Abstract:

For many years various recipes for environmental education for students are adopted in Europe, Agenda 21 program over all.
The added value is obvious to all, the receptive individual sensitivity is inversely proportional to his age.
It is therefore an investment in education with great chances of success, especially with youngest students.
But try to imagine how different it would propose a course of education to pupils in a zero emission school than a building built according to traditional uses.
The first public buildings should be constructed or converted to zero emission policy should be its own schools, and for various reasons:
• Ethic value
• Practical Educational Value
• Economic sustainability of the project.
Students will understand that those "mirrors" installed on the roof are just the devices they provide their hot water in bathrooms and light when pushing the light switch.
Regarding to the affordability of such a project should do a double reflection.
Firstly the school does not consume an excessive volume of energy, from a superficial examination we see that we do not have air conditioning, a small percentage of hearing preservation food than a normal inhabitant (a residential building has at least one refrigerator, a washing machine and a dishwasher per apartment), so there should be no peaks of energy consumption.
But more importantly, at least in Italy, is that schools are closed from mid June to mid September, so all the energy accumulated during the hottest months of the year will be available to the municipality.
This means that the municipalities should not be difficult to find a technical partner to start a process of project financing that provides the possibility for it to be able to capture the excess energy, which as said during the annual period should not be low.
Another essential partner should be the Company that works in waste collection, although here it looks directly the contribution of renewable energy is not straightforward, and how it is important to invest in well-separated waste collection.
This would be implemented through a boost initial information is aimed at motivating children to pursue a separate waste collection, but motivating children through an initiative that places before their eyes the result of the hard work of their waste.
This could be done either through a competition or just simulating the actual result of the collection.
Let's remember that the school is the center of public life of a particular community and therefore would be educational not only for students but for families and all who live around the building.
We know there are technological applications (iPad, Kindle. ...) that have almost infinite capacity for information and easy of elementary use.
Their use should offer a big help to the students, families and… forests!
Large companies offer innovative products every day in the field of sustainable energy, energy saving and ICT, but the real innovation is not in put them in the world, but using them completely.

Keywords:

Enviromental education, zero emission school building, innovation.