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This case study details the successful achievement of zero energy and Living Building Challenge certification.

This case study details the successful achievement of Passive House performance and zero energy at the Friends School of Portland.

The Energy Lab at Hawai’i Preparatory Academy is the third building worldwide and the first K–12 school facility to achieve “Living” certification through the Living Building Challenge (LBC). This case study details how the project succeeded in these goals.

This case study describes a successful zero energy school project in Utah.

The Hood River Middle School Music and Science Building includes music and science classroom, music practice rooms, teacher offices, a greenhouse, an adjacent recycling and storage building, and outdoor spaces including an amphitheater and garden. The building is integrated with the school's progressive sustainability and permaculture curriculum. Students can track and create experiments using data from the buildings net zero energy system and rainwater harvesting system, and learn about the building's innovative and integrated use of materials and systems.

On the night of May 4, 2007 an EF5 tornado 1.7 miles wide ravaged Greensburg, Kansas, destroying 95% of the city's homes and businesses. In the wake of the disaster, it became apparent that changes would need to occur to sustain the town for future generations. The Greensburg School District selected BNIM Architects to provide comprehensive design services for new school facilities.

In direct alignment with the town's Sustainable Comprehensive Master Plan, the USD decided to rebuild to LEED Platinum. This decision led the way for the city, which later mandated that all public buildings attain a Platinum rating. This K–12 facility combines the resources of three rural community school districts into a single facility, thereby right-sizing at a regional scale.

This 150,000 SF, LEED Gold, Net Zero facility was built on a 17.5 acre site in the city of Irving, Texas. Project cost was $29,610,423, and construction commenced on May 14, 2010. The project opened its doors for school on August 24, 2011. The building is structural steel frame with a brick and metal panel veneer. There are large expanses of windows for daylight harvesting. There are two stories consisting of classrooms, library, cafeteria, auditorium, and gymnasium. The structure fits on a very tight site with building orientation critical to energy conservation; native landscaping and pervious paving round out the exterior. The school uses extensive shading to minimize solar heat gain and incorporates wind turbines as a part of its onsite renewable energy generation portfolio.

Locust Trace AgriScience Farm is a career and technical high school near Lexington, Kentucky with energy and environment being key factors in the facility design and agriculture being the educational focus. Locust Trace features spacious classrooms with adjoining labs, 6.5 acres for gardening, a state-of-the-art greenhouse with an aquaculture area for raising fish, a soaring auditorium with a garage door for bringing in livestock and machinery, an expansive equine barn and arena and an on-site veterinary clinic.

Richardsville Elementary School is the first full-scale zero energy K-12 school in the United States. The school building, located in Kentucky's Warren County Public School District, uses many innovative strategies to conserve energy including dedicated outdoor air systems (DOAS) with dynamic reset, insulated concrete form (ICF) wall construction, daylighting, and ground source heat pumps, among others. The school has both thin film and crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels.

Sandy Grove Middle School is designed to be the nation's first leased public school designed as a zero energy & LEED Platinum building. The building incorporates energy efficiency features such as high-efficiency HVAC systems, advanced envelope strategies, LED interior and exterior lighting, and renewable energy generation provided by roof-mounted PV panels. The building was constructed by a public-private partnership: a private company (First Floor K-12) financed and owns the building, while the local school district (Hoke County Schools) leases the school.