Peer Review

Green the Building

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Sep 14, 2021 by Teacher Education

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:

Managing buildings and their complex and interconnected systems requires an understanding of technology, financial planning, and even human behavior to create solutions that conserve resources, reduce waste, save money, and satisfy occupants. Green the Building simplifies the complex world of sustainable design, construction, and operations to present building and occupant management challenges in a succinct and graspable way. Learn technical concepts and figure out what strategies work best in an engaging and risk-free game-based environment.

Type of Material:

Simulation

Recommended Uses:

The simulation tool would be ideal for use as homework or self-paced learning.

Learn – Got a topic on your mind? Read descriptions, tips, and case studies about everything from water efficiency to plug load reduction. Click through annotated legislation and understand the impact of policy on sustainability.
Plan – Starting a project? Get strategies for building green or turning an existing space into a healthier environment. Try approaches that look at material life cycles, help your building use clean energy or establish a solid waste reduction plan. Make sure you’re also preparing for long term resilience.
Explore – Roam around our virtual building to compare materials and design strategies. Understand the interactions between building systems and the people they serve. See how your role helps a team reduce costs and increase environmental sustainability.
Procure – The products we consume have a tremendous impact on long-term costs and natural resources. Find out what sustainability criteria to seek across hundreds of product categories. Buy products with recycled content and services with environmental contract requirements.
Apply – Explore agency best practices, read sustainability case studies, and sign up for newsletters. Building your own app? Get SFTool content sent directly via our API.
Train - How much do you already know? Use Federal Facilities Skills Assessment Tool (FEDSAT) to assess your knowledge, identify areas where you might need additional training, and locate free resources to fill the gaps. Claim 1 hour of continuing education credit for completing the assessment.

Technical Requirements:

No special technology requirements outside basic computer and Internet skills.

Identify Major Learning Goals:

The Sustainable Facilities Tool (SFTool) helps you conserve resources and reduce operating costs by bringing together the information you need to make sustainable design, operations and procurement choices. Use SFTool as your quick reference for day-to-day questions or dig deeper to understand more about efficiency, indoor environmental quality, conservation and the connections between them.

Sustainability is a team effort — understanding other’s goals and perspectives can help you work toward sustainable operation!

The SFTool has great information to help you reduce environmental impact and save your organization money. To speed your access to the information you need, we’ve developed a set of user guides to take you straight to the topics that might interest you most.

Learn the basics about sustainability topics, from sustainable sites to water conservation
Start planning your upgrade or building project and track your material selections through the tool
Explore workspaces and building systems to understand how to optimize performance
Demonstrate your knowledge with our no-cost Federal Facilities Skills Assessment Tool (FEDSAT)
Choose sustainable alternatives to traditional supplies and equipment with the Green Procurement Compilation
Stay up to date on building rating systems and Federal mandatesShare your success stories with others and see how your peers are achieving success

Target Student Population:

College General Ed, College Lower Division, College Upper Division, Graduate School, Professional

The user guides provided target four specific fields of interest: facility managers, procurement professionals, leasing specialists, and project managers.

Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:

Knowledge of GSA and federal regulations pertaining to Federal High-Performance Buildings

A user will need to have basic computer and web navigation skills in order to manipulate the simulations. Interest in the fields listed above would be helpful but anyone with an interest in how things work will enjoy this tool.

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

SFTool is informative, shareable, portable, and free. The content is divided in such as way that the user can zero in on what they want to know or do.

The Learn section provides the foundation for knowledge about sustainability topics such as building components and explanations of Executive Orders and how the concepts impact will impact a particular job.

The Plan section provides guidance on how to successfully incorporate the right people and strategies into a building and how these decisions have long term impacts on the ability to withstand energy, price fluctuations and extreme climate events.

The Explore section provides a virtual building tour where the user can compare the materials that make up the spaces and the different systems that serve a building and understand how these systems interact with people and each other.

The Procure section brings together all the information needed for buying sustainable products and servicesv.including programs and legal requirements that impact the product types and find where to buy these products.

In addtion to the sections above, users can assess their knowledge on a variety of topics and also share case studies.

Concerns:

This tool is of very high quality.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:

Strengths:

Teachers in the building trades including not only Facility Managers, Procurement Professionals, Leasing Specialists, and Project Managers but also students who aspire to those positions or care about efficient, healthy buildings and environmentally-responsible purchasing can use this tool as a basis for a wide variety of information, materials, assessments and hand-ons exploration.

The objectives for each section of the tool is listed so the learning materials can be easily integrated into the curriculum.

All of the tool features will be useful, however, the Explore portion actually allows for manipulation of materials, furniture, lighting, etc. so students can practice designing spaces.

Concerns:

none

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:

Strengths:

The SF tool is very easy to navigate for both teachers and students providing Tool Guides directed toward four possible roles. The Helpful Tools makes navigating even more efficient by providing a clear overview of various topics of interest so that the user can zero in on their topic.

Also for those interested, this open tool is available for Developers who want to incorporate it into their systems.

Concerns:

The usability of the site is top notch.

Other Issues and Comments:: Accessibility aids are offered
Creative Commons: