Retro_Fit: greening educational facilities for carbon neutrality and students' performance

Authors

  • Ihab M. K. Elzeyadi University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17831/rep:arcc%25y131

Keywords:

educational Environments, green retrofits, sustainable building performance, , environmental impacts, occupant health & productivity

Abstract

Existing classrooms and educational spaces are problematic. They approximately consume 30% of the nation's electricity, generate 35% of our waste, use 8% of water resources and are responsible for 20% of green house gas (GHC) and carbon dioxide emissions. While the new construction sector of the building industry has benefited from green products and building strategies to produce high-performance sustainable schools, existing classrooms have been largely ignored. This is a problem of huge proportions because the amount of occupied classroom space in the US exceeds 20 billion square feet. These existing educational spaces, generally a product of the past 30-50 years, are not energy conscious, and many of the new building products and sustainable strategies are not applicable to existing classroom retrofits. This research project targets this problem by developing evidence-based design guidelines for retrofitting existing educational spaces through the Green Classroom Toolbox (GCRT) project. This paper gives a synopsis of this project and provides a roadmap for its future application and replication.
The objective of the GCRT project was to develop green design guidelines for retrofitting existing educational spaces based on carbon neutrality metrics and student achievement outcomes. These guidelines were generated from a list of best retrofit practices that were identified by practitioners in a baseline survey and a series of focus groups, in a collaborative effort with academics. The identified best practices were then analyzed for their impact on building energy use and carbon emission using computer simulations. This data was further analyzed together with an extensive meta-analysis of prior studies related to the impacts of the best practices on occupancy health and students' performance. One of the significant goals of this project is to link green retrofit best practices with their energy and carbon emission reductions as well as with their impact on human health and student achievements. The hope is to provide a comprehensive decisions support tool for practitioners and school principals that will help them prioritize and evaluate green classroom retrofit strategies in a holistic way.

Author Biography

Ihab M. K. Elzeyadi, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon

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Published

2013-08-26

How to Cite

Elzeyadi, I. M. K. (2013). Retro_Fit: greening educational facilities for carbon neutrality and students’ performance. ARCC Conference Repository. https://doi.org/10.17831/rep:arcc%y131