Locust Trace AgriScience Farm
is a learning experience for all involved
...Locust Trace is a different kind of public school, designed to prepare high school juniors and seniors for careers in the equine industry and agriculture, where a return to sustainability is the trend. School officials wanted their facility to set a good environmental example — and be less expensive to operate and maintain.
The $15.5 million campus is one of the most "green" developments in Kentucky. It also has become a laboratory for new building methods and materials that is attracting national attention from architects, builders and educators.
Locust Trace was built on 82 acres off Leestown Road that the federal government donated to the school system. From the very beginning, Hill and other planners studied the site's location and topography to make the best use of it.
The design team collaborated with dozens of people from the school system, community and various industries. That included everything from seeking the advice of Kentucky Horse Park experts about footing in the livestock arena to technical assistance on air-flow technology from Lexington-based Big Ass Fans.
Sunlight and prevailing winds were analyzed to orient the classroom building and large arena building to make the best use of sunlight and natural breezes. The buildings use 21 Big Ass Fans — large high-volume, slow-speed fans — to help regulate indoor air flow and temperatures.
The arena building, for instance, is heated and cooled with five large fans that pull air through louvers along a roof gallery that are opened and closed manually or with automatic sensors. Clerestory windows along the gallery provide most of the arena's light.
Both buildings make extensive use of solar energy. Sunlight is maximized by window design and "solar tubes" that funnel magnified sunshine through the ceiling. Roof-mounted photovoltaic panels convert sunlight into as much as 175 kilowatts of electricity.
Power not needed immediately is fed into the Kentucky Utilities grid to offset power drawn from it on cloudy days. Electricity is shut off at night, except for a few outlets needed to run things like fish tanks...
2 comments:
What an awesome opportunity for students who learn in different ways! I encourage anyone interested to go out and visit the campus, it is absolutely incredible.
This is just the kind of forward thinking that schools across the nation should be looking to for inspiration! So many energy dollars are wasted in schools to keep them inefficiently running. These negligent practices mirror one of the biggest problems in our society today. What is taught in our schools forms the attitudes of our communities, and this is a wonderful case of leading by example to create positive change.
Post a Comment