Boynton Beach school to offer interactive ways to learn about energy, engineering & the environment

BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. - Paper mache and glue are the focus of a Kindergarten class at Galaxy Elementary School. By this time next year, art teacher Wendy Romer says students will take their skills outside.

"I'm excited the kids will be recycling and have exposure to the outdoors, and drawing from observation," says Romer.

By August 2012, construction noise at the new Galaxy Elementary site will be replaced with sounds of school children. Galaxy is built to be green, complete with solar panels and wind turbines for power, as well as a garden roof for students to use. It's hands-on teaching and learning.

"The whole curriculum is designed around an environmental curriculum. How to be sustainable and conserve, it's not about going without, it's about teaching to do more with less," says Principal Edmund Capitano.

The building itself is like a living science experiment on reducing a carbon footprint and recycling. Even the concrete used to build the school is recycled. 95% of it used to wall in Boynton Beach Middle School.

On the north side of campus sits a nature preserve, classes will focus on native plants and animals. Parents are excited their kids will learn outside.

"They'll be able to explore and create in a scientific way," says Gertrude Felix, a mother of two.

Principal Capitano has a hunch this new concept will catch on.

"I think every school going forward has the green intention and older schools are going back and re-modernizing," says Capitano.

Making Galaxy the potential blueprint for school-building of the future.