It does not look like a typical elementary school with its two stories, sharp roof inclines and high windows. The $19 million Twin Lakes Elementary School is even more atypical with all its energy efficiencies that earned it a LEED certification.
The new school, set to open for the 2007-2008 school year, is the fourth in the district to earn the designation, and all four schools focus on environmentally friendly designs and materials, as well as being 50 percent energy efficient. Elk River Area School District Director of Special Projects Ron Bratlie has been a main catalyst in efforts to make new Elk River schools LEED certified and energy efficient.
"When we say this is going to be a LEED-certified building, architects, engineers, construction management and the contractors know there are certain perimeters they are going to have to maintain," Bratlie explains, "so it's kind of a level of expectation of craftsmanship and goal setting. It's establishing an expectation."
As part of the Leadership in Energy and Environment Design, the designation promotes green, or high performance, buildings where things such as natural lighting, green space and fresher air are incorporated in the building's design. At the same time, these things are accomplished using energy-efficient measures to bring about operational savings and a healthier learning environment for students.
Bratlie says between Rogers High School, and Hassan, Westwood and Twin Lakes elementary schools, the district will save $300,000 annually in its operating costs. This savings would be the equivalent of six additional teachers' salaries or 12 to 15 salaries for support staff, according to the district official.
To build these high-performance buildings with all the energy efficiencies does not cost any more to build than traditional schools, Bratlie contends. The district has been so successful in its efforts to build LEED-certified schools, that it has become known as a national model for school districts, and received the U.S. E.P.A. Excellence Award in Indoor Air Quality.
Bratlie has also become a nationally recognized expert in high performance schools. He was one of seven recipients awarded the 2005 Energy Leadership Award at the 16th Annual Energy Efficiency Forum in Washington, D.C. He gets visitors from around the nation and outside the country wanting to tour the district's energy-conscious schools.
The buzz is over how a school building can affect students' capacity to learn based on the environment it provides them. In the past the idea was to provide better curriculum and educational methods to get better student test results. But Bratlie says research supports a 25 percent improvement in math and English test scores when students get more natural light while studying in the classroom setting. He adds that students are able to concentrate more, maintain better moods, and are better behaved as well.
In Twin Lakes Elementary School, lighting is a major consideration in its design and function. Classrooms have ceilings that slant inward allowing for higher windows and more natural light. The downward slant of the ceiling into the classroom bounces more light to the back of the room, and the lighting system is such that lights automatically turn off when the room is bathed in enough light. These features, and the view of the outdoors students have with the bigger windows, make for a more productive learning environment.
Hallways also have natural light from light tubes that are essentially sky lights that filter natural light into tubes where the light is diffused, then magnified and reflected outward and down into the hallways.
The science classroom has an experimental light feature where a control button activates light shelves on two levels of the classroom windows. In 10 minutes electrodes built into the windows activate and tint the windows to block sun glare from the room.
"This is just in the science room, and the vision we have is that in curriculum they (students) can be studying the building and its energy-efficiency features," Bratlie says. "We have some teachers who will just take that and run with it."
This is part of the fifth-graders curriculum at Westwood. Students become so well versed in the school's energy-saving attributes that they give the tours people take when visiting the school.
Another experimental area built into Twin Lakes is its 2,500-square-foot green roof. Soil about the depth of potting flats will allow students to plant vegetables, grasses or other plants they may study. Foot paths are built into the design, and there may also be a table where students can sit at to read and study.
"It's a learning center really," Bratlie says, "and it's there to see if it's something we want to pursue more down the road."
Air quality is another key component of this high-performance school. Each room in the building has diffusers shaped like cylinders covered with holes the size of a kitchen sink drain stopper. They run ceiling-to-floor and diffuse fresh air three or four degrees colder than room air temperature. The colder air, diffused from a section about 4 feet up from the floor, drops and spreads out much like water poured out over the floor. As the air moves out and meets a person or other heated object, the air moves up and around that person or object. The fresh air that is delivered has the sensation of an oxygen mask. Stale hot air, and the contaminants it holds (from viruses for instance), is removed through an exhaust system that does not recirculate it to other areas, thus reducing airborne illnesses.
In traditional systems the supply of fresh air mixes with existing air without ever getting down to where people breathe it in, resulting in a decrease of air efficiency.
During winter, energy exchange wheels in the upper parts of the building's mechanical room have silicone sand on them that absorbs heat and moisture from the air before exhausting it outside. Much colder in-coming winter air is heated by the trapped hot air absorbed by the wheel. Then it disperses through the building to help furnaces heat the school's air temperature quicker for considerable energy savings. Also the humidity removed from exhausted air is put back into drier winter air coming into the building to help with the building's natural humidity levels.
In non-winter months, the process is reversed when heat and humidity are removed from in-coming air and exhausted outside before the air is dispersed through the building.
Using recycled building materials is also an important component in the design of the Twin Lakes school. The carpeting used throughout the school is made from recycled material. Should a stain occur, or a hole somehow develop in the carpet, that piece can be cut out and matched up to a piece of carpet with the same design. The new piece can then be welded in place where the old section was cut out, and the seam is barely visible. In fact, when Bratlie pointed out a seam in a doorway, it was hardly detectable. The carpet has a 10-year warranty as well.
That warranty and the long wear of the carpet is important in keeping down the cost of rehabilitating schools that ordinarily fall into either disrepair or have outdated amenities. Bratlie claims it is much easier to get money for a new school than it is to try to get money for large expensive rehabilitation projects. And adding extra equipment to compensate for growing enrollments can be equally hard to finance, too.
"Typically what happens in school districts-at least in this school district-is that it is easier for us to get new buildings because people realize we need new buildings with the influx of families with kids," Bratlie says. "Plus there is some state money that helps, so we don't pay the full dollar."
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