
Colonel Smith Middle School
Colonel Smith Middle School sits on the Fort Huachuca army post in Arizona, built as the state's first net-zero campus for a student-centered learning model. Solar panels and energy-efficient design let the building generate as much power as it uses, and the film walks through classrooms where that infrastructure is visible rather than hidden. Students carry iPads and work in small groups on project-based assignments built around real-world problems, with teachers stepping back from lecturing to act as facilitators. The film's structure follows the school's own stated approach: students become "experts" who teach concepts to classmates, and STEM subjects are taught as integrated projects rather than separate periods. Interviews with staff and students explain how the physical building, the technology, and the teaching method were designed together rather than added on afterward. The result is a plain tour of one school's attempt to make sustainability and student ownership part of the daily mechanics of class, not just a mission statement on the wall.