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PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
ReDiscovering Real Estate Development with Green Teens
ECS partners in innovative ways with non-profits and businesses in order to give students
project-based learning opportunities, where they can apply what they have learned in a
variety of disciplines to solve real-world problems, and gain skills to propel them to success
when they graduate.
ECHS’ partnership with reDiscover, a non-profit organization that promotes creativity in
education while encouraging environmental responsibility, is an example of one among many successful
partnerships forged by the school. To advance its goal of creating a curriculum for high schools on green building
design, reDiscover teamed with ECHS as the non-profit’s first high school partner.
Beginning in October 2010, reDiscover’s President, William Robertson, visited a different 9th grade class each
week to teach a small bit of the skills necessary in architecture, such as
drafting, models, and scaling. Teachers then continued the lessons so
students could hone the skills they needed.
For their Intersession projects, 9th-graders planned, designed, and built
scale models of buildings and a college campus designed with sustainable
practices in mind. Project teams created blueprints for their proposed
campuses, including classrooms, cafeterias, and football stadiums.
“We took students on a field trip to Santa Monica City College to see the
size of the buildings and layout of a campus required to accommodate a certain number of students,” explains
Jessica Hardt, a lead teacher on the project. “This gave them the sense of the truly grand scale of a college
campus.”
The students then met with Robertson at the reDiscover Center to collect recyclable materials, such as cardboard
and plexiglass, to create their scale models. Finally, each group had to write a business proposal outlining the
campus components, sustainable features, and reasons why it should be built. reDiscover evaluated the
sustainable university designs, and awarded $500 to the winning campus design. Each student team that won in
their class received $10 iTunes gift cards.
“Partnerships like this help students understand the real world applications of what they’ve learned. They expand
learning beyond the walls of the classroom,” says Hardt. “As a 9th grade teacher, I never would have had a
chance to teach the techniques of writing a business proposal. Now, we have a 9th grade class that can write a
formal business proposal much like a professional would.”
“The school leaders and teachers at ECHS understand that progress in a globally oriented world will increasingly
require creative problem-solving and team-generated solutions,” says reDiscover’s Robertson. ”Our partnership
project allowed students to understand the connection that creative teams have with every industry and that
mastery of this connection will make them better leaders, teachers, and lifelong students. Schools like ECHS that
partner with community organizations and business leaders give their teachers the tools needed to cultivate

2. student understanding of the real future ahead."
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INSPIRED STUDENTS
Amisa Anorde, 9th grade
As the oldest of her siblings, Amisa has never had someone else’s
footsteps to follow. She has learned to take risks and reaped the
rewards of rising to whatever challenges have been placed before
her. ECHS is the perfect environment for her because it requires all
students to think outside the traditional classroom and take the risks
necessary for innovative thinking.
“Even if something is hard,” she says, recalling the 9th grade
Intersession project of designing sustainable college campuses,
“we’re able to accomplish and achieve.” As the project manager for
her group’s development of a proposed building called the
University of Madrid, she felt responsible for making sure the project succeeded.
“The hardest part was the IUE—the interdisciplinary unit exam,” she recalls. “I wanted to make sure the physical
model was the best it could be, so we kept working on that. Then it was crunch time, and the writing part fell to me
as project manager.” She is particularly proud of the overall look of the campus and how Spanish architecture
abounds in the arches, columns, and aged colors of the University of Madrid. The football stadium was
constructed as a coliseum. Solar panels capture energy, and geothermal elements conserve its use.
Since completing the project, Amisa looks at local architecture with a discerning eye, seeing where energy-saving
technologies could be employed. “This project was rewarding, fun, and I learned so much!” she says. Most
importantly, she learned the benefits of not being afraid to take risks. “I’m able to do anything if I put my mind to
it.”
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