Teaching Future Generations Sustainable Design -
Building an Integrated Curriculum as a Lasting Legacy

A collaboration between the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Boston Society of Architects (BSA), and Learning By Design in Massachusetts (LBD:MA)

In conjunction with each of its annual conferences, the USGBC completes a legacy project to support a local initiative such as a non-profit organization that is successfully implementing green building practices and using the LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) green building rating system, the national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings.

The Legacy Project committee has leveraged its USGBC grant and other resources by collaborating with the AIA’s local chapter, the Boston Society of Architects (BSA). The BSA’s Committee on the Environment (COTE) has spearheaded similar goals to spread green strategies, and its children’s education organization, Learning By Design (LBD) in Massachusetts has agreed to lead a joint Legacy Project on behalf Greenbuild and BSA organizers.

On May 13th, 2008, after months of planning coordinated between the Greenbuild Legacy Project committee and BSA, LBD:MA formally kicked off the initiative by hosting a Visioning Workshop that marked the beginning of a three-year Legacy Project to craft a sustainable architecture and design curriculum for K-12 students. This project has been selected as an implementation-oriented effort to foster more widespread green education, demonstration and interpretation in the City of Boston and other Massachusetts schools. The goal of the multi-year initiative is to develop a flexible, interdisciplinary, standards-based curriculum to teach Green Architecture & Design, first in grades 5-8, then in grades K-12. In this holistic, “systems thinking” approach, students will start with the interconnectivity between the natural environment, buildings and people. Students will define sustainability on a personal level, then become active designers, engaging in hands-on activities concerning natural systems, building systems and community.

Highlighted by two half-day workshops that included the May 13th, 2008 program and will include a November 19th, 2008 program scheduled for Greenbuild, the 2008 Legacy Project seeks to become an established long-term partnership by the end of the year. The workshops and intermediary meetings will bring educators and sustainable design professionals including architects, engineers, scientists, and community leaders together to begin the work of finding common language around core principles of sustainable design. Contributors are asked questions such as, how are students currently learning about the relationship between the natural world and the built world and how can we teach future citizen-leaders sustainable design? And, how can we envision green/sustainable architecture and design tying into existing curriculum? Beyond the workshops, participants will be chosen to be a part of a core group that develops and pilots this curriculum; formally committed educators will also receive curriculum development assistance stipends supported by the BSA and USGBC Legacy Project grants.

LBD:MA will work with its BSA and Greenbuild partners to identify suitable Boston-area school systems to pilot the curriculum in 2009, with ongoing progress reporting and assessment. Organizers are excited for the Legacy Project and aim to shape this vision into an inspirational national sustainable design education model for others in Massachusetts and elsewhere.