Rogers Green Team Learns About Being Green at Home

At Ground Education, we believe students should learn about sustainable choices they can make in many settings – at school, at home, when shopping or traveling, etc.  Once you learn to view the world though a “green” lens, the opportunities to make a difference seem endless.  This week the students at Rogers Middle School joined us for a walking field trip to the home of Holland and Nick Brown to see a house that was remodeled to:

• produce its own energy,
• use minimal water,
• create healthy indoor air, and
• be durable with long-lasting sustainable materials. 

 
The students had a scavenger hunt through the house looking for green features in each of the above categories, and got real-time feedback of how much energy it takes to run an air conditioner.  When the A/C was on, the house was using more energy that n the solar panels were producing.  As soon as we turned the A/C off, the house was generating an energy surplus.  Since the temperature in Long Beach was close to 90, we immediately turned the A/C back on.
 
The middle schoolers asked thoughtful questions about how things were made, how you measure things like air quality, and where in the world are the toilet tanks (answer: hidden inside the bathroom walls.)  They all went home with lots of ideas to share with their family and friends.

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