The Monarch School’s green roots are deep. We have had a nature-based curriculum from the start. Students, parents and faculty worked to build an outdoor classroom including trails, a pond, natural habitat and native plants. Other environmental activities Monarch faculty and students are actively involved with include the following:

• We are a Monarch butterfly waystation site.

• Monarch teachers integrate environmental education into regular lesson plans (e.g. observing, recording and studying the stages of Monarch butterfly development first hand).

• Students helped design and maintain butterfly gardens on both campuses.

• Students maintain the butterfly garden on a weekly basis at the Houston Zoo.

• Our students and faculty are active participants in Bioneers and Envirothon.

• Richard Klein, Monarch’s math and science teacher, traveled to Honduras as part of Heifer International’s Study Tour for Educators last summer.

• For two years in a row, we have been awarded BP “A+ for Energy” grants.

• Our students have participated in educational plays in collaboration with Mothers for Clean Air to present the perils of air pollution on global warming.

• We have been involved in internet pond studies that link schools from around the world together to study of the importance of maintaining ecological balance.

• We participate in the World Day of Water studies in order to bring attention to the scarcity of water world wide.

Our green building will be used as a teaching tool integrated as a part of our curriculum. For the past two years, the BP “A+ for Energy” grants have paid for our teachers to be trained through the National Energy Education Development curriculum, and supported our work in energy and resource education with the children. In summer 2007, our teachers participated in development of international ecological resource curriculum through the Lemur Foundation. Today, when global warming trends make headlines, all children are more aware of what is going on in the environmental world around them. “Greening” our school will allow our students to observe this process and also provide our community with a deeper and direct experience in how we impact our environment. It’s another method of empowerment that students in other traditional classrooms may not necessarily experience, but which is critical for our students.

For The Monarch School, building green is “natural”. Some examples are:

1. We can attest that Dr. Nancy Wells’ research indicating that being close to nature boosts attention spans is true. We see it every day.¹

2. Our heavily wooded rented main campus is a haven for not only children with attention problems, but also for calming. Children who are emotionally dysregulated frequently respond positively to a walk in the woods with one of our psychologists or special education teachers.

3. The work at the Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois could have been conducted at The Monarch School! HERL found that the environment played a crucial component in children’s health. Over 60% of our students are on the autism spectrum, and for those students, much of the relationship development intervention deliberately is set in the outdoors.²

We are currently working with a brilliant team of individuals from across the nation who will help make our dream of building a “green” facility come true. Green Building Services, Inc. in Portland, Oregon is a professional consulting firm made up of architects, engineers, interior designers and construction specialists who are helping us identify and execute our green building and sustainability strategies. They are nationally known for their success in the green building community, including twenty-six LEED® projects and more than one hundred in process. Green Building Services also provides their clients with LEED® certification reviews based on the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED® Rating System.

We are also working with Mark Alan Robinson, MBA, LEED® Accredited Professional who is a building developer for Green Building Services. Mark has been an environmental supporter for many years and through his experience, he has made numerous contacts in the green building community. Mark will be able to help The Monarch School make connections with corporations and foundations both in the Houston area and around the country.

¹ Nancy Wells, New York State College of Human Ecology, 2000
² The Human-Environment Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois