven. Every day, they're just outside. They're using knives, building fires, and doing all of the things that American schools are not doing. Those kids don't come inside and learn letters and how to read and write until age seven. And we're kind of forcing it on our students at age five. And it all meters out, right? It inspired the parents to think outside the box and know that active, outside play is important.
We also screened another movie that was about all the plastics in the ocean. The marine biologists who created that documentary were able to interact with our students, and our students were able to ask them questions. Again, any normal elementary school might not watch a movie about plastics in the ocean, but because this is central to what we do—it becomes part of our community.
E&I: Yes, education should prepare students to solve these critical problems. If they know about such issues, they can think about solutions.
Dr. Healy: Yes. Our students also do research projects. Second graders, for example, are located in the “ocean” wing of our school, so everything that they see is about the ocean. When the teachers said, “Let's do a research project. What do we want to educate people about?” They decided they wanted students to learn about the importance of rainwater. So, on the caps of the public rainwater sewer system [in the school’s driveway and parking areas], they drew animals, like fish and frogs, with a paint that only shows up when it rains. When it rains, the paint shows up and you can see a frog or a fish. They were just raising awareness about the rain, what the water does, and who it affects.
E&I: You mentioned the fifth-grade research project and how they created a trap for the sewers?
Dr. Healy: Yes. We did a “design thinking challenge” and had every grade level do something related to the hallway that they were in. Fifth grade is in the “galaxy” hallway, so it's all about energy, but they were struggling to figure out what they should do and they came up with an idea not related to energy. They were concerned about the amount of trash that was in the school parents’ car loop and falling into the local water system because there's a huge gap where all the rainwater flows.
They said we should put a net or something there to stop that, and so they designed it, built it, and set it up. It was wonderful. Then they graduated, and we were like, “Okay, goodbye fifth graders.” Four days or so later, summer school started.
And then this happened on the first day of summer school: We in Arlington, Virginia, had never seen the amount of rain that fell. The first forty-five minutes were crazy. It was an absolute deluge. Well, the turf field that has the crumb rubber covering, it all lifted, came down the hill into that school parking loop, and was about to be swept away into the local sewer, but the net was there that the kids had built, and it stopped all that crumb.
After the sun came out, the crumb dried up, and there was a layer of it several inches deep. The Arlington County public service system came out and was able to vacuum it up and put it back in the field. It never got into the sewer system. I was thinking, “I need to go find those fifth graders and thank them each individually” because all of it could have just polluted our sewer system. But their net system stopped it—it was just spectacular.
E&I: What would you recommend to other schools who would like to develop their environmental education?
Dr. Healy: I think for another school or school system to replicate this, it's really important that people have time together to plan. None of this happens without planning, but it’s all extra for our teachers on their own time—like what the art teacher and the advanced academic teacher do … running the eco-action team.
There's no time in the day for them to formally plan for that, so they're doing it on their own time. We’re the only school in the county that's so focused on sustainability. Any time that we use for this is done on our own time. We don't have the time, so we make time. … I am so grateful for all the people that do it on their own time, but it would be lovely and better for students if it could be planned and purposeful.
E&I: By planned and purposeful, do you mean it would be part of the curriculum?
Dr. Healy: Yes. As if the county could say, “You have this one day; how much could we actually get done in planning the different types of activities that are already happening for our students?”
It's on the backs of teachers who care and love it, and it's their passion. And, if you think about the busy work week, it would be great if there was support in that area.
E&I: In your networking with other schools do you see the same issues?
Dr. Healy: Yes, I do. I am in communication with the principal of a school in Fairfax. They have a lovely garden system and all sorts of things, but they also struggle with finding the time for their teachers to prepare for the activities, for the students, and for outside learning—it's just hard.
E&I: So, in a sense, education is backward. It has not caught up with today's needs. On another topic, are there different things in the kitchen that can save energy?
Dr. Healy: Yes. Our kitchen doesn't have a deep fat fryer, which most elementary schools have. It's all electric and modular, so that every piece in the kitchen can be taken out if it doesn't work and a new element put in.
I think that was new when they were building this school. One other thing I'll say is that we can feed the students with everything that we grow and produce, which is awesome. I don't know if all schools do that.
“We can feed the students with everything that we grow and produce, which is awesome.”
E&I: You harvest enough to be able to use it in the kitchen?
Dr. Healy: We harvest enough lettuce, if you can believe it, for use in the kitchen. We also donate extra [lettuce] to the local food bank because we have so much. When the hydroponics unit is full, it overflows with lettuce. There's just so much there, and the second graders get to harvest it, which they love, and we serve it to the staff and students.
And while talking about donating, every student is required to take a piece of fruit and a carton of milk at lunch. But many don’t consume them. So, we collect them and put them in a special refrigerator to be given to the food bank as well. Last year, we donated 600 pounds of food to local food banks.
E&I: The school was built as a green school, but it was still within the budget, right?
Dr. Healy: Yes, one of the main reasons that the county board gave VMDO Architects the bid to build the school was because they said that they could come in under budget and make the building sustainable. The architects said they could do it, and they did it. It was a win-win situation.
“[W]e produce so much extra energy that the school is able to offset the cost of other schools’ electric bills.
E&I: Where is your energy stored and how much does it cost to store it?
Dr. Healy: We don't have the exact information right now, but from what I heard from the county energy manager, we produce so much extra energy that the school is able to offset the cost of other schools’ electric bills. [As part of Discovery’s eco-friendly elements, the school has 1,706 rooftop photovoltaic (PV) solar panels generating 496 kW of power.]
Kathy Lin, who's the Arlington County Energy Manager, actually advocated at the state level to change a law to allow us to offset our energy. … [S]he advocated and helped pass a bill so that now we can offset the [electricity] cost for other schools.
E&I: Another issue is character education. You said a lot about collaboration.
Dr. Healy: Collaboration is the backbone of the school. If you don't believe in collaboration, don't come here. Every staff member knows that. Regarding character education, we follow something called "The Responsive Classroom."
We send our teachers to a four-day training for level one and another four days for level two. It's about whole-school character education. Every classroom in Discovery starts with a morning meeting, with four components: the greeting, the sharing, the group activity, and the morning message. It’s about logical consequences, redirecting language, and it clarifies a lot of the expectations we have for students.
Together, we talk about CARES. That's cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control. We're teaching all those things daily in morning meetings and in “closing circles.”
E&I: One of our recent articles for the Earth & I was on Green School Bali. A couple times a day they ring a gong and have a minute or so of “mindfulness” or meditation.
Dr. Healy: It's so funny that you bring that up because I was hired a year before the school was opened. I was sitting in an office, and I was thinking, “How am I going to make this a sustainable school? How am I going to do this?”
I did research, and Green School Bali came up. I couldn't believe how cool it was, and I reached out to them and was in communication with their "sustainability director." I asked, "Hey, I'm in Virginia, we're opening a new school, and I've never done this before. I've never been a principal. How do we make it sustainable?" And we talked.
The PTA for our building actually formed before I was hired. … It turned out that the PTA president was a roommate in college with someone who worked at Green School Bali! I thought this is kismet, this is fate, because I reached out to them just from my research indicating they're a great school. I had no idea what I was doing, and then she was telling me this—all these connections, that's what it takes. It takes learning from others, learning how to do this.
I joke with my staff all the time. “We need to take a trip there. We need to do a vacation to Bali, Indonesia, because it's work related.”
E&I: Thank you very much.
For The Earth & I, Marion Warin Miller spoke with Dr. Healy. She is a French bilingual researcher, writer, and editor now residing in Northern Virginia.