A special shout out to Lake Washington School District’s International Community School and Mr. Heil’s Environmental Science AP class for recently touring our deep green under-construction project, the NW Harvest House in Kirkland. Joining the 7:30am class were our presenters – Model Remodel‘s Jason Legat, Walter Goodwin and Mark Sanchez, Solterra Systems’ Brian Heather, and EcoMaven’s Alex Steele.
During the home’s tour, students heard about its key eco-features and learned about demolition and waste management processes, the importance of the building envelope design and construction, insulation methods, high air quality standards, featured water retention and reuse systems, solar powered renewable energy, green materials and finishes. Then we moved to the outdoor portion of the tour, where students heard about the site’s planned rain gardens and edible urban landscape.
The tour’s parent hosts were impressed by the thoughtful questions posed by these high school seniors and their overall awareness of environmental issues in our community. A couple of the classmates come from homes with green features and several were interested in exploring green career paths. One of the students is interested in journalism so look for a future guest blog post coming soon.
A thank you email from the teacher mentioned that the tour connected very well with the work the class is doing on sustainable communities, soils and water and firmed up one student’s decision to pursue a career in green architecture!
We all made plans to meet again in the spring to see the home completed, its systems working and the landscaping in place.
Overall, the experience was an A+!
