Zoo School Can Teach Us All

Building structures using environmentally responsible methods and materials is starting to catch on. The Lee H. Brown Family Conservation Learning Center, located at the Reid Park Zoo in Tucson, Ariz., was built with, well, conservation of resources in mind.

Photo by Jennifer Tramm

The center, also known as the “zoo school,” opened to the public just a few days ago, though it is not fully completed. According to Jed Dodd, an educational coordinator at the zoo, the street entrance, built with rammed earth, zoo-grown bamboo and recycled awnings from Tucson General Hospital, will not be open for perhaps another two years, though it was designed to receive young students from school buses, while the public uses the entrance inside the zoo. The exhibits for the zoo school should be ready much sooner.

The zoo hopes the center will receive a “Platinum” LEED certification – the highest rating possible under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system. Receiving a LEED rating indicates “that a building is environmentally responsible, profitable and a healthy place to live and work,” according to the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED ratings Web site.

Also from the LEED site, to get these ratings, the building must send less waste to landfills, must conserve energy, must conserve water, have lower greenhouse gas emissions and also be a healthy place for people to be.

Dodd took me on a tour of the facility yesterday and showed me its features before it opened for the day. Inside the main room, he showed me the floor, covered with a recycled material. Pointing to the ceiling, which is made of rafters with small-link chicken wire strung between them. Behind the wire was a fuzzy, blue insulation. Dodd said this was made out of denim, famous for making into blue jeans, that has outlived its purpose as clothing or was cast off during the jeans manufacturing process. As I looked up, I noticed some bright lights. They were brighter than the fluorescent lights mounted right next to them. Dodd told me that those were solar tubes and required no electricity.

The Truth Window inside the zoo school. Photos by Jennifer Tramm

Dodd then brought me over to a plexi-covered hole in the wall. “This is our ‘Truth Window,’” he said. It shows the insulation over a special foam block insulation that he said goes together “like Legos.” Underneath it all was concrete for stability.

Then he brought me over to the side of the room, where the zoo had installed smooth bamboo cabinets and recycled glass countertops, which looked remarkably like those fancy countertops installed on home building shows, around a sink. Then he took me over to the partially completed macaque exhibit. Through huge panes of glass, I could see the exhibit taking shape. People visiting the zoo school will be able to look into the lives of the zoo’s macaque monkeys.
Photo by Jennifer Tramm

Behind the scenes, in the zoo school’s offices, employees live up to the building’s reputation. They use disposable forks, plates and napkins made from recycled cornhusks. Their break room also includes recycle containers for cans, plastic bottles and other recyclable items. In their meeting area, there is a bamboo-topped conference table made from the same smooth bamboo wood as the cabinets mentioned above, and office chairs made from recycled plastic bottles. These chairs look and feel like any other state-of-the-art office chairs. Even the cleaning products are made from environmentally responsible materials. The zoo school also uses “green” craft paper and crayons for kids’ crafts and the play area right outside the doors is made from a soft imitation grass.

Also outside are cisterns designed to catch and reserve rainwater. The large cistern outside the entrance helps to fill the millpond right next to the building. Several ducks and many fish live on and in the pond.
Photo by Jennifer Tramm

Later that morning, after going into the zoo with my kids, I took them to see the zoo school. My youngest got to touch a bearded lizard, which hails from Australia, according to a docent named Simon. Other kids crowded around the gentle animal to touch it lightly and learn about it. Already, kids are learning there.

Dodd said the building is getting international attention, with visitors coming from all over the world to see what the zoo has put together. He said that their site is a sort of “guinea pig” for green building.

From ensuring that materials came from within a 500 mile radius to using a special paint that does not emit the harmful chemicals that regular paint does, this building uses a great deal of innovations designed to be in greater harmony with the Earth.