Elms Elementary School's generous PTN provided our school with water refill stations throughout the building, which provide students and staff with filtered, crisp, and clean drinking water. Not only do our water refill stations ensure that we stay healthy and hydrated, we are helping our school's mission to reduce waste. By refilling bottles, we are using less plastic, and to date, have saved thousands of water bottles from ending up in landfills.

Our school is heated and cooled by a geothermal system so we do not use any natural gas or fuel oil.  Geothermal is heat within the earth. Geothermal energy is a renewable energy source, because heat is continuously produced inside the earth. Our school has a closed loop system in which a water/glycol mixture circulates through a loop of pipes underground and then into our building. In the winter, the temperatures underground are warmer than the air, so the fluid pumping in is warmer. Then the electric compressors and heat exchangers transfer the heat through ducts in the building. In the summer, the pipes draw heat away from the building. Since the fluid is already cool in the summer and warmer than the air in the winter, our HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system doesn’t have to work nearly as hard.

In 2016, our school had ground-mounted solar panels installed. These panels take sunlight and convert it into electricity. Solar energy is good for the planet. It does not create pollution like energy from coal and oil.  Check out the amount of electricity being produced by our solar array.