For over 35 years, Gilbert Architects has been a full-service architectural firm devoted exclusively to planning and designing educational facilities for clients throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.

outdoor classroom structure with solar panels and windmill

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exterior outside classroom structure at dusk
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doors open on outside classroom structure at dusk

City

Middletown, DE

Size

1,000 s.f.

Grades

K – 12

Project Features

  • New Construction
  • First Outdoor Classroom in U.S.
  • Hydronic Heating
  • Solar Tree
  • Rain Barrels
  • Touch-sensitive Computer Program
  • Transform Green Energy to Usable Electricity
  • STEM

Appoquinimink Environmental Technologies Classroom

Mother Nature now has her very own classroom located on the Bunker Hill Elementary School campus. This outdoor environmental technologies classroom is the first in the Nation focusing on conservation and cutting-edge green technologies and teaching methods. The room, about 1,000 SF with two folding glass partition walls that open to the outdoors, is filled with and surrounded by lessons for grades Kindergarten through 12.

The outdoor classroom is almost entirely self-sustainable and features:

  • Hydronic heating – with a vision panel showing the radiant piping
  • A solar tree
  • A wind turbine with blades that reach 12’ in diameter
  • Rain barrels, which are hooked up to a hydration system that waters the demonstration garden filled with vegetable and herb plants.
  • A touch-sensitive computer program that shows students exactly how much energy is being created from renewable power.
  • Transformers on site show students how green energy is converted into usable electricity.

While the classroom is located on the grounds of an elementary school, it is open for field trips and self-guided tours by every school in the district and community members interested in the technology. However, teachers and students do not have to leave their regular classroom to find out what’s happening in the environmental classroom. Using the district’s intranet site, classes can log on and examine the energy that is created in real time. It’s really about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).

As quoted by Senator Chris Coons (D-Del), “This is exactly the kind of place that science becomes relevant and exciting for young people who can learn how these promising technologies will improve our environment, improve our community and help create the jobs of the future.”