Feedback from experts helps students see how to improve their work—and why it matters.
When the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, needed data to help determine energy-conservation measures for the municipality's school buildings, facilities engineer Joseph Forest turned to an unusual source—9th grade students at Springfield Renaissance School.
Students in Aurora Kushner's environmental science class worked with Forest to complete energy audits in Springfield schools. Then, with Forest and Kushner's guidance, they helped prepare and review contractors' proposals to retrofit school buildings through such actions as installing cost- and energy-saving heating and cooling systems.