Thinking Green in the Classroom

Students from the Point Loma-based High Tech High School are learning more about sustainable design, green building standards, and architecture through the "Gravel to Green" Quarry Falls project. They're getting to experience what it means to brainstorm and create their own environmentally-friendly designs for Mission Valley's first public school, which will be owned and operated by the world-renowned High Tech High. The new school will be located within Quarry Falls, which has been registered as a LEED-ND pilot project - "Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Neighborhood Development." View the San Diego Union Tribune article "Blueprints for a Green School" below to see how younger generations have been thinking green and helping to contribute toward the sustainable future of San Diego.


Blueprints for a Green School
By Jennifer K Mahal
UNION-TRIBUNE
May 17, 2008

POINT LOMA – Talk with Dax London about his plans for the future High Tech High Quarry Falls School and you'll hear about sustainable development, green building standards and the basketball court he wants to add to the roof.

London, 15, is one of 45 students at Point Loma-based Gary and Jerri-Ann Jacobs High Tech High School learning about city planning, environmental awareness, property rights and more through designing a green school slated for Mission Valley.
During the “Gravel to Green” project, students from Isaac Jones and Peter Jana's 10th-grade classes are acting as architects for the 700-student kindergarten-through-eighth-grade charter school planned for a 3½-acre parcel in the proposed Quarry Falls development.

No architect has been chosen to design the school, but officials say it is possible some of the elements from the Gravel to Green project would be incorporated into the campus.

Quarry Falls, which is going through the San Diego planning commission and City Council approval process, is bordered on the south by Friars Road, on the north by Serra Mesa, on the west by Mission Center Road and on the east by Interstate 805.
Developer Sudberry Properties wants to transform the 230 acres of sand and gravel pits, currently mined by Vulcan Materials Co., into a planned community that will include up to 4,510 residences along with retail, commercial and civic space.
High Tech High, which operates eight charter schools in the region, is known for personalized learning, using hands-on projects to engage students.

In teams of two or three, the students will use the requirements for the Quarry Falls campus to create a scaled floor plan, three-dimensional interior and exterior images, a site plan drawing and a building model made of recycled materials.
“It's amazing how easy it is to get them to work on it,” said Jones, who teaches math and science.

The designs have to comply with a rating system set by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), which gives points for reducing light pollution, building with local materials and using solar panels.
Some of the designs include a rock-climbing wall playground and a greenhouse. Kit Haggard, 15, wants to have a two-story wall of windows, so the students can look out on the light shining through a stand of ficus trees and the nearby bioswale, a creeklike water-cleansing system.

“The question is,” Haggard said, “what do you want future generations to walk away with?”

Gravel to Green, sponsored by Platt/Whitelaw Architects, started at an open house last year, when Jones mentioned that he wanted to do an architecture project. Grijalva was one of the parents in the audience. Her son, Julian, is in the Jones/Jana class.

For 15 years, Grijalva has volunteered with the San Diego Architectural Foundation's Built Environment Education Program, which teams architects and teachers.
Soon after Jones and Grijalva met and started brainstorming, they heard that High Tech High had received a charter from the San Diego Unified School District for a school at Quarry Falls. Grijalva, who has experience designing schools, contacted Sudberry.

The development company is providing site drawings, the environmental impact report, even setting up a tour of the quarry in early April.
Marco Sessa, vice president of development for Sudberry, became one of the first guest speakers to talk with the students. He said they grilled him on everything from traffic to site density.

“I was hammered with questions for two hours,” said an impressed Sessa. “It was the same kind of questions you might get from any planning group in the city.”
Students have also heard presentations by Grijalva, High Tech High facilities director Chris Gerber, the San Diego Planning Department and Platt/Whitelaw architects Jeff Barr and Thomas Brothers, among others.

Barr said he hopes students will come away from the Gravel to Green experience with the ability to really think about their environment.

“To design a building or some physical entity is one thing,” Barr said. “But what (architecture) taught me is how to design your life, to think critically, to go beyond taking everything for granted.”

The project has already given some students a new appreciation for the buildings on the Point Loma campus.

“Everything about the school is incredibly deliberate,” Haggard said, pointing to the window-fronted classrooms and open floor plan.

No architect has been chosen for the Quarry Falls campus, which the developer hopes will break ground in 2010. Carrier Johnson is the architect for the Quarry Falls master plan, but High Tech High will choose its own firm to do the school plans, Sessa said.

The students will present their final designs in June.

“I think there's a strong likelihood that great ideas will make their way into the design,” Sessa said.