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Posts Tagged ‘Rural’
Schools: Design Effects Performance
June 9th, 2010
If you remember, last week I wrote a post on the health and learning benefits attributed to green schools. I asked, is it that unrealistic to build green schools in rural areas, and can it be obtained by those who don’t have a lot of money to throw around?
I wanted to expand the statistics found in my last post. Air Quality Sciences, Inc interviewed 667 executives involved in green and traditional educational facilities and this is what they had to say.
- 75% thought green schools cost less over 20 years, but only 50% said that total lifecycle costs are considered when planning a new building.
- The average age of schools before a major renovation is 42 years. 50% of our schools are over 45 years old, 30% are over 60 years old and 21% are 60-50 years old.
- Green schools will cost less to operate over the first 20 years and their lifetime than traditional schools. This is a great opportunity for school districts to get some money back on their investment
- 74% thought that the greatest obstacle to building green schools was a higher construction cost (an average of $3/square foot).
- 67% said that there is not enough awareness about the benefits of green schools.
I think we now all understand the tremendous benefits of green schools for our students, teachers, and administrators, but not every district can afford a new building and I believe that doing something, no matter how small, is better than doing nothing. This led me to seek out information on what others can do to improve the buildings they already have.
A study found in the book Green Schools: Attributes for Health and Learning focused on rural high schools in Virginia. School personnel surveyed the building based on topics, ranging from thermal comfort to the condition of the flooring and the color of the walls, in order to rate the building as substandard, standard or above standard. The study found that there was a significant difference in student performance from students in substandard buildings compared to their peers in above standard buildings. And, the students said the building’s cosmetics, like the condition of the floors and the color of the walls, were more important than the structure of the building.
Teachers from two similar elementary schools in rural Tennessee reported that students in the modern school had a lower level of discipline and health issues and a higher attendance rate than students in a building from 1939.
These results are great news for rural schools that are feeling the pinch, but want to do some upgrading. While more sunlight, better heating and cooling systems, and rain water reuse programs are great, brightly colored walls can make a huge difference on the way people perceive a room. Nicer furnishings and classrooms also solicit more respect from students.
I want to leave you with a video I found to be truly inspiring. Imagine how much happier the world would be if all our students got to study in a place like this, and all of our office and retail buildings had these great characteristics.
Manassas Park Elementary School from Chesapeake Bay Program on Vimeo.
Tags: education, green building, Rural, rural communities
Posted in education, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (2)
Building the Case: Greening Our Schools
June 4th, 2010
Going to school at Howard High was pretty good. The building was built in 1969 and in fairly good shape for a building now in its 40′s; almost every classroom had a window and the library had skylights, but the temperature controls weren’t quite right and often window blinds were shut tight. I didn’t particularly enjoy the building, but it wasn’t bad and could have been much worse.
The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) says the average American spends 90% of their day indoors. Often little thought is put into how the built environment impacts our daily routine. As a socially minded architecture student, I think good buildings should enhance our daily lives and not only be available to those with a fist full of cash. I start to wonder if it really is that unrealistic to build green schools in rural areas.
Currently there are numerous schools being housed in what appear to be tin sheds or leftover trailers. When I hear that “green” schools improve the health of teachers and students, raise test scores and decrease student absences, I ask myself why our schools aren’t doing more to help our students.
The USGBC defines green schools as, “… a school building or facility that creates a healthy environment that is conducive to learning while saving energy, resources and money.”
According to Air Quality Sciences, Inc, Turner Construction, and the USGBC-Green Schools, there are many reasons why schools should be built using “green” practices.
- While average green schools cost $3/square foot more than traditional schools, many are built for the same initial cost. Look at Fossil Ridge High School as an example.
- Green schools see a $12/square foot return based on lower energy and water use, improved teacher retention and lower health care costs.
- The proportion of Americans with asthma increased 75% from 1980-1994, and children five years and younger with asthma increased by 160%.
- Carnegie Mellon reports that increased indoor air quality found in green buildings reduced asthma an average of 38.5%.
- Two Illinois school districts found that after adding cost-effective indoor air quality improvements, student attendance rose by 5%.
- A 15% reduction in absenteeism was a benefit of green schools in Washington State.
- Standardized test scores increase up to 9 percentile points when comparing students in above standard and substandard school buildings.
- Students in daylit schools progressed 20% faster in math and 26% faster in reading than their peers in non daylit schools.
- Student performance increases 5-10% when they have views out of windows.
In our rural school districts, it can be hard to find enough money for textbooks, let alone a new building. But when given the opportunity, are we providing our students and teachers with the best possible opportunities to succeed?
If the statistics I found are correct, this means our decision to build schools goes far beyond financial or environmental factors.
Stay tuned next week for a post looking at different case studies about rural “green” schools.
Photo: Howard High School in Howard, SD
Tags: children, education, green building, Rural
Posted in education, Quality of Life, Rural, Rural Life, Uncategorized | Comments (0)
Has your rural community settled into compliance?
March 5th, 2010
Seth Godin wrote an interesting post last week that I’ve been mulling over since I read it. His post, titled “It’s easier to teach compliance than initiative,” highlights how schools have perpetuated compliance (instead of initiative) because it is easier to teach and easier to test for. In other words, compliance is the easy way out.
I think the same is true for our rural communities. Many of our small towns have laxidasically watched as economies have faltered, people have moved, and Main Streets have emptied. That’s what the road of compliance looks like.
My analogy of how this plays out in rural communities looks something like this:
Small town economies are like a large boulder rolling down a hill. It doesn’t take anyone’s time or effort for the boulder to continue rolling down the hill. But, if you recognize that rolling down the hill isn’t the right path for the boulder and you want to change its course, it takes a ton of effort. First, you have to stop the boulder. Then, you have to push the boulder up the hill. It takes time, effort, strategy, people. And initiative.
The goal of initiative is changing the momentum; whether it’s a boulder rolling down a hill or changing the economy of your community. Compliance, or looking the other way, is the easy path, but it is probably not the path of success.
So, what path do you choose: the path of compliance or the path of initiative? As Godin points out, today’s economy rewards those with initiative.
Photo Credit: Rita Willaert, Flickr
Tags: Economic Development, Rural
Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Rural | Comments (1)
Rural Roots
August 19th, 2009
A friend of mine sent me this well-known illustration of many prairie grasses, including the roots we usually don’t see. I love the powerful comparison to the bluegrass on the left–this is the stuff most of us have in our lawns. (You know, the stuff we water and fertilize so we can mow it more often.)
At the Midwest Rural Assembly earlier this week, I heard more than one speaker talk about needing to find a powerful answer to the question many in urban areas ask about rural: “But there’s nothing out there, is there?” Mary Ellen Connelly, the friend who sent me this image (she’s also an accomplished garden author and nursery owner) shared a wonderful insight as we were discussing the connection between the roots of prairie grasses and the love of living here on the prairie. She said, “Well, you have to look deep on the prairie You have to see the roots. And looking deep leads to enlightenment.”
Let’s help people–the people who’s support we need–to see the roots of life in rural places. Learning how to tell that story just might open our own eyes to the full beauty we sometimes forget about.
Photo Credit: US Environmental Protection Agency
Editor’s Note: Regular readers will remember Joe Bartmann from his days as a Rural Learning Center staff member. Joe is currently leading the Sioux Falls Green Project, but we’ve never closed his “authorship” privileges and welcome future posts.
Tags: ReImagine Rural, Roots, Rural, rural communities, rural living
Posted in Rural, Rural Life | Comments (0)
How does a physicist “fit” into a small town?
October 21st, 2008
Where would a physicist go in a small town to make conversion? No, this statement is not the opening line of a joke: It’s a real question highlighting the difficulty some professionals in rural communities have bringing up their work in a conversation with their neighbors. Farmers can always talk about their crops or the weather; but bring up quantum mechanics or the theory of relativity, and I bet the conversation is pretty short.
Jill Weber Aanenson of Freeman, South Dakota is someone who’s been living the above scenario. She works as a consultant for an out-of-state company that studies radiation and other environmental contaminants. I read about Jill’s story on Eric Abrahamson’s “The New Pioneers”, a blog dedicated to showcasing entrepreneurs in the northern Great Plains.
Sunset outside of Freeman, South Dakota
What struck me about Jill’s story was that she grew up in Sioux Falls, SD, has a job that would allow her to live anywhere, and chooses to live in Freeman. And based on Eric’s description, Aanenson is happy there.
Moving to Freeman, however, was not without its challenges. First off, her job was a conversation killer; people couldn’t grasp what a physicist did, let alone talk about it. Second, she held outsider status; not that she was shunned, but she didn’t quite fit in either. This finally began to change, however, when she started to meet other parents and became involved in a few community groups.
There’s the rub. People who move to a rural community usually have to become an active part of a group to fit into the community. That’s how social connections are made.
The good news is, it’s generally pretty easy to join groups in rural communities. Usually, newcomers are welcomed with open arms. But if you are new to a community, how do you know that being involved in the community is the path to “insider status”?
This issue – how people become a part of a community — is a subject that the Rural Learning Center and Rural Transformations, Inc. hopes to dig into more in the near future. We believe it’s a big issue; after all, if a newcomer doesn’t experience a sense of community and belonging, they are more likely to go elsewhere. And none of our rural communities can afford to let this happen.
If you have some ideas on the subject we would love to hear them.
Tags: community involvement, Freeman SD, Rural, social capital
Posted in Community Development, Community Engagement, Rural | Comments (0)
More
October 14th, 2008
We’re all really well-intentioned folks, I think. This work we do-whether you’re a citizen volunteer or get paid for it-is about changing our communities; making rural a better place to live. And it seems most people-rural and urban alike-think that means making more. More jobs. More people. More buildings. More dollars. More projects. More stuff. More.
DeSmet, SD was home to Laura Ingalls Wilder
So we jump on this cultural and social treadmill we’ve created, we run all day long, and it often sucks the life out of us and our communities. It’s creates stress and hoplessness when our goal is simply more stuff.
What if we spent our days living more of what we really need? In his mind-shifting book Deep Economy, Bill McKibben suggests we all need more of what the Ingalls had in abundance. You know, Laura and the crew from outside Walnut Grove (and the homestead in De Smet, SD). They had lots of time with family, plenty of silence for reflection, and a deep connection with the nature around them.
I believe those are the real, true longings in our souls. I think we can get more-more stillness and quiet, more time without a clock, more meaningful connection to each other and all of nature-in rural communities. It’s why I live in one. And the beauty is, we don’t have to go hunting for these solutions-they’re already here, within us and around us.
So, what if we loosened our grip a bit on the old model-the things we’re ‘supposed to do’ in community and economic development? What if we gave ourselves permission to try things differently? What if we reimagine rural by lifting up and strengthening the wonderful reasons we want to live here in the first place?
A rural livelihood gives us so much more. More life, not stuff.
Tags: Bill McKibben, Deep Economy, DeSmet, Rural, South Dakota
Posted in Community Development, Rural, Rural Life | Comments (0)