The innovative design of the classroom wings eliminates the waste of thousands of square fee normally dedicated to hallway space.  Instead, the corridors have been widened to accommodate additional teaching space and computer technology.  Rather than isolate four computers in each classroom, these computers have been grouped together with their own computer lab.

Daylighting is this school's key ingredient.  These vertical daylight monitors scoop the natural sunlight, providing all the light needed in the learning environment during the day.  The sunlight is drawn into the light monitor and bounced off a series of baffles to provide soft, evenly distributed daylight throughout the learning space.

Bonus:

By reducing (in some cases eliminating) the need for florescent light during the day, the school district is able to realize substantial reductions on their utility bills.  Also, because sunlight gives off less passive heat than florescent light, money is not wasted cooling the passive heat gain normally associated with artificial light.

Six cisterns surrounding the school provide storage for up to 68,000 gallons of collected rainwater.  The school is designed to collect all the rainwater that hits its roof.  This rainwater is used to irrigate the landscaping and drastically reduces monthly water bills.  Each cistern has a dedicated filtration system to filter debris washed from the roof.

This cistern, the focal point of the school's aesthetic appeal, has been finished with Austin stone quarried locally in Texas.  An overflow feature has been incorporated that converts the front of the cistern into a waterfall should the cistern reach capacity.

A windmill harnesses the natural and cost-free energy of the wind to circulate the harvested rainwater through the school's sprinkler system.

A Series of solar panels supplies the majority of the school's hot water needs.

A state-of-the-art weather station uses technology such as sound waves, solar radiation converters, and calibrated barometric pressure sensors to send information to the system's monitoring box located in the main corridor.  Other building information, such as the current temperature of the solar powered hot water, is also available at this monitoring box.

A water habitat developed with natural vegetation provides teachers with a unique teaching tool and allows students to experience their surrounding environment in an educational setting.  An old-style hand pump offers students the opportunity to take water from the pond and use it for botany experiments.

There are two sundials at Walker Elementary. These sundials help students learn how to read time without a clock and identify winter and summer solstices, the shortest and longest days of the year. And, since the sundials do not take daylight savings into account, teachers can demonstrate the earth's relation to the sun as it changes from season to season.

Since this school building is intended to become part of the educational program, every effort was made in the design to provide learning opportunities through the building's various elements. For example, just inside the main entrance, the fire sprinkler controls have been left exposed and painted bright red. Normally, the sprinkler heads are the system's only visible elements.  In this case, however, the entire sprinkler system can be seen as the piping leads from the controls to the rest of the building.

This main hallway, located outside the dining space, features an arched ceiling with colored tiles to celebrate the school's rainbow theme.  The rainbow theme, carried throughout the school, is symbolic of the school's commitment to make everlasting changes for the good of the environment today and tomorrow.