Three Canadian classrooms show how net-zero building projects can start small and push far beyond the schoolyard
Green building doesn’t always mean breaking ground on something new. Sometimes it means looking at what’s already there: flickering fluorescent lights, drafty walls, a school that’s been running on the same wiring for decades, and deciding to fix it. Three Canadian schools did exactly that, and what started as classroom projects ended up in school board meetings, on local radio, and in conversations with ministers and elected officials.
Carpentry and mechanics students at Riverview High School in New Brunswick, Canada, had the awesome opportunity to learn about net-zero construction, and they took it a step further by building a house. A fully framed, wired, wind-and-solar-powered mini home, constructed from scratch by 75 students as a direct response to the housing shortage in their community. The carpentry class handled the structure, and the mechanics class wired it and installed the renewable energy system. As a bonus, their school’s teacher placement from Crandall University happened to be a Red Seal-certified electrician who taught students the wiring process hands-on.
The project reached an estimated 3,300 community members through their local radio station and the school’s social media, and engaged 1,300 students in learning about net-zero building principles. Student Jacob captured what the experience meant beyond the build itself: “Working with others, you can get more done, be more productive, and they might have different views or opinions on it.”
Students and their teacher lead at Riverview High School celebrate the progress they’ve made on their green home construction. Photo courtesy of N:OW for Net-Zero.
In a math class at Two Hills School in Alberta, Canada, one teacher and an environmentally curious group of Grade 8 students asked: What could we actually change at this school? The answer became a three-part climate action plan, and N:OW for Net-Zero funded phase one: retrofitting the lighting in eight classrooms with more efficient fixtures.
Students researched the best replacements, tracked energy usage and costs after installation, and used the data to build a pitch to their school board to fund a full-school retrofit. The insurance rules meant students couldn’t do the physical installation themselves, so the maintenance team did it while students watched and learned.
The retrofit is now complete. The school is saving money and emissions, and the conversation about climate change (once virtually absent from Two Hills) has shifted permanently. As teacher lead Mr. McMaster put it, “The students are starting to think along the lines of climate change and thinking about how we can reduce our energy consumption to get closer to net-zero.”
Two Hills School in Alberta receives new, energy-efficient lights to be installed in classrooms, replacing outdated, energy-consuming ones. Photo courtesy of N:OW for Net-Zero.
A ripple effect started in six classrooms at Centre scolaire Samuel-de-Champlain in New Brunswick, led by five students in Grades 6 and 7. At this French-language school, they retrofitted the lighting systems in six classrooms, tracked energy and cost savings, and asked their school board to fund the retrofits for the rest of the building. They also took media training so they could explain the project themselves: to classmates, to administrators, and to the 75 community members who saw their work at the school’s annual science fair.
One of the student leads, Lincoln, went on to champion project-based climate learning to over 300 adults at an education conference, and his classmate Daniel, now at a different school, met with his local Member of the Legislative Assembly independently to present his research on energy savings, cost reduction, and health benefits of efficient lighting.
“I really learned that one small change can make a huge difference,” Lincoln said. “Just changing a few lights in a school can impact schools all around the world.”
He’s not wrong. And he figured that out in Grade 6.
