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Home > Archive by tag 'Curriculum'
By Brian Skeele, on May 25th, 2011
Imagine. An elementary school and the surrounding neighborhoods joining together to become a sustainable community with the school at its heart.
 Biologies on the roots, detoxify water! Science Rules! Tapping into the Power of Biologies; Community Composting and Recycling Water – Part 5
Throughout the neighborhood, attached greenhouses provide essential composting, soil studies and crop production opportunities. The solar recharged neighborhood electric cart collection service gives teens an opportunity to make money by driving household food scraps to the community composting bins.
“Living Machines,” water recycling tanks, demonstrate how bacteria and microorganisms purify water.
Living Machines, invented by Dr. John Todd, use plants and microbes to clean water instead of chemicals. They can handle household waste, and easily tackle industrial wastes, turning 600 to 750,000 gallons of waste per day into hyacinths and snails… Dr. Todd (a student of Bucky Fuller BTW), has been working with Living Machines for decades has found that there are certain plants or small animals that love certain kinds of waste. What he does is let the water run through a series of cisterns with different plants in each. What one plant likes to eat, it turns into other forms of waste, so in the next cistern he has the plant that considers that waste food. By the time the water comes out, it’s 5 times cleaner than traditional waste water treatment….
Part 1  Part 2  Part 3 Part 4  Part 5
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By Brian Skeele, on May 18th, 2011
Imagine. An elementary school and the surrounding neighborhoods joining together to become a sustainable community with the school at its heart. Part 4
“If it Ain’t Fun, it Ain’t Sustainable”
If it ain't fun, it ain't sustainable!
Students of all ages have learned that working together with the whole community, coming up with inspired ideas on how to live more affordably and lighter on the planet, is fun. Out of a Community Design Day session, a recreational waterslide was created utilizing the rooftop of the 2-story addition. In the winter, a used snow-making machine, donated by the Santa Fe ski basin, turns the waterslide into “the Luge,” a great playground for the entire community. The water park and snow playground are the source of many lesson plans; hands-on everyday science.
So what kind of fun would you add to your future neighborhood??…. READ MORE >>
By Brian Skeele, on May 4th, 2011
Imagine. An elementary school and the surrounding neighborhoods joining together to become a sustainable community with the school at its heart. Part 2
Food; Community, Connection, Curriculum, and Cooking
Health, nutrition and cooking are all coordinated around the local agriculture program, “Yards to Farms”. The school’s kitchen has an expanded program that uses food to teach and create a more sustainable lifestyle. “Farms to Schools” and “Yards to Farms” bring regionally grown food to the plate, increasing local food security while lowering the shipping distances. Children now have a personal connection with their food as they regularly take working field trips to farms in the region and integrate classroom learning with hands-on growing. Several homes and commercial facilities in the neighborhood have constructed attached greenhouses, so food production is a year-round occurrence in the community.
Salsa Café and Bakery has transformed the former school kitchen into a great place for a meal. The facility is used “around the clock”, with the “Git ‘n Go Assembled Meals,” two different meal share plans, and the evening music scene where kids and adults get together and have a lot of fun playing music. Culinary and baking skills are taught to all ages, and the meals feature local and regional organic produce, dairy, fruit and meats.
The “Git ‘n Go Assembled Meals” program, especially appreciated by working parents, … READ MORE >>
By Brian Skeele, on April 27th, 2011
Together, we can transform our way of life sustainable! By sharing our visions and ideas of our desired future, we can “build it on paper”. That’s how real estate development works. The proposal gets created, the numbers are crunched, the financing lines up, and building permits are issued. It all starts with the vision!
Puzzle pieces coming together around a shared vision
The prospects for sustainable “mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhoods” has never been brighter. Suburban sprawl has run its course. Gasoline prices are facing a new era of worldwide Post Peak Oil production. Those of us who have a vision and want to move in are in the driving seat of the emerging sustainable economy; the construction industry is all ears!
Be bold, Dream Big, envision with all your heart. In that way, we will have a “big enough why” to be as creative and innovative as necessary to make sustainable neighborhoods real!
Here’s my vision of a sustainable, quality filled neighborhood that lives lightly on the planet.
Imagine. An elementary school and the surrounding neighborhoods joining together to become a sustainable community with a school at its heart.
The entire community is experiencing a wide range of benefits since neighborhood residents, the city, local service providers, nearby businesses, parents, students, teachers and the school’s administration decided to work together to create mutually beneficial facilities. Benefits include job creation, an increase in city revenues, a pedestrian friendly lifestyle, safe streets for children to play, a huge jump in test scores, a much lowered dropout rate, a big increase in workforce housing and a less consumptive, more affordable lifestyle that allows Santa Feans to live lighter on the planet…. READ MORE >>
By Brian Skeele, on March 21st, 2011
I should have been a woodshop teacher, (BA in Industrial Arts) but went into construction instead.
Much to my amazement, I keep being drawn to learning, my own ongoing growth and the Santa Fe School District’s trials and tribulations. Quite a few years ago, I came across the idea that schools could be centers of communities; in fact they used to be, all across America. The light bulbs went off…What if schools were reconfigured and became the hearts of “Mixed use, mixed income neighborhoods, with lifelong learning, and open space”??!!
 Live, work, play, learn, shop, all within walking If they were conveniently located, and multiple stories for commercial shops and teacher’s housing were added for smarter density, teachers could walk to READ MORE >>
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