Chicago Elementary School Mascot is "A Big Hippie"
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 09. 8.05
Or so it was headlined in the online "Chicagoist" mag, before the school opened. The Southwest Side of Chicago's new 'flower-powered' elementary school, Tarkington Elementary, is ... "an eco-friendly K-8 school with roof vegetation, solar panels, a rainwater-gathering system that will replenish a nearby lagoon, and flooring made of recycled glass. The school, [is] located on 71st Street a little west of Kedzie...". 'Hey youse guys, we love Hippies too', sez TreeHugger. AP took a less stereotypical approach to the newly opened school: "CHICAGO — Youngsters at Tarkington elementary started their first day of classes Tuesday at a school where flowering plants grow on the roof. It's one of the nation's small but growing number of environmentally friendly schools, a stand-out because it sits in a major city better known for towers of steel and concrete...Supporters hope Tarkington elementary will bring the idea of environmentally friendly urban buildings into the mainstream".
If you know Chicago you'll recognize this as a real neighborhood. Maintreaming the green is what it's all about.
Also on AP report: "The school also is designed to use 30 percent less water than expected for a building of its size and get half of its electricity from renewable resources, and it has a reflective coating to reduce the amount of heat getting in...Tarkington is one of about 110 schools in the United States that have been certified or are seeking "green" certification from the U.S. Green Building Council...Proponents say Tarkington represents a huge leap forward because it is in Chicago and not in some small town or tree-hugging city on the more environmentally conscious West Coast".
Here are the rooftop plantings just after placement.
We're going to turn all the kiddos into TreeHuggers and there's nothing they can do about it.
