ET213 – Teaching Schools: Arlington's Net-Zero-Energy Schools

Additional fee, registration required.

Seize the opportunity to tour three highly innovative, net-zero-energy elementary schools in Arlington County, all designed by VMDO Architects.

You'll get an inside look at Discovery, Fleet, and Cardinal—examining consistent features and specialized solutions across the three schools. The tour will focus on how the schools were designed as "teaching tools," with sustainable features that serve as valuable, interactive moments for students to learn about their role in environmental stewardship.

This is a bus tour.

Learning Objectives

1. Identify common strategies and specialized differences between the three schools to create a tool kit for net-zero design.
2. Rethink how building features can also serve as teaching tools to enhance educational spaces and prepare students of the future to act as environmental stewards.
3. Study the balance between short-term costs and long-term operations savings on public budgets through an analysis of the schools' integrated MEP systems and on-site renewables.
4. Tie the schools' sustainable strategies to data-driven results and learn how to use post-occupancy evaluations to self-assess and provide valuable feedback.

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