Can a green school raise test scores

When students arrive at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. they walk past a wetland and into a building constructed of western red cedar, reclaimed from wine casks. They sit at desks made of recycled and locally produced materials and at lunchtime they can add herbs grown in the school's organic garden to their meal.

The rooftop garden shares space with the solar chimneys.

And that's just a small sample of what makes their school one of the greenest in the country. And they can thank the school's Chief Green Officer for that.

Officially, Michael Saxenian is the school's C.F.O. but his environmental acumen helped create the first LEED Platinum secondary school in the country. (Today there are a total of 4).

When Mike was 10, he was very interested in energy efficient vehicles and played around building hybrid "things." He studied environmental technologies in college and later ran a business that promoted environmental strategies like Ecotourism.

Mike has taken his environmental know-how and coupled it with one of the Quaker school's goals (environmental stewardship) and spearheaded the creation of a totally green school top to bottom. The Sidwell Middle School was not only the first secondary school building in the country to receive a LEED platinum distinction; it is the only LEED Platinum building in the District of Columbia.

The $21 million dollar expansion has resulted in up to a 60% reduction in energy use and the new building uses 93% less municipal water than other buildings on its campus.

When I first saw the building it didn't look that out of the ordinary but when Mike gave me a tour we could hardly take a step before he pointed out another green feature--the floor, walls, ceiling, windows--every aspect of the school's design and building has a green element.

Now Sidwell Friends has partnered with Yale in a study to determine if the school's serene and natural setting affects student and teacher performance. We'll let you know!