Greensburg, Kansas, opens greenest school

Greensburg, Kansas was a town of 2,000 in 2007. But the town was wiped out almost completely when an F5 tornado, one of the strongest ever to touch ground in the United States, swept away 95 percent of the town’s buildings and sent a big chunk of the residents to find homes and jobs in other parts of the country.

The population fell to 800, and the kids who stayed in town have spent the last two and a half years attending school in makeshift trailers.

That’s all changing.

Greensburg has gone green.

The town opened its new $50 million kindergarten through 12th grade school last week, and students are starting school there today (Aug. 23). It’s the first school in the country to earn the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design’s top Platinum designation.
It’s just one of the newly emerging Green Town’s accomplishments.

Greensburg city administrator Steve Hewitt saw the town’s demolition as an opportunity in 2007.

The town’s population had been dwindling even before the tornado destroyed it. He recommended to town leaders that they take this opportunity rebuild the community as a model for the modern world.

The town administration made a commitment in 2008 to rebuild using solar and wind power generation and to construct all new public buildings to strict Platinum-level LEED certification.

The town has installed solar arrays and wind turbines. The John Deer plant was one of the first buildings in town to come back online and was the first industrial plant to receive the Platinum LEED certification.

When the green town’s new school opens this week, it will be using less energy than any other public school building of its size.

The building’s successful energy savings come, in large, from the use of passive solar. While it’s common to install solar panels to collect the sun’s rays, people often forget the sun’s simpler function. Light.

Students at the new school will be able to play basketball in the gym and fill in standardized test bubbles normally without having to flip any switches or squint against the yellow fluorescent lights.

The building, in every area, is filled with natural light.

While the sun isn’t generating energy for the school through panels, it is saving energy by providing light.