Sustainable School Building Projects

Sustainable school building projects are educational structures built for children with limited educational facilities or none at all. Often, school buildings are built with the help of donors and sponsors. This list of sponsors can include a corporation, a government agency, non-government organizations and a team of designers and suppliers. Below are two notable school building projects in place all over the world.

Microsoft's School of the Future-In 2003, the school district of Philadelphia enlisted the help of Microsoft to build a ‘School of the Future' for 750 students in grades 9-12. The ‘School of the Future' is meant to serve as a model of learning in the 21st century by the practice and promote digital inclusion; Integrate technology into every area of the learning community, including curriculum delivery, community collaboration, office support, content creation, and sharing content and assessments; generate innovative education practices and new models for learning; and create an environment that engages all learning community members and helps to inspire passionate, personal responsibility for learning.

Hana Elementary and High School-The Hana Elementary and High School, located in Maui, Hawaii is the first American school building made of sustainable bamboo. The building was constructed by Bamboo Living, the global leader in sustainable bamboo living. The 1,200 square foot building will be used to teach industrial arts to high school students, including how to make use of sustainable materials such as bamboo. The bamboo used for the school building is said to feature twice the compression strength of concrete and a greater strength-to-weight ratio than steel. It was also said that Bamboo's environmental benefits include the ability to produce greater biomass and 30% more oxygen than a hardwood forest on the same area. The use of bamboo and other sustainable building materials aims to reverse the effects of global warming and raise communities out of poverty through crop propagation skills.

Promotional efforts and campaigns for projects such as these are quite limited as they rely on donations and sponsorship. An affordable but effective alternative to large campaigns is the use of small print materials like flyers, bookmarks, stickers, tags and postcards. These materials can be directly mailed and can communicate the message instantly. Online printing companies like Uprinting for example, provide small business owners in rural communities and low-income areas lending opportunities through Kiva.com Uprinting provides funding to start small marketing campaigns of small business and non-profit organizations.

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