Hot Tip

When designing the curriculum, be aware that it needs to be approved by school administrators and meet local or state standards. This is typically standard procedure for schools, but changing a curriculum can be a challenging, political, and sometimes long process. 

In seeking inspiration for curriculum development, consider using some of the following questions as points of discussion:

When submitting the credit to LEED Online, you are required to provide a narrative on how the curriculum was developed. It is a good idea to document meetings between the design team and the teachers as a way of describing curriculum development. 

Designing the building as a teaching tool needs to be addressed early in the design process. For example, some schools like to show a “truth window” that provides a view of a dissected wall assembly. Another idea is to include a mostly white roof, with only a small portion that is black—an easy way to demonstrate the temperature differences between the two colors.

The curriculum does not have to be implemented until ten months after LEED certification. But you’ll need to start discussing this credit in the early stages of design, because the curriculum may take a while to develop, and some teachers may find it difficult to incorporate an additional ten hours per student devoted to high-performance design. 

This is an all-or-nothing option: If even one requirement is not met, all five points are lost.

Modifications to the building HVAC system that are to be implemented concurrently with your project should also be included. (These modifications need not be within your project scope.) 

If your project is in a LEED-certified building, a model using the performance rating method may already exist and can be modified to document this credit. 

Using the Energy Cost Budget method may be more cost effective for your project, as it’s less comprehensive and detailed. However, it does not include savings for energy efficient air distribution systems. If this is where your project is expected to realize significant energy savings, use the Performance Rating Method.  

The majority of space uses can benefit from variable air volume (VAV) distribution. Some projects, like warehouses and data centers, may not include variable load parameters and so would not save energy with VAVs.