A group of Tucson students consulted with peers in France, Mali and China to get ideas for an architecture project that ended up earning first place in a national competition last month.
"We wrote e-mails to different parts of the world, and we asked them how they would build it," said Sergio Acosta, 12, a sixth-grader.
The ideas they gathered included the colors and the direction the buildings should face, he said.
Sergio was one of four students from Imago Dei Middle School, on North Sixth Avenue and East Fourth Street, who went head-to-head with students from across the country in the "School of the Future Student Design Competition" in Washington, D.C.
All 40 students at the tuition-free private school were involved in the design process of the eco-friendly school model that won them $2,000 and a trophy.
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The win comes on the heels of last year's competition, where Imago Dei placed third.
The four students who led the project received an all-expenses-paid trip to the capital to present in front of 21 judges.
"It was a very intimidating situation," said the Rev. Anne Sawyer, who is head of the Episcopal school, open to students of all faiths.
Wearing new outfits that were given to them for the competition, the students explained to the judges the scale model they built, with the help of the Tucson firm ABA Architects.
Because they were judged on the cost-effectiveness of their idea, the students chose to construct their building with a readily available and low-cost material called hybrid adobe, made of paper pulp and broken glass, said Linda Cato, visual arts specialist who mentored the students through the eight-month project.
The school model also has greenhouses in between the buildings that help warm up the school in the winter, explained Riley Breedlove, 12.
"You don't need to use as much utilities that way," the sixth-grader said.
Anthony Barcelo, 12, who is in sixth grade and attended the national competition last year, said the swings and merry-go-round on the playground generate energy for solar panels, and the rain from the roof of the covered parking garage can be stored in the pillars holding up the structure.
The students also included a community center for neighborhood residents to use.
The students went on field trips for the project to the College of Architecture at the University of Arizona, to a green-building-material warehouse called Originate and they consulted with a solar-energy expert.
"The world was their classroom," Cato said.
The students practiced their presentation during lunch hour, extracurricular classes and even weekends, but their five-day stay in D.C. made it all worthwhile.
They met Arizona's Sen. Jon Kyl and Rep. Raúl Grijalva. They visited the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. They saw President Obama's girls playing with their dog on the White House lawn, and Michelle Obama from a distance, said Angela Merino, who accompanied the students on the trip.
She said the students feel more motivated to go to college now, and while the one girl on the team wants to be a lawyer, the three boys want to be architects.
Cato said they're considering mentoring other schools on how to execute the project and plan on participating in the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo in Phoenix in November. They've also been invited to participate in the international competition, Architecture for Humanity, where the winning project actually gets built.
Aside from being more aware of how to take care of planet Earth, perhaps one of the most important lessons for the students was that learned by seventh-grader Monique Andrade.
"If you stick to something and you commit yourself to it, you can create something great and wonderful," the 13-year-old said. "And it will pay back in the end."
School info
Imago Dei is currently taking applications for fifth- and sixth-graders.
The only requirement is that students qualify for the Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program.
Information: 882-4008
Also, find several videos of the school on YouTube.
